Our little Angel..

It started with the first weekend of the New Year. We celebrated with an Irish Good Luck dinner at my parents house and watched the Rose Bowl. Saturday we took the kids to Chuck E Cheese to let them run around and play for about an hour then we went to the Woodburn Outlets. About this time on Saturday I wasn't feeling well. I told Kyle it was strange because it felt like my morning sickness had come back and I had been feeling really good for a couple weeks. So I thought maybe I really was just car sick, which has been happening more when I am pregnant. We walked around and I wasn't in the mood to buy any maternity clothes. I couldn't find a coat I liked, I just wasn't in the mood I guess. I told Kyle a few times that I didn't feel "good"..but it was hard to explain. Like something just wasn't right, but overall- I felt fine. No contractions, no pain, nothing that I could pin point. It was strange. We got a call from some friends of ours who were in town that we haven't seen in over a year and they were leaving the next day and wanted to know if we could come over or dinner. So we did. We had a good time visiting with them and headed home. Sunday came and we went to a family reunion a couple hours away. About this time I again was having that morning sickness feeling again and this time I started to have a paranoid feeling. I wasn't feeling the babies move as much. But it wasn't that surprising because I could only feel them every once in awhile as it was, I think I was just hoping that since I was 18 weeks now, I would magically start to feel them more often during the day. I told Kyle that I wondered if our little boy was more in the middle because I wasn't feeling him very often at all. I could feel our little girl off and on because she was so low, but it was like maybe before I would fall asleep or if I was laying on the couch. It was never all day, maybe twice a day? He assured me and told me not to worry about it because they are so little still.

We got home that night and settled in and watched tv. We were watching Desperate Housewives and Lynette got the news that one of her twins had passed. Kyle was like..does that happen?? and I told him yes it can, but not often at all and I told him about one person I had known on a loss of a twin message board, who had her little girl pass almost into the 3rd trimester and the other survived and was born a month or so later. I started to cry and told him that I wouldn't feel safe until they were both in our arms and coming home. At this point I never even thought about losing them before they were born. I thought our biggest hurdle would just be getting them here as close to term as possible. Why would God Bless us with twins again, only to take one away ? So that wasn't going to happen.

Monday came and I just took it easy and layed on the couch. I still wasn't feeling great, still a little nauseous but this whole time, as I approach another week in my pregnancy I would notice a surge or change in hormones would make me feel a little more sick anyway. So it didn't seem so weird. I was happy to have my u/s and appt the next day because I told Kyle that if I didn't have it I would probably call and tell them that I just didn't "feel right" and wanted to come in because I was being paranoid. I figured I had to have some sort of infection or something that just made me feel icky, but I didn't have symptoms of anything. I was also due to have another progesterone shot in a day and as I approach the next dose I always feel icky too..like my body needs the progesterone and as soon as I get it by the night/ next morning I am always feeling better. Psychological it may be, but it helps :) I noticed this with Hudson's pregnancy as well.

Tuesday was worse anxiety wise and I was thankful my appt was in just a few hours. I wanted to get in. I wanted to check on my cervix, concerned that just maybe I was going into preterm labor. I was still dealing with morning sickness and wasn't feeling well. I emailed Kyle at work and asked if there was anyway he could work the rest of the time from home before my appt and get Easton from the bus stop. He was going to ask. I threw up. He was on his way. He gave me my 3rd progesterone shot before we left. It eased my mind a little.

At this point I am questioning everything in my mind on the way up. Has she been moving? How do I know?? I usually only feel them before I fall asleep or while I am on the couch and even then I don't know who I am feeling! Was that movement? no, probably an empty stomach. Whats that pain? probably nothing. I think I am smaller...Kyle..do you think my belly has shrunk?? I know it has..I wonder if I am losing amniotic fluid and I can't tell....I knew Kyle thought my stomach looked smaller too...I don't think I have been having contractions..or have I?

The hour drive is much too long with an overactive mind. Kyle drops me off and the elevator is broken, so I walk up a flight of stairs. He joins me in the waiting room and I quickly go in for my u/s. The tech tells me it will only be a quick u/s to check on their heartbeats and just a measurement or two before checking my cervix and then I will go see my doctor. She begins and makes small talk about if we know the sexes, and asks about our other children and how its our 2nd set of twins.....and I see both of them..holding my breath I wait to see both move, she moves around to get into position and I notice that she isn't moving, she scans over her quickly, pushes a little on her and moves to baby b, her voice changes and she goes, he is looking good....heart rate here...good...ah, he is an active one...and goes back down..where our little girl lay sleeping. Having enough of these, I notice I don't see a flicker of her heart. I don't see the dark spot of her stomach. I notice her brain doesn't have definition of two halves like it did just two weeks before. My heart races, my eyes well up with tears, and that sinking feeling that something wasn't right just became my reality...She pushes on her again, zooms in closely on her chest and reads for heart activity...nothing. Her face has dropped..the room is still. Kyle got up and was by my side and she told me she would be right back and was going to get my dr to see if he could get a better reading, that sometimes when there are twins the one on top pushes them down and gets them in a hard to read position..I knew she was lying. I knew what it meant. She walked out and I burst into tears. My doctor came in and he looked at me and said, I know you know what this means...and we don't know why...let me have a look. He showed me that she had some swelling around her brain, and her body. He said it could have been because she had passed, or that there could be a marker for something chromosomally wrong. He apologized...and said there was nothing that we could have done, or that I could have done, that these things just happen sometimes. He said that we needed to talk more and would meet me in an exam room to talk about what this means. I asked about my cervix, because at this point, I didn't want to know that my sinking feeling all weekend was in fact that my heart and body knew our little girl passed, I wanted to make sure there wasn't anything else. So he said it was fine and they checked my cervix which was just fine. I hated that the boys were with us, I hated that Easton knows all too well what life and death mean as he sadly proclaims as I am getting dressed...."Mom....Baby A died, huh??" She is up in Heaven with Ashlyn now, right?" My heart broke even more. We got into a room and as we tried to discuss everything the boys were at their worst and I am sure they could feel every tension and tear that Kyle and I had. He called his mom and she was at the Portland office and came right over to pick the boys up for us and took them home.

We waited. We were numb. I sobbed uncontrollably. My dr asked if we wanted to do an amnio to see if we could find a cause to why this happened. There were no for sure answers and we may get no answers, but if there was, we might get something to help with peace of mind. We agreed. He explained that because she was farther along, she will stay there until they are born. I asked more questions. She will not absorb away. She will be born and look like an 18 week baby would look. As he grows he will just push her off to the side to make room. He said it was good news they were fraternal as identical we would have a whole list of more issues with a worst outcome. He said it was good they have separate placentas, separate sacs and are completely two different babies. That gives us the best chance that everything will be fine and we will go to term. We talked to a geneticist, I signed papers. We waited. How could this happen again...HOW could we lose another twin..WHY did God do this again, this far along? What will happen now? WILL we lose him too???

I went into another room and was met with my dr and a tech. The sets of needles, trays, and tubes were set out. He looked again at both of them on the screen to find the best places to enter into. Her fluid was less as I asked him about that and told him that I knew something wasn't right this weekend but I had no idea what. I told him that I guessed it was probably Friday or Saturday that she passed with how I was feeling. We did her amnio first since it was most important to get. I will not lie, amnio's do not feel good. I had two with the girls as soon as I arrived at St Vincents, and recall that they sucked then too. I think because it was unexpected and under the circumstances my entire body was tense, I had no time to prepare, it wasn't something I was wanting to do obviously. I closed my eyes as he took took two vials of her fluid. It was certain her fluid was not well and obvious there were no mistakes made of her passing. I wasn't going to be waking up from this nightmare anytime soon. Kyle asked based on her color of fluid if you can tell how long, and he agreed that it was fairly recent and that I was probably correct on when. :( he then inserted a blue dye so that way when we did our little boy's amnio, he would know for sure that we got the correct sac. I asked Kyle if he was for sure set on doing the other amnio and he said he was..but that if I didn't want to, that I didn't have to. I just didn't want to because I didn't want to feel the needle, the pressure and the pushing all over again. But I knew I needed to for my sanity. He carefully went in, careful not to knick our little one and was able to do it safely and got the correct fluid and his was obviously the way it should look. Nice and clear. Then they took my blood to test it too. You see..when one twin dies, and your body begins to take care of it, I could be left with out some important factors and when it came time to deliver, I could have some serious complications. The test already came back on that and I am ok. They will do another in a month or so.

We were in the process of naming our little ones...and I feel cheated that she didn't have a name yet. I feel like I let her down. We plan on giving her a name but just don't know what yet.

My heart is broken on so many levels. Worse pain ever imagined doubled. We thought this would be our happy ending to completing our family. We thought it was our chance since it wasn't something we had planned. We have been faced with so much heartache the last 7.5 years, I just thought this was a blessing. Not a curse. I have said before the saying, I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much... Well I am starting to question why He thinks I am so strong and could handle losing another twin, losing another baby girl. Feeling this lost and alone. I am feeling picked on more then anything, and I wish I wasn't strong so I could get my happy endings! This past week, I have been feeling like I must have done something wrong wanting this so bad, wanting them to be ok, feeling that this was a blessing and looking forward to it, that I wish maybe I hadn't been excited about getting twins again then maybe everything would be fine and she would be kicking happily inside me. :( I just don't know.


I know in my heart that Ashlyn in in Heaven holding her baby sister and trying to comfort me and tell me its going to be ok..its just so hard right now to see past the tears.
And this is just the beginning...