Day: October 26, 2015

The babies lasted a good 3 weeks until I went into labor. It really came out of nowhere. It started in the middle of the day and I felt it the pains get stronger. I remember calling the nurse and telling her she basically thought I was imagining pains because she put the contraction monitor on me and it wasn’t picking anything up so after 5 minutes she removed it but the pains got stronger. It was making me so mad that she wasn’t listening to me. I waited for the next shift of nurses and I was already in tears because it was hurting so bad. I had to wait on the doctor who was in a c-section at that moment. So I waited some more by the time the doctor came I was already at 8 cm they rushed me into the operating room.

I couldn’t  deliver vaginally because they were too tiny and one was head up and the other was head down if they had to go in to turn the one it would have caused a brain hemorrhage. They put me to sleep because they couldn’t get the epidural in and they delivered the babies and rushed them to the NICU. They were so tiny, one was 2lbs 4ozs and the other was 2lbs 10ozs. A miracle, two miracles, after all their bloodwork was taken I was told everything was the same with them. The surgery worked. They spent two months in the hospital gaining weight and learning to do things on their own without machines.

I did have a scare with one of the babies. After two weeks she suddenly stopped urinating and she was swelling from the fluids staying in her body. Two days went by I could not stop crying they couldn’t tell me what was happening. They kept giving her medicine to help her. It worked! She finally urinated and the swelling started to go down. Then her lungs started filling up with fluid they got it out in hopes it wouldn’t come back but it did then they had to put a tube through her mouth to help her breathe. She hated it she would get so worked up whenever they would touch her they would have to give her a little more oxygen. The fluid kept building up so they put a tube in her chest to help drain it. I hated it, I hated everything they were going through because I couldn’t be there every day and I couldn’t take the pain away. The toughest two months I ever had to endure. Eventually the fluid stop building up and she got stronger and right before thanksgiving they came home. I was so happy. The babies are so big now you would never know that they were preemies. My miracle, my life is their life, Ava, Laila and Leah. Crazy where life takes you but I thank God he brought me here and he kept my babies safe and helped them to see a year. Thank you God for all 3 of my angels.

The next morning was surgery day. I was awake for it, kind of like how they would perform a c-section. The nurse were talking to me while the doctors were performing. There was a camera inserted around my uterus and the nurse told me she could see the babies’ hands moving around and how active they were. They were finished and the doctor said the babies look good and both still breathing. I stayed in the hospital for a week. I asked if the surgery worked and they told me that we wouldn’t know until they were born. It killed me I didn’t know what would be happening.

After two weeks I went back to work and a couple of weeks when I was 25 weeks my water broke but I wasn’t it labor it just popped on its own. None of the local hospitals were prepared for premature babies or my condition, so they shipped me an hour away from my home. What I didn’t know was that I had more than one water sac the second one broke and started a whole rain of blood and it wouldn’t stop. Everyone was in my room after that because if it didn’t stop they would have to take the babies out. They put all these IV’s in me to stop the onset of any labor. Thankfully I didn’t go into labor at 25 weeks. The doctors told me my case was a weird one, since the surgery I had is still so new and there aren’t a lot of studies on it they didn’t know what may happen. They think that the surgery weakened something in there to cause my waters to break. It wasn’t a matter of if I would be going into labor it was when.

When I was 19 weeks I went for my normal appointment with the specialist to check on them, my worst fear was happening. They were diagnosed with twin to twin transfusion. In the sonogram you can see such a big difference.  The one baby was so small in comparison to the other and the membrane had her pushed in the corner of my uterus. The doctor comes in and asks me if I came alone and I said yes because I came during work, I was set to go back after. He sits down and lays it on me, he said this is what is happening and you have choices. He said you can have surgery to help the babies and what happens is they would split your placenta so each baby has their own part and there are only a few hospitals that do it so you would need to travel in short notice are you able to I said yes right away these are my babies and I don’t want anything to happen. He couldn’t give me many details at the time about the surgery because he did not specialize in it and he did not want to give me wrong information but what he was sure of and what he told me is that I needed to act quickly.

As he’s telling all of this I broke down because of course I’m worried, I don’t know what to expect, I’m scared and everything is still so unclear. He told me all of the hospitals that do this laser surgery which was only about 3 hospitals one was in Long Island, NY, another in Philly and the other was in Baltimore, Maryland. He called all of them for me to find out which could get me the next day. He allowed me to wait in his office while he did and had me call my husband and have him on speaker when he came back. The hospital in Maryland was the only one I could get an appointment the quickest. The University of Maryland is where I went and from what I was told was one the best hospitals that did the surgery and often. I was in Maryland the next day.

My husband and I saw the doctor when we got there. He took a look at the babies himself and just confirmed everything. He gave us insight on the procedure. It was very risky and not a guarantee it would work. The hope was the laser would split the placenta in half and equally so each baby would have its own half. With the procedure could possibly bring on preterm labor and I was only 19 weeks the babies wouldn’t have survived that. The doctor told me that the survival rate for both babies after surgery was 60 % and 80 % for one. My heart dropped those honestly were not the best odds. My husband told the doctor right away they are going to be the 60 %. All I could do was pray and cry. I was so scared. The thought that I could lose any one of my babies or both was terrifying.

Hi my name is Ashley.  I am a mother of three beautiful little ladies, Ava who is four, Laila and Leah, my twins who will be one in just two short weeks! My story is just like many other mothers, you wake up super early, you go to bed super late all to make sure everyone is taken care of.

Being a mom of 3 is not easy by any means, especially a mom of a toddler and twins. Two babies at once are crazy! All my girls are miracles and all special in their own way! Ava was two weeks early by induction on the 4^th of July, just as the fireworks began. Every year I tell her the fireworks are for her. She is a handful all on her own and a true mommy’s girl. I love it but sometimes you know you want at least 5 minutes to yourself and you can’t tell your baby no when they haven’t seen you all day. She is my first love she holds a special part in my heart. Your first are always special you can’t say favorite, I’m not saying favorite but your experiences are different with them as with all of your children if you have more than one every one of them will be different.

Having twins is a whole other ball game.  It’s extremely different.  I remember when I found out I was having twins I cried because I was sitting there telling myself how am I going to do this. How will I be able to take care of 3 financially and emotionally? It’s a scary thought, you want to make sure you’re able to provide for them and that’s the only thought I kept thinking am I going to be able to do this.  You know the saying, “You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have”, has never been more true for me.

I knew my pregnancy with the twins was different from the start even before knowing I was having twins.  My body hurt right away. The simple task of getting out bed was growing increasingly more difficult and I didn’t understand why when I didn’t think I was that far long yet.  When I did go to the doctor I thought I was only 10 weeks, that’s how I timed it thinking about my last period from what I could remember because I am terrible at keeping track.  When I went to my first sonogram I was in for the shock of my life, little did I know I was at the right place for my situation. I ended going to a specialist for my first sonogram because I opted for special testing to check and make sure there were no abnormalities. I remember talking to my husband the night before our sonogram appointment jokingly saying imagine if there were two in there and I laughed it off. So we went the next morning they did the normal vital check. I’m looking at the screen saying wow that’s a really big baby and the tech replies well yes that’s because there are two in there and your 17 weeks not 10 weeks like I thought. I was in such shock I didn’t know what to say, then she says I think we can see the sex of the babies do you want to know right away I saw one girl I knew already from before.  At that point I was crossing my fingers that hopefully the other was a boy, and then she hit me it’s another girl. I wanted a boy because I have girls, either way I was happy that they are healthy and growing. During that appointment I also learned that they are identical and they shared a placenta but not the same sack. They were separated by a little membrane. They said that because they shared a placenta that placed me in the high risk pregnancy category.  With twins your high risk anyway but now that risk was higher for pretty much anything. I had to see the specialist every 2 weeks because they wanted to make sure the babies were growing evenly.  Sharing a placenta the risk of twin to twin transfusion was high that would mean one baby was getting more nutrients that the other.