Will and Hays- The Pregnancy
On a sunny Friday in October our little world changed forever. We were thrilled to be expecting a new baby, but that was the day we found out we were actually expecting babies. Matt and I had gone for my first obstetrician’s visit and first ultrasound. As soon as the doctor started the ultrasound, two round, suspiciously head-looking objects popped up, and I thought “uh oh.” Sure enough, the doctor asked “now how many babies did you want?” To which I replied, “One, please.” After much wailing and gnashing of teeth (what can I say, twins were never in my plan!) we started to accept and eventually embrace the fact that we were somehow jumping from being the parents of one to the parents of three. All I could say was “there had better be at least one girl in there.”
Thwarted once again!!! At my 16 week ultrasound we found out that there was nary a girl in sight and that our house was to become the testosterone castle, inhabited by nothing but noisy little boys. This visit was also where we found out that we might have some bumps in the road to twindom. The doctor told us that one baby was smaller than the other and had less amniotic fluid and he suspected we were dealing with a condition known as twin to twin transfusion (TTTS). This led to weekly ultrasounds where we checked growth, fluid levels, blood flow, everything under the sun.
Each week we never knew what we would hear. We learned early on that the blood flow to the smaller baby was not good. He had a funky placement of his umbilical cord, but that usually doesn’t really cause a problem. There was bleeding in the placenta early on and we thought that might have something to do with his poor growth, but we were never sure. The doctor thought it was TTTS, but it never progressed like he thought it would, so he wasn’t entirely convinced that this was the correct diagnosis. Either way, from week to week my boys kept plugging along. There were times when things really didn’t look good. Our doctor said he never thought we would make it to 30 weeks and I got steroid shots to pump up the boys’ lungs at 24 weeks. Finally, at my 30 week appointment, things really started to look bad. Hays (the little guy) was barely growing anymore and the bad blood flow was finally starting to take its toll on him. Plus, Will had a lot of excess amniotic fluid and that was starting to cause problems for him. His little heart was having to work too hard and was becoming enlarged. So it was time to deliver.
On a sunny Friday in October our little world changed forever. We were thrilled to be expecting a new baby, but that was the day we found out we were actually expecting babies. Matt and I had gone for my first obstetrician’s visit and first ultrasound. As soon as the doctor started the ultrasound, two round, suspiciously head-looking objects popped up, and I thought “uh oh.” Sure enough, the doctor asked “now how many babies did you want?” To which I replied, “One, please.” After much wailing and gnashing of teeth (what can I say, twins were never in my plan!) we started to accept and eventually embrace the fact that we were somehow jumping from being the parents of one to the parents of three. All I could say was “there had better be at least one girl in there.”
Thwarted once again!!! At my 16 week ultrasound we found out that there was nary a girl in sight and that our house was to become the testosterone castle, inhabited by nothing but noisy little boys. This visit was also where we found out that we might have some bumps in the road to twindom. The doctor told us that one baby was smaller than the other and had less amniotic fluid and he suspected we were dealing with a condition known as twin to twin transfusion (TTTS). This led to weekly ultrasounds where we checked growth, fluid levels, blood flow, everything under the sun.
Each week we never knew what we would hear. We learned early on that the blood flow to the smaller baby was not good. He had a funky placement of his umbilical cord, but that usually doesn’t really cause a problem. There was bleeding in the placenta early on and we thought that might have something to do with his poor growth, but we were never sure. The doctor thought it was TTTS, but it never progressed like he thought it would, so he wasn’t entirely convinced that this was the correct diagnosis. Either way, from week to week my boys kept plugging along. There were times when things really didn’t look good. Our doctor said he never thought we would make it to 30 weeks and I got steroid shots to pump up the boys’ lungs at 24 weeks. Finally, at my 30 week appointment, things really started to look bad. Hays (the little guy) was barely growing anymore and the bad blood flow was finally starting to take its toll on him. Plus, Will had a lot of excess amniotic fluid and that was starting to cause problems for him. His little heart was having to work too hard and was becoming enlarged. So it was time to deliver.
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