More blood.

I had another big bleeding episode in the middle of the night last night. More than last time, three weeks ago. I am freaking out. I am waiting for the nurse at my midwife's office to get back to me.

Please pray. Thank you.

Some statistics

They say that when you can see your baby's heartbeat on ultrasound, you have a 95% chance of making it to the second trimester. I don't know who "they" is and it could be an old wives' tale for all I know, but that's what they say.

We are in the 5%. We had an ultrasound this afternoon and Baby B had stopped growing and was dead, somewhere around 7w5d. That's only a couple of days after our first bleed and our last ultrasound.

Baby A looked positively awesome, measuring 9w5d, heartbeat of 183, moving its little limbs. We saw its beautiful head, arms and hands (even the fingers!), little chest and legs, and the neat loopy cord that links us together.

Then they told us that there's a significant chance that my body is realizing that I am carrying a dead baby and will start working to miscarry it. I asked for odds (because I definitely know people who have lost multiples and continued to term) and the midwife didn't really know - she said probably less than 50% to miscarry but she couldn't say it was, say 25%. And I'm sure she was extra guarded because I'm already having bleeding. She basically told us that I could start cramping tonight, or I could deliver a healthy baby in the summer, or anything in between.

On top of this, the subchorionic hematoma has grown, from about 1cm in area to about 2cm. It seems, on ultrasound, to be behind Baby A somewhere and she didn't expect it to get in the way, but of course couldn't say for sure. And I have a cyst on my left ovary that is now 5cm.

Why is this happening to us? It's like a triple whammy: dead baby, bigger hematoma, big cyst. At this point they're not sure where the bleeding is coming from - either from the hematoma or the baby. I sure hope it's the former. I just don't know why we have such rotten luck.

We are simply beside ourselves with worry and aren't really up for talking about it, even to each other. The plan is for me to spend at least through Tuesday (my next appointment) lying around and hope that there is no more bleeding and no cramping. Jen is working from home tomorrow to spend time with me, and she didn't go to work today. Lisa, I'm sorry this means we will miss your party tomorrow.

Please, even if you don't really believe it works, send some energy into the Universe that we are able to continue to grow our beautiful baby.

Thank you, friends.

I don't know if I will respond to all of the comments on the last post, but I wanted to say thank you. Your support, everyone's really, means a lot to all of us.

I did some looking around with my good friend Dr. Google and the consensus seems to be that if this happens during the first trimester, it is usually okay. Of course "usually" is a lot like "95%" and you know that someone always has to be unusual. I am just hoping hardcore that this time it is not us. We are very happy about how well our Baby A is doing and if we had to lose a baby to have a successful pregnancy, than it will be worth it. I just do not want to lose both.

I know that this is a fairly common occurance, and Vanishing Twins happen in many multiple pregnancies and lots of people go on to have full-term, healthy babies. Jen and I looked at the ultrasound pictures again and we both think that Baby B looks different than it did at our last ultrasound and maybe it is already started to absorb. The tech asked us if we wanted pictures of Baby A or both and I'm glad we took both pictures. If we do have a healthy baby I will want him or her to know that s/he had a sibling.

Right now we are both trying to be very optimistic and positive. We know there is nothing we can do in terms of controlling and/or preventing anything in this situation and we are just trying to do our best and hang in there. Hopefully in the New Year we can look back on how stressful this was, and how much we love each other.

I also love all of you. Thank you for caring about my family.