Judecorp.

My buddy Calliope has claimed today, February 29, as a day to remember our losses - an extra day to grieve and hopefully transform some negative energy into positive as we head into a hopefully warmer, brighter, and sunnier March. (She is awesome.)

About 45 minutes ago, I swaddled my sweet baby and rocked her in our broken rocking chair until her eyes drifted into sleep. I kissed her forehead and smelled her delicious baby smell, and held her for a few more minutes until I placed her gently into her crib and closed the door so I could get to some chores.

It is a dream come true, for sure. But I was supposed to have two babies. Two babies to swaddle and rock, two babies to kiss and hold, two babies to smell and taste. Two beautiful bursts of energy who would laugh at each other and conspire with each other in destroying the house. Two sets of bottles, two little high chairs, and a whole lot more laundry.


I remember when we saw two sacs. They were measuring a little behind and we were still waiting to see heartbeats. No worries, said the doctor, they will come. I was a mixture of excited, nervous, and terrified. We were finally pregnant, and were going to have two babies. I went back in on 7w1d, and saw what I was hoping for:



Two little tiny fetal poles and two strong flickers of life. They were still measuring fairly significantly behind (6w3d and 6w4d) but my concerns were dismissed and I was discharged from the fertility clinic told to expect "a normal twin pregnancy" with babies likely in mid-June. Two Gemini babies! I loved them so much and was already trying to wrap my mind around going from being just me to being a mama of two. From being a family of two to a family of four.

We hadn't told my family about my pregnancy because we hadn't seen heartbeats, but we were gearing up. At that ultrasound I had a bit of spotting and was told it was no big deal. A few days later I woke up in a pool of blood and called the doctor frantically, so sure that all was lost. But when I went in for a quick ultrasound, everything was fine and Jen got to see those beautiful beating hearts for the first time. The doctor said that this sort of bleeding was fairly common and shouldn't impact anything. He said everything would be fine. So on Thanksgiving Day, we presented my grandmother with our ultrasound pictures - her first and second great-grandchildren. I remember how wide her eyes got when she gasped, "Twins?" It was the start of something big and crazy and wonderful.

The spotting continued but I had faith that things were moving the way they were supposed to. We moved to Western Mass and I began unpacking our new life, imagining our new house with our two little babies. And before we'd even had our new bed delivered (and thus were still sleeping in the guest room), I bled again. And panicked again, but kept reassuring myself that this is common, that the blood doesn't mean anything happened to the babies, that the doctor said it could happen again. I hadn't even had my first appointment with my midwives yet but they had me come in for an ultrasound just to check on things. I prayed my heart out the whole way there, praying for two little healthy babies. I remembered that when I first posted the pictures of the two sacs, someone said, "Well, you're likely to at least have one baby," and I clung to that in the car. 'Please,' I thought, 'please let there be at least one baby.' I couldn't wait to see those beautiful heartbeats again.



At 10w1d, I learned that I was no longer a twin mama, and had not been for some time. In fact, s/he hadn't grown much at all since the last ultrasound and could have even been gone while I was showing my grandmother the ultrasound photos. I had just gotten used to the idea of having twins.

I love my daughter and my life is so rich and full and wonderful with her in it. But a part of my life is missing, and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't see my daughter and wonder about her twin. Boy or girl? Would s/he be crawling around too? Making funny noises? Would they look alike? Would they be similar sizes? Would they like each other? Would they sleep together?

Sometimes I think about Punk and how she hates to be alone, how she won't sleep alone and she likes to be all swaddled up and snuggled. I think about Punk and I think she misses her twin, too.

We had another ultrasound today. With an OB. The head of the practice, actually. He was awfully nice.

He wanted to do an internal ultrasound today. It was painful because of the awful internal I had in the inky morning. But...

Our baby is totally hanging in there. I don't know how that's possible, but s/he was doing that fetus thing. He didn't take measurements or measure the heart rate, but there was definitely a heartbeat, and eyes (with eyelids!), and because it was an internal you could really see the individual fingers. Wacky.

He couldn't find any evidence of the subchorionic hematoma and couldn't find a physical reason for the bleeding. His theory is that my body is really confused by the lost twin, because it hasn't started to reabsorb at all. He thinks my body doesn't know what to do with it. I don't know if that's true but whatever. He said we were definitely not out of the woods, especially with the heavy bleeding, but that he would expect that if we were going to miscarry, it would have happened already. But he was very cautious.

He wanted to bump my appointment up a week but because of scheduling, I'm going in on Friday, Jan 5 instead of Monday, Jan 9. So not too much different, but he wants me to have another ultrasound done as well.

We're still bleeding today, possibly from the jarring internal ultrasound, but we're hopeful at least for today. We're thinking of renting a doppler to put our minds at ease, even though I swore I would never do that.

We are trying to teach the cats to use the (hefty) cat door into the basement. Daedalus and Ralph seem to have it down. Fin is lagging behind, as always. Man, he is a dumb cat. For at least 8 months, he was scared of /wind/. Hopefully he will get it soon so we can move the food bowls and litter box down there and then we don't need to have them around in the middle of the house. Especially the litter box. Yuck.

Jen went to work this morning for the first time since all the drama. I miss her. I like having her around even if she is just puttering around the house. She has me all set up, though - she put a blanket on the couch and a bottle of water on the coffee table for when I want to move into the living room. She was going to move my computer and everything for me but I like having a little computer time in bed on lazy mornings. Which this definitely is.

I am going stir crazy with the rest and I am very tempted to do a lot of work around the house, especially fill the dressers with clothes since they are now put together and I have been DYING to get the clothes out of boxes. But it's only one more day before I go for my follow-up and I think I can handle taking it easy for one more day until we can see what's up. We are so hopeful for good news and I am soaking up positive stories like a parched sponge - especially people who have lost twins AND had bleeding and still had a healthy pregnancy. I would really like to be one of those stories.

In a little over 24 hours (tomorrow at 10am), we will have more information. Jen is missing the morning of work so she can come with. I feel bad about her missing so much work but I know that it will be so much better to have her with me. She is the greatest ever.

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.