March 14, 2008

This place was here on March 14, 2008.

I had friends who were following me as I navigated through my first hard-won pregnancy through IVF.

I was planning an amazing baby shower. The napkins were already ordered; pale blue with silver script. “It’s twins!” they said.

I was just a day or so beyond 21 weeks of pregnancy. It was the point in time where I was told not to worry. I had made it through the first trimester. I had spent some of that trimester in the hospital, having liters of fluid drained from my belly from hyperstimulation due to the medications used in IVF. I couldn’t imagine those two little embryos surviving through that, but they did. I was sure we could survive anything.

Little cramps. That’s all I remember. Little cramps and a fever. I didn’t feel well, but what did I expect? I was pregnant with multiples. I was starting to get pretty big. I was tired – of COURSE I was tired. I wanted to lay down, so I did.

Hours later, I woke up, padding around in my nightgown. Those cramps. My husband and I flipped through the “What to expect” book.

“Is it Braxton Hicks?” we thought.

My husband joined me as I laid down in our bed again. I felt hot and unsettled and just plain rotten. And those small cramps kept coming. Sometimes they would make me sore, and I would say something to my husband. We were watching Family Guy and I groaned slightly, shifting myself in our bed. Minutes later, I did it again. “Was that another one?” he asked me.

“Yeah,” I answered, my voice tight with discomfort.

He looked at the clock. “Jesus, that was five minutes.”

Five minutes apart. But it was just cramps. We got the baby heartbeat monitor and I heard them both. Strong, strong, strong.

But maybe we should call the doctor.

So my husband picked up the phone in our tiny office room, beside the room that was already being painted to accommodate two boys. I got dressed and went to the bathroom to pee before we started to trek into the hospital. I knew I’d be going to the hospital. I got up from the toilet.

And screamed.

“There’s blood!” I screamed. “I’m bleeding! I’m bleeding!”

It was the mucus plug. I learned that later. I had actually been in labor for many hours.

In the wee hours of March 14, 2008, we drove in near-silence to the hospital. No one but us knew we were going.

“What if something is really wrong?” I finally asked my spouse.

“No,” he shook his head firmly. “If you’re in labor, they will stop it.”

But they couldn’t stop it. Instead, I spent hours in the emergency room, with doctors who were doing ultrasounds. It was the last image I got of my children, but they could only find “Baby B”. Because Baby A was engaged, and ready to be born. They were pressing the ultrasound wand deep in my pelvis. They were looking for my cervix. But my cervix was gone. I was already five centimeters dilated. This was active labor.

At about 5 AM on March 14, 2008, I started making the fateful calls to family. Come to the hospital. My twins are going to be born today and they will die today too.

After getting an epidural, and refusing to push my babies out for several hours, I finally delivered my first son, Jacob Anthony at 1:21 PM on Friday, March 14. He weighed 14 tiny ounces. He arrived silent, but alive. That heartbeat bought him a birth certificate, which I still have.

At 2:25 PM, I delivered Zachary Ethan, who weighed just 15 precious ounces. His strong heartbeat also bought him a birth certificate. By 4 PM, both of their hearts had stopped and they had passed away in our arms.

Each year, I share their youtube video which tells their story. It can be considered graphic to those who that find the images of premature children disturbing.