My Story continued....

Throughout the first trimester the sight or smell of anything would cause me to feel sick and vomit. It was terrible and instead of putting on weight I began losing it. Eventually the doctors prescribed me diclectin. Once we had told the family we really felt like a weight had been lifted off of us but nothing could have prepared us for what was to come. When we went back for the next ultrasound at 12 weeks the doctor mentioned that he felt they only saw one amniotic sac but at the time I didn't care. I was in mommy mode making plans for all the things I would do with my kids and how I would play with them and lavish attention on them. He mentioned that since there were 2 in there that he wanted me to see a high risk specialist and referred me to Dr. Smith, the world's nicest doctor we had ever met he was compassionate and he was wonderful. Right away I fell in love with him, he actually made me feel like he cared about us and what happened to us. I felt safe with him and I really enjoyed my appointments with him. I didn't even mind meeting with his nurse and answering the same questions each and every time. The first ultrasound that we had with him he also mentioned this one sac issue. Again I thought to myself... they certainly seem worried about this one sac issue... so I looked into it. Apparently depending on when the egg splits there are different types of twins. One sac twins are produced from an egg that splits much later after conception.. usually around a week later. I really didn't understand what that meant but the very next day I got a phone call from Mt Sinai telling me they squeezed me in for an appt for the next day. Right away I knew that meant something was wrong. Getting and appointment that fast... any appointment that fast was a bad sign. I had this terrible feeling in my gut but I was already 12 weeks and I figured I had past the "safe zone" and everything would still be ok. We arrived at the hospital in downtown Toronto and I was scared out of my mind. This hospital was big and scary and I was sitting in the waiting room with lots of pregnant women. It was an odd feeling knowing everyone was here because something was wrong with their babies. I looked on the wall and there were so many pictures of multiple birth babies that came into the world safely. I began to feel like ok I can do this. My husband sat in the chair next to me and I was feeling that whatever they said we would support each other and everything would be ok. They called our names and put us in a small room... it was a consultation room, after at least 20 minutes a nurse came in and sat down with us and said ok lets talk about probabilities. We were so unprepared and this is where I learnt about twinning. She drew pictures of Best case scenario and all those between and worse case scenario was the last one. The Best case scenario was 2 babies, 2 sacs, 2 placentas, the worse case scenario was conjoined twins. To break it down for you.
2 babies, 2 sacs. 2 placentas
2 babies 2 sacs, 1 placenta
2 babies 1 sac, 2 placentas
2 babies 1 sac, 1 placenta
2 babies conjoined.
She suggested that if it was one of the final 2 that we think about aborting them or at least reducing them. Neither of us understood why and she left the room telling us to think about what our decision would be if this was the case because before we go to have an ultrasound they wanted us to be prepared. She left us and we just sat there with our mouths dropped open thinking what the hell just happened? I looked at him and he at me and we both knew there was no way that this was going to happen, we were never going to abort our little miracles and certainly never reduce them. God gave them to us for a reason. Besides he said my mother would kill me. The door then opened and the nurse came back in and said ok we are ready for you in the ultrasound room. We were looking forward to seeing our little babies again so we went into this room, this huge room that had a table where you lay down and when they do the ultrasound you can see it on a screen on the ceiling so everyone can see everything at the same time as the doctor. We were so excited, it was like a little movie of our babies. Immediately as soon as he put the wand on my belly there they were, playing with each other and wiggling around. We smiled and laughed and got all excited but they weren't doing what the doctor wanted and needed them to do. He would shake my belly and try to get them to move around in a certain place. He called it the amazing disappearing reappearing wall. He thought he saw a wall between them one second and it would dissapear the next second. He was very concerned about it. He froze it on something and then left it up on the screen and left us waiting there for hours.... and I do mean HOURS! Eventually the nurse came back in and said O you are still here... he went on lunch. OK I am 3 months pregnant with twins and you left me ina room waiting while HE takes a lunch. WE had been at the hospital in one room or another for 4 hours and he needed a lunch? Needless to say we weren't impressed. I grabbed a granola bar out of my purse and ate it and we sat and waited. Staring at the screen that had a picture frozen.... eventually I realized that the picture was of the umbilical cord.. and the flow of the nutrients was highlighted in colour. The nurse came back from lunch and again put us in that consultation room and said wait we were going to go for another scan on a high tech machine because it was imperative we determine what we were dealing with, whether there was a wall between the babies or not. We finally got in the room and it was crowded. There was ME and my hubby and the doctor and 2 nurses and they had asked another doctor to come in as well. I knew this was not a good sign but I also knew you could clearly see that they were not connected so I wasn't afraid. As soon as the scan came up on the screen they said OK thats what I thought, they took some more measurements and then escorted us back into the consultation room. Shortly after the nurse came in and said well its not good news. This is one of the worst case scenario's we talked about. There are 2 babies but they share the sac and the placenta. We recommend you either reduce or abort and just start over, you can have another baby this may end up badly. She then left us in the room to try to absorb this news. I looked at my husband and said well I don't care what they say. No way God gave us this so we could cancel it and try again.. .besides it took us so long to get pregnant its not like I can just go get pregnant again. She came in and brought us a few articles about the mortality rates of these kinds of pregnancies and then she came back in and asked for our decision. I said we will continue on with this pregnancy as is. She again explained that the fatality rate is extremely high and outlined all the possible bad things that can happen. They could get tangled in each other's cords and suffocate each other, they could have the cords around their necks, they could have cerebral palsy because they are not receiving the nutrients because it's shared. They could have TTTS (twin to twin transfusion) where one baby is taking all the nutrients and kills the other. We said we understood but we didn't care. By now it was 5pm and it had been a truly exhausting day and we were soo ready to leave. They said they would send a message back to Dr Smith and recommended we have weekly appointments and are monitored because at any moment one or both babies could die. He also suggested that the babies be delivered around 27-29 weeks because they would be better out than in if we made it that far. They booked a followup appointment and I said to the Doctor when he booked the appointment we will see you then and as long as I live I will never forget what he said. He said I doubt it. Right away I started to get a bad feeling, I called the office and apologized profusely for missing a day of work and insisted that I would be back the next day. I was in total shock but as we were driving home it started to sink in. My beautiful miracles could die at any moment. How do I go to the office and smile and pretend everything is ok? I called my manager immediately once I got home and broke down crying and told her everything. She is the best person in the world, she told me I could work from home until I was comfortable coming back or until I go on bedrest or deliver. My whole world was crumbling down around me and I felt like I had a ticking timebomb in my belly.