Surprise!

For many years, I lived with that dull depression. I just assumed that was all the better I was supposed to feel and just live with it. I was very moody. Then in late 2003 or early 2004 I came to a place where I was feeling pretty good. Craig and I were communicating well, I was working full time, the kids were doing well, things were going well, we had our house, we had our health, we had each other. I had felt for a while that I would like to have another baby. Craig and I talked about it for a while and we both agreed to try. Getting pregnant this time round didn't happen as fast. With Matthew and Alyssa, boom, I was pregnant right way. I then found out my sister-in-law was pregnant. I was excited for them, but it made me sad too...I wanted to have a baby. I finally had a procedure done to see if there was any scar tissue in my fallopian tubes from another procedure I had. The test showed that all was fine and then the next month, surprise, I was pregnant! I took a home pregnancy test and it was positive and I then set up an appointment to see my OB/GYN. At my very first appointment, Craig came with me. We chatted with the doctor about how things would go, etc. After my examination he also wanted to do an ultrasound to check the gestation period. So, the doctor left the room, I put on a robe and we waited for the ultrasound room to become available. While sitting there, Craig said, "it better not be twins!" I calmly said, "Oh, it's not twins." Then it was time to go into the ultrasound room. The doctor and his nurse, and Craig and I were in the room. I was lying on the table watching the monitor and Craig was sitting right next to me as well. Then I heard the nurse make a little "oh" noise, and my doctor said, "this is baby A," and then moved the wand a little and said, "and this is baby B". All I could say was, "Oh my gosh!" Craig was speechless and I just kept repeating, "oh my gosh". Then the doctor told me to forget everything he had just told me in the room regarding appointments, tests, etc., the protocol for twin pregnancies was different. My due date was in early to mid August. I went to lab to have some blood drawn and one of the employees said, "oh what a nice Christmas present" and I said, "yeah, times two!" She then said, "well that is why you look so shocked."

In the mean time, of course family knew that Cary was pregnant. We decided not to tell anyone until Christmas. So on Christmas with my family we had one of the kids go show the ultrasound pictures to my mom and dad. My mom was excited and then she looked again and saw that there were two. Everyone was so surprised. I called my grandma Herold, because she is a twin and she had twins. I had to share the news with her and she was in Sioux Falls with my aunts and uncles and cousins, so the news spread quickly. Then it was time to make our big announcement to Craig's parents. So we did the same thing. We had the kids go show the ultrasound pictures to Craig's mom first. She looked at the pictures and thought it was Cary's ultrasound picture, but then she read the name on it and it was my name. She was so excited of course. Craig told her she better look more closely. She looked, "oh my gosh, twins?" Yep twins we replied. Arlyn was just as happy. All of this was so ironic because Arlyn and Shelly had been praying for more grandkids. Now they joke that they better be careful what they pray for, they were going to have 3 new grandbabies in less than one month's time (according to the due dates anyway).

My pregnancy was pretty uneventful accept for some light headedness and heart racing that turned out to be okay. I had an ultrasound at every appointment so I got plenty of pictures of our two little babies. I wanted to find out what the sexes were, but Craig didn't. So I resigned to his request. But...then one day one of the other OB doctors came to my desk and said they were trying out a 3D ultrasound machine and wanted to know if I would be willing to have an ultrasound done. Of course I said yes! Seeing my babies in 3D was AMAZING! You could actually see the features of their little faces. Then one of the reps asked, "do you want to find out what they are?" I paused for a minute, but then said, "YES!" So, I then found out that Baby A was a girl and Baby B was a boy. Oh, one of each, how exciting. We already had one boy and one girl, so now the numbers would be even and I would make both of my children VERY happy! Matt wanted a brother, and Alyssa a sister. They were so excited. I was number one mom because they thought I had made it that way. Anyway, before we told the kids, I had a job to do, I had to tell Craig that I found out the sex of the babies first. I believe he happened to pick me up from work that day. So I gave him that face and told him I had something to tell him and I hoped he wouldn't be mad. Well, I didn't even have to tell him, he guessed what I had done. I told him I wouldn't tell him if he didn't want to know, but he said that I would slip eventually or my mom would start buying clothes in tell-tale colors, so he said I might as well tell him. I told him I was sorry and that when the rep asked me if I wanted to know, I just couldn't say no. He said it was okay and I showed him the ultrasound pics. Baby A, our little girl, and baby B, our little boy. He was excited to give the news to the kids as he also knew this would make them happy.

I prayed for those babies all the time. Before each appointment I would pray that each baby was okay. My goal was to make it to 37 weeks because in twin pregnancies that is considered full term. Baby A had always stayed closest to the cervix and she sprawled out as much as she could, leaving Baby B who was bigger pushed way up! I always joked that I felt like she was going to fall out and he was going to come out my throat. When I was nearing my due date, I had an ultrasound done to get some measurements. They guessed the babies to be around 6 pounds each, however, they knew baby A was smaller than baby B and baby B was breech. My doctor discussed this with me and basically told me that there was no greater risk of having a vaginal delivery versus a c-section with this situation and that he would try and turn baby B after baby A was out. Even though EVERYONE was asking me if I was going to have to have a c-section, I told them what the doctor said and told them I didn't have to have a c-section. I had read that in this situation a c-section would be performed, but I trusted my doctor, and decided to go for the vaginal delivery. On July 20th (the day Chris and Cary had their little boy, Landon) I was admitted to the hospital for an induction. Doctor said I had reached 37 weeks and there was really no reason to keep them in there any longer. They did another ultrasound to check the babies positions...still the same. I didn't feel worried though. I was excited and couldn't wait to meet my precious babies. The labor was long. Finally at a little after 4:00 a.m. on July 21, 2005 I delivered baby A, Megan Grayce Wadsworth. They put her on my belly for a quick second and I couldn't believe how tiny she was. I didn't get to see her very long. The ultrasound machine was in the room and the tech was showing the monitor to the doctor. I don't ever remember him trying to turn baby B nor does Craig, but Craig does remember seeing the doctor pull our baby boy, Luke Craig, out by his feet. When they quickly put him on my belly I could tell that he was bigger than Megan. I could see them working on both babies and I was scared and was wondering what was going on. They took Megan and Luke out of the room and after the pediatrician looked at them it was determined that they needed to be flown to the NICU in Sioux Falls. They both had respiratory distress and Luke had a whole other set of problems. I did get to see them for a short time before the care flight team took them. I think I was in shock. I could not believe this. I mean, I did my job, I carried these babies to 37 weeks, they were healthy in my uterus and now they had to be admitted to the NICU, this could not be happening. Luckily, my mom was working in Sioux Falls at the time and so I gave the hospital permission to allow my mom to be there with the babies until Craig and I could get there. My mom even said that she woke up about 4:30 in the morning and she sensed that something wasn't right. I wasn't able to leave the hospital until I could walk on my own (I was still numb from my epidural). My mom called when the care flight team got there. A short time later, Megan was actually taken off of oxygen and my mom could hold her. Unfortunately this was not the case for Luke.

Craig and I ended up leaving for Sioux Falls about 1:00. My OB discharged me and off we went. On the ride down Craig told me not to worry about the money. The thought crossed my mind, but only for a quick second. I was more worried about my babies and that hour drive seemed like it took forever! We also had found out that Megan (baby A) was much smaller than they thought she was, she was only 4#9oz and Luke (baby B) was 6#. Megan was a tiny fighter. When they had to put her under the billi lights because of jaundice, they put these velcro glasses on her and she would just stick her little foot up on a pad they had in her incubator. She looked like she was sunbathing. Luke on the other hand was undergoing tests. They had to poke him so many times. One time they had to draw blood from his head because they couldn't get it from anywhere else. They finally put in a central line and he was much calmer after this. However, some of his major organs were failing, and the doctors could not figure out why. He also was having blood issues. First his blood was clotting too fast and so he had plasma transfusions and then it wasn't clotting fast enough so he had to have platelet transfusions. Everyday was just another waiting game. He would have a good day and then next would be a bad day. It was a roller coaster ride for him and us. Megan kept doing very well. One evening they both were having a good day and so my mom asked Craig and I if we wanted her to stay with the babies so we could go out and get something to eat. We decided we would and then came back to find out that Luke had stopped breathing while we were gone, another downer. Finally, he kept having good days. Organ function returned, he continued to be less stressed, his color was looking better, etc. We met with a hematologist and were told that Luke had a blood disorder, but it was not life threatening. He had a deficiency with one of his clotting factors, but worst case scenario, he would have to take medicine on a daily basis. Otherwise he only had to be put on Amacar before he had any procedures/surgeries. He hadn't been circumcised yet and they didn't want to cause any more trauma to him so we had to wait a while to have that done. In the end all the neonatologists could come up with was that all of his problems were due to the trauma caused during delivery.

Both Megan and Luke got upgraded to the less critical NICU on the same day. Megan probably could have gone a day sooner, but I think they kept them together for our sake. It was in this NICU that they actually got to be together again. From the very beginning it was as if Luke was looking for Megan all the time. When we put them together, it was like oh, there you are, where have you been? It was the sweetest thing to watch and for the very first time I got to hold both of my babies at the same time.

Unfortunately, they didn't get to go home at the same time. Going home with only one and leaving Luke behind was devastating. I cried so hard. It just didn't seem right. I went down to see him everyday and Craig was back at work, so he would come sometimes. My sister, or Shelly, or someone would come with me to help take care of the other 3 kids while I gave Luke some attention. It still broke my heart every time I had to leave him. I felt as though I was abandoning him. Finally after two weeks he passed his car seat breathing test and we got to "room in" with him. This is a time where you go into a room and pretend like you are at home with him. They took him off all the monitors except for the heart monitor, and he did great, so the next day we got to go home. The scariest thing about going home was we no longer had any monitors to beep and tell us if something was wrong, so that was a little unsettling. We "co-slept" them and they seemed to feel comfortable that way. It was so good to have them both home. Now our family was complete. Unfortunately I was holding onto a lot of guilt for not opting to have a c-section. I felt I should have known better. I was also angry with my doctor. Put this on top of trying to feed them and then try to pump while they were napping=a very tired mommy. I also was not producing hardly any milk at all. I had breast reduction surgery in 2000 and my surgeon told me I may be able to breastfeed and I may not. However, my OB said I should have plenty of milk and so again, I felt guilty. I think the most I every got from pumping was between 3-5cc. I finally decided it just wasn't going to happen for me. At least now when the twins were napping, I could nap with them.

Between postpartum hormones, the stress of the delivery and having my babies in the NICU, this took a toll on me. I held a lot in. But I was so sad and angry inside. I was also angry because I felt like that initial bonding time was stolen from me and that is something I can never get back. Still, almost 5 years later, it brings tears to my eyes. Don't get me wrong, I thank God that they both turned out okay, but the damage had already been done.