I lost our boys on July 18 2003. It has been four years and that day still haunts me. I found out I was pregnant after being told that I would not be able to have any more children. We have one son named Paul at this time age 8. I had taken a pregnancy test and it had floored me. I came home from work in my first trimester about 9 weeks I guess and I wasn’t feeling well, so I went to lay down. I got up an hour later to go to the bathroom (I was sick all day everyday) and I lost a clot on the bathroom floor. I started crying and freaking out and my husband rushed me to the hospital.
They told us how sorry they were that we lost our baby and there was nothing they could do. My husband asked for an ultrasound and they said that it was to soon. We went home devastated. I laid crying in bed for two days until my next appointment. I can still see the disappointment on my son’s face as he tried to comfort me.
Two days later I go to the doctor and he said my blood levels were still elevated and wants a ultrasound done the next day. We went to the ultrasound and I tell my husband I can’t look at the screen and see my child if it was still there and not alive. I have the technician turn the screen away. I am still crying the entire time that she is doing her job. Then, she asks if we have heart conditions in our family. My son had open heart surgery the year before. I said yes. She turned the screen around to say we were having identical twins and that they were okay. And that they were in separate bags.
I remember going back to work after telling them I had lost the baby to tell them there were now two babies and my supervisor took the ultrasound picture showing everyone. We next told our son who told us he had wished on a star for a brother and was really excited about two at once and was planning already. I called the hospital a couple of times during my pregnancy because they were laying on a nerve and I couldn’t get out of bed to walk. By now I was permanently off work so we would take no chances.
On July 17 I was in the doctor’s office and they said everything was fine. I told him I wanted a C-section and that I had this feeling that something was wrong, “Mother’s Intuition” it had to do with the placenta. They said everything was fine. We went home and not even 24 hours later the nightmare started.
July 18 I got out of bed to go to the bathroom and felt what I believed was a baby’s head (It was a bulging bag). My husband rushed me to the hospital where fluid starts to leak and they decide to transfer me to another hospital 30 minutes away and not to stop the contractions I was 22 weeks, 3 days along. My husband beat the ambulance to the hospital. I was hooked up to monitors and told we have to keep the babies in for as long as possible. They wanted to see if the contractions were going to stop. They didn’t. The neonatal doctor came in and said he would be their doctor, that they had a slim chance and asked what would we like done as far as heroic measures. The other doctor said they wouldn’t make it.
My husband and I were in shock, neither of us could speak. My cousin said that you don’t want them to suffer. I wanted Levi and Logan more than my own life. The doctor listed off the things that would happen. No parent wants their child to suffer. Logan was born at 8:29pm and died at 9:02 pm and was bruised from the waist down and Levi was born at 8:53 pm and was stillborn. He was bruised from the waist up.
Even though we were in shock we trusted the doctors and let them and family judge what decisions were to be made. We chose DNR [do not resuscitate] and it is a decision that will haunt us for the rest of our lives. I did not hold my children. I thought it would be harder on me to let them go as death is something I was never ready to deal with let alone my children being the ones to go. They put me on the nursery floor where I could hear all the happy mom’s, crying babies and happy families.
But, now I had to disappoint my son once again. All I wanted was to hold my eight year old and tell everyone else to leave me alone. My son had overheard my father telling my sister-in law so he knew and he cried with me. My husband showed no emotion in front of me. He held them and our son saw them.
I regret it everyday. I miss them everyday. We talk about who they would be or what they would be doing now. And holidays are the hardest. I take off on their birthday and we celebrate and make it family day. Flowers on their grave and a cake in their memory and then we do something to spend time as a family. And if we ever get pregnant again we will prepare ahead of time and have a different doctor and hospital.
Thanks for listening,
Amanda
Jumelle: Prenatal, Postnatal & Beyond 