I really don’t know what to say. My wife and I recently lost one of our twin daughters. It has been less than a week. All along we were told everything was OK, at first we didn’t even know we were pregnant. My wife would bleed a little each month we thought she was having her period. We didn’t even go to the doctor until my wife was about 5 months pregnant.
When we went to the doctor they ordered an ultrasound and we were told that we were going to have twins. We saw the ultra sound and they gave us pictures that showed two babies in separate sacs and their own placentas.
We were so happy. We took the ultrasound pictures everywhere we went and showed them to our family members and friends. From then on we went to every doctor’s appointment. We did every thing the doctor told us to do. Our doctor didn’t even put my wife on bed rest. She said that my wife could continue to work. We listened to and trusted her because she also delivered our second child. They were planning for a c-section around 37 weeks.
At this time we were at about 31 weeks and had a doctor’s appointment the following week. The night before our doctor’s appointment my wife got sick and vomited real bad, the worse I seen since earlier in the pregnancy. The following morning I had my wife call the doctor to see if that was normal and she was told not to worry about it and to come in for her scheduled appointment later that day at 11:00 a.m. I had some things to do that day so I sent her by herself. When she returned she said every thing was OK and that they heard both heart beats and they sounded good.
The doctor ordered a stress test just to be safe and to make sure she wasn’t going into preterm labor because my wife’s back was hurting a little more than usual. When we got to the hospital, the nurse tried to monitor the hearts of the babies but could really only get a good reading on one of them so they brought in the ultra sound machine. My wife and I both sat there watching the monitor and when the nurse began looking for the hearts, the first was very easy to see and the second we could not see because the body wasn’t in good position to see it. The nurse said she saw it and I even think I saw it. So she went on with the stress test and hooked the monitors up to my wife’s stomach. The nurse couldn’t get a good fix on the one we couldn’t see earlier but finally she did, or at least she thought she did.
When she left the room, one of the heart beats wouldn’t stay constant and I tried to move the monitor to see if the baby had just moved. When the nurse finally returned, she tried to reposition the monitor to locate the heartbeat as well. She couldn’t find it so she ordered an ultrasound tech to come to our room to help here find the heartbeat.
When the tech viewed the ultrasound image, she knew something was wrong and called for a doctor to come look at the ultrasound to confirm what she had thought, i.e. that one baby was going to be still born. All this time none of the nurses said anything, I guess not to alarm us. I can remember my wife and I smiling and talking about getting to see our babies on the ultra sound and within 10 minutes we were told that one of our babies was going to be stillborn. We didn’t know what to do I don’t think we even cried we were just in shock.
We were then admitted into hospital and told that my wife would deliver the babies by c-section the next day. After getting our room, we both began to cry and hold each other for hours. I then called both of our parents to deliver the bad news. Neither family could believe it. I guess since we already had two healthy babies now 5 and 4, it was felt that there was no way that anything could go wrong.
After about a couple of hours of crying, then silence, then crying again, we began to talk about what we were going to do and how are we going to make it. Neither of us had any answers. Not to mention our two children whom had been expecting two baby sisters. They would go to school and tell their teachers and class mates that they were going to have twins. What were they going to say now? The eldest is in kinder-garden. He would bring home pictures that he would draw at school that would show “daddy momma sister him and the twins in mommies tummy”. I hope he will be OK. The younger one is in pre kinder-garden. She was just starting to get excited about being a big sister to twins. Her grandmother had bought her a Dora the Explorer DVD about being a big sister and in the cartoon, Dora’s parents had just had twins. My daughter was so happy that she was going to be “a big sister and have twins just like Dora.” She would walk around saying “I’m going to be a big sister, big sister”, I haven’t heard her say it since. We tried to tell her and her brother that “there’s not two babies any more just one”.
We delivered the babies 4th January, 2006 at 6:45 p.m. Mila was almost a pound lighter than Lena. Mila didn’t make it. The doctors said there was a blood clot in the placenta. We will probably know more in a couple of weeks. Lena seems to be OK. She was 4lbs and 1oz and had a lot of hair. She had a little problem with her blood being too thick. The doctor said her blood seems to have gotten better but she will still have to stay in NICU for at least a week. She is breathing on her own and is beautiful.
I know this may seem to soon for me to be writing, but I can’t sleep. All I do is think about my wife and I hope she can make it through this and my kids, they were so happy about their sisters. I know this has happenend to other people but it still feels like you are alone. I already miss my baby girl. I never thought I could love someone so much without even meeting them. We will have the funeral Monday. We left the hospital and had to leave Lena. I hope she can come home soon so we can love her and hold her. I will always love my baby girl, Mila.
Philip D. Norman, Oklahoma
Jumelle: Prenatal, Postnatal & Beyond 