Loved ones,
It is with tremendous grief that we let you know that Pedro Emmanuel was delivered this morning at 4:46am, stillborn, shortly followed by Archer at 4:48am. Archer lived with us for two wonderful hours. We talked to them both, sang to them, felt Archer grip our hands. Bruno read them a poem from his childhood, sent just the day before by a friend. We bathed them and put clothes on them and wrapped them in their baby blankets (Pedro looks wonderful in blue, and yellow is definitely Archer's color). They looked very individual: Pedro had a small sweet mouth, with his tongue sticking out at us; Archer had my mother's lips. Both had perfect little button noses and enormous feet. We don't know where those came from. And they both had dark heads of hair. They were just beautiful.
We feel completely graced to have spent six months knowing these wonderful little souls. We are completely in love, and they will be with us always: our first children.
We can't thank all of you enough for all your energy and messages over the last three and a half weeks. You kept us buoyed in positiveness and hope, and you give us the strength to weather this tragedy: we will be grieving hard for a long time, but we also know that our boys wouldn't want us to let this destroy us, or scare us away from having a family or enjoying the beautiful families of others.
In the end, all decisions were made for us: yesterday morning my blood culture revealed that my white blood cell count had doubled since I arrived at the hospital, a definitive sign of infection, mandating that we induce labor and deliver both boys. The infection is what caused my contractions and my water breaking; there was no longer hope of keeping either boy in until viability; to try to do so would yielded the same result and would have put me at risk of becoming septic. As devastating as this all has been, there was a small comfort in understanding what was happening and knowing that we had no other path of action to take. My labor started on it's own at 6am Tuesday, July 29th, we added inducing medication to move the process along at 2:30pm, I finally opted for an epidural at 4:30pm, and it was a mind/body/soul numbing 12 more hours before I was finally delivered at 4:46am, Wednesday, July 30th.
We love you all. -Lisa and Bruno
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Week 3 Overnight Update from hospital (July 28th)
Dear lovely friends and family,
We wanted to update you on our status. After the magnesium treatment, my contractions were still coming pretty strong and the doctor decided to put me on another drug called indocin. These two drugs together did slow the contractions down but in the middle of the night i woke up to a contraction and then felt Pedro's water break. this morning we discovered he was back in his original position, this time with his hand not his foot sticking out (new nickname Manuel?)
This puts us in a whole different picture. They expect me to deliver Pedro in the next 3 days. There is a 10% chance that this won't happen and I could hold on longer. Then there is the question of what my body does with Archer whose membrane is still intact. It could hold on after pedro's delivery or it could go on and deliver him as well. Again, they are giving us a 10% chance that we could hold on to Archer through viability. We are struggling to get on top of our new situation and prepare ourselves to whatever is to come. We appreciate the huge outpouring of love that you have given us through this whole process and we know that you will continue keeping us in your thoughts.
We will definitely keep you appraised of whatever happens next.
Love,
Lisa, Bruno, Pedro, Archer, plus Cedric and Ursula
We wanted to update you on our status. After the magnesium treatment, my contractions were still coming pretty strong and the doctor decided to put me on another drug called indocin. These two drugs together did slow the contractions down but in the middle of the night i woke up to a contraction and then felt Pedro's water break. this morning we discovered he was back in his original position, this time with his hand not his foot sticking out (new nickname Manuel?)
This puts us in a whole different picture. They expect me to deliver Pedro in the next 3 days. There is a 10% chance that this won't happen and I could hold on longer. Then there is the question of what my body does with Archer whose membrane is still intact. It could hold on after pedro's delivery or it could go on and deliver him as well. Again, they are giving us a 10% chance that we could hold on to Archer through viability. We are struggling to get on top of our new situation and prepare ourselves to whatever is to come. We appreciate the huge outpouring of love that you have given us through this whole process and we know that you will continue keeping us in your thoughts.
We will definitely keep you appraised of whatever happens next.
Love,
Lisa, Bruno, Pedro, Archer, plus Cedric and Ursula
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Week 3 Update from hospital (July 27th)
Dear lovely friends and family,
Well, as of this afternoon we had the same boring wonderful news to report. Saturday we turned 24 weeks and today marks 3 weeks of bed rest.
This afternoon, however, I started feeling painful contractions that become more and more frequent. After a very exciting projectile vomiting episode the doctor came and decided that these contractions must be stopped (duh!). And we all decided that magnesium was the right course of action. Magnesium goes through an IV drip so I now have a very impressive looking machine by my bed-side. (By the way don't worry, I'm lying quietly dictating to Bruno). They started with a blitz of the medicine to get it to the right level in my bloodstream. This was rumored to induce flu-like symptoms but truly it isn't too bad (certainly not as bad a vomit inducing pains of the contractions.) It is sort of a combination of a hot-flash and a heavy falling asleep interrupted by the gentle beeps of the machine letting me know that my oxygen level is getting too low. We finished the blitz stage and the contractions have started getting a little less intense. The hope is that through the night they'll grow further apart and that Ursula will settle down. The good news is that so far Cedric is holding strong and I haven't dilated any further.
IT IS VERY POSSIBLE that this is just a minor setback and that we will quickly become blissfully boring again. If everybody could imagine, wish, hope, pray, believe that for us, that would be fabulous.
Thanks again for all your energy, we're looking forward to sending out a happier update soon.
With all the love in the world,
Lisa, Bruno, Pedro, Archer plus Cedric and Ursula
Well, as of this afternoon we had the same boring wonderful news to report. Saturday we turned 24 weeks and today marks 3 weeks of bed rest.
This afternoon, however, I started feeling painful contractions that become more and more frequent. After a very exciting projectile vomiting episode the doctor came and decided that these contractions must be stopped (duh!). And we all decided that magnesium was the right course of action. Magnesium goes through an IV drip so I now have a very impressive looking machine by my bed-side. (By the way don't worry, I'm lying quietly dictating to Bruno). They started with a blitz of the medicine to get it to the right level in my bloodstream. This was rumored to induce flu-like symptoms but truly it isn't too bad (certainly not as bad a vomit inducing pains of the contractions.) It is sort of a combination of a hot-flash and a heavy falling asleep interrupted by the gentle beeps of the machine letting me know that my oxygen level is getting too low. We finished the blitz stage and the contractions have started getting a little less intense. The hope is that through the night they'll grow further apart and that Ursula will settle down. The good news is that so far Cedric is holding strong and I haven't dilated any further.
IT IS VERY POSSIBLE that this is just a minor setback and that we will quickly become blissfully boring again. If everybody could imagine, wish, hope, pray, believe that for us, that would be fabulous.
Thanks again for all your energy, we're looking forward to sending out a happier update soon.
With all the love in the world,
Lisa, Bruno, Pedro, Archer plus Cedric and Ursula
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Week 2 Update from Hospital (July 20th)
Greetings from hospital room 305 in Portland!
We are proud to announce that we have survived two weeks of strict hospital bed rest! The doctors (GD Dr. and Dr. Cuddly) have said i am critical but stable, meaning my cervix is still open so gravity is not currently my friend and i am at much greater risk for infection, but i am not having increased contractions or further dilation, and my membranes are still intact, both of which are good things. Dr. C remains cautiously optimistic and GD Dr. says, "well, you've defied the odds so far..." Again, we are going with Dr. C!
We have three more weeks till we make it to viability (for those of you keeping score at home, Sat is our turn day, so today, Sun July 20th, we are 23 weeks and 1 day). that is the first goal, and we plan to make it way beyond that. And, along those lines, we cant thank you all enough for all the messages of concern, prayers, well wishes, positive inspiration, jokes, stories from your daily life, pictures, stories of other bed rest successes, cards, and good vibes. You guys are keeping these babies healthy just as much as us with all your support. Please know how grateful Bruno and I are from the bottom of our beings.
A bunch of you have asked me what exactly "strict bed rest" means. Let me explain: it means lying flat in bed all the time, with the exception of my bedside commode privileges, for which i may sit up, briefly. I dream of the day i can pee behind a closed door again! How do I eat?, you may ask: lying down! First two culinary lessons for surviving bed rest: 1) stop ordering soup from the hospital menu (disastrous!) and 2) a long bendy straw is your best friend! Lesson three involves strategically placed towels.
"But surely you can sit up to read, or prop yourself up on pillows to watch TV, and how are you writing this now?", I hear you cry! Nope, no sitting, no propping, and here is the visual of me right now: I'm lying on my right side, pillows supporting my head, arm and gigantor belly. The computer is slid into me on an ingenious TV tray bruno purchased from bed bath and beyond, and I'm pecking stuff out with my left hand until my arm runs out of blood, at which point i roll onto my back, shake out my arm and dream of voice activated software. (we are currently investigating those possibilities)
Now let me describe our room: Bruno is nesting, and has so far added to our room (birth suite #5): a drain rack (filled with various dishes borrowed from the hospital plus a wine glass and coffee mug for Bruno; try the imagine my coffee snob of a husband's dismay at the fact that i now sip my morning coffee through a straw out of a plastic hospital cup with a lid!), a coffee grinder, a coffee maker, a toaster, two TV trays (one to hold his laptop, one to hold mine), a hand held blender stick (hence the flax smoothies), a small printer (i'm not kidding, folks) a pantry full of health food, ranging from omega three rich walnuts (omega three's build baby brains!) to the dreaded flax seed and wheat germ to a bar of dark chocolate i know he's got stashed in there somewhere. For decoration, we've been hanging all the cards and poems you glorious people are sending (mounted of course on colorful paper: thanks mom!), fruit basket on top of the TV cabinet, flowers in the windows, balloons on the push pin board, obama '08 bumper sticker taped to the dry wipe board where we record our daily progress (23 and 1/7; whoo!) and one of the last pictures of me upright (which we titled "Belly on ice" ) hanging by the bed. I've attached the picture for your amusement.
Ok, enough for now. we love you all dearly and appreciate your continued good vibes, support and contact. See ya next week!
love, lisa bruno, pedro and archer, + cedric and ursula
ps: my sister-in-law suggested i name my cervix and uterus and talk to them, sort of cheer them on. So it's Cedric the cervix and Ursula Uterus.
We are proud to announce that we have survived two weeks of strict hospital bed rest! The doctors (GD Dr. and Dr. Cuddly) have said i am critical but stable, meaning my cervix is still open so gravity is not currently my friend and i am at much greater risk for infection, but i am not having increased contractions or further dilation, and my membranes are still intact, both of which are good things. Dr. C remains cautiously optimistic and GD Dr. says, "well, you've defied the odds so far..." Again, we are going with Dr. C!
We have three more weeks till we make it to viability (for those of you keeping score at home, Sat is our turn day, so today, Sun July 20th, we are 23 weeks and 1 day). that is the first goal, and we plan to make it way beyond that. And, along those lines, we cant thank you all enough for all the messages of concern, prayers, well wishes, positive inspiration, jokes, stories from your daily life, pictures, stories of other bed rest successes, cards, and good vibes. You guys are keeping these babies healthy just as much as us with all your support. Please know how grateful Bruno and I are from the bottom of our beings.
A bunch of you have asked me what exactly "strict bed rest" means. Let me explain: it means lying flat in bed all the time, with the exception of my bedside commode privileges, for which i may sit up, briefly. I dream of the day i can pee behind a closed door again! How do I eat?, you may ask: lying down! First two culinary lessons for surviving bed rest: 1) stop ordering soup from the hospital menu (disastrous!) and 2) a long bendy straw is your best friend! Lesson three involves strategically placed towels.
"But surely you can sit up to read, or prop yourself up on pillows to watch TV, and how are you writing this now?", I hear you cry! Nope, no sitting, no propping, and here is the visual of me right now: I'm lying on my right side, pillows supporting my head, arm and gigantor belly. The computer is slid into me on an ingenious TV tray bruno purchased from bed bath and beyond, and I'm pecking stuff out with my left hand until my arm runs out of blood, at which point i roll onto my back, shake out my arm and dream of voice activated software. (we are currently investigating those possibilities)
Now let me describe our room: Bruno is nesting, and has so far added to our room (birth suite #5): a drain rack (filled with various dishes borrowed from the hospital plus a wine glass and coffee mug for Bruno; try the imagine my coffee snob of a husband's dismay at the fact that i now sip my morning coffee through a straw out of a plastic hospital cup with a lid!), a coffee grinder, a coffee maker, a toaster, two TV trays (one to hold his laptop, one to hold mine), a hand held blender stick (hence the flax smoothies), a small printer (i'm not kidding, folks) a pantry full of health food, ranging from omega three rich walnuts (omega three's build baby brains!) to the dreaded flax seed and wheat germ to a bar of dark chocolate i know he's got stashed in there somewhere. For decoration, we've been hanging all the cards and poems you glorious people are sending (mounted of course on colorful paper: thanks mom!), fruit basket on top of the TV cabinet, flowers in the windows, balloons on the push pin board, obama '08 bumper sticker taped to the dry wipe board where we record our daily progress (23 and 1/7; whoo!) and one of the last pictures of me upright (which we titled "Belly on ice" ) hanging by the bed. I've attached the picture for your amusement.
Ok, enough for now. we love you all dearly and appreciate your continued good vibes, support and contact. See ya next week!
love, lisa bruno, pedro and archer, + cedric and ursula
ps: my sister-in-law suggested i name my cervix and uterus and talk to them, sort of cheer them on. So it's Cedric the cervix and Ursula Uterus.
| belly-on-snow.jpg 42K View Download |
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Week 1 update from hospital (July 13th)
Dear all you lovely thought senders,
First things first, an update: I've just made it through my first week in the hospital and things have not gotten any worse than when arrived here, in fact, they are a little bit better. After two days upside down and after Pedro moved his foot, the doctors took me out of Trendelenburg position and decided the risk of bladder or kidney infection was greater than the risk of my rupturing my membranes, and they took me off the catheter. Never knew that peeing sitting up could make me so happy!
So, where we are now is that the cervix is still open and the membrane is still in the cervix, but it doesn't seem to be getting any worse than that. If you talk to my pessimistic doctor - we'll call him Dr GD (gloom and doom) - I'm still extremely high risk and can't count on making it past tomorrow. If you talk to my optimist doctor - we'll call him Dr Cuddly - it hasn't gotten worse in a week, so there's a good chance we can hang out just like this until these babies become deliverable. I'm going with Dr Cuddly's projection.
Business aside, thank you each and every one for your fabulous good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, poems, jokes, ecards, stories and tales of your lives in the outside world. They are the fuel my soul is running on, so feel free to write anytime you feel so moved.
I want to share one comment that had me had me laughing so hard my belly monitor went beserk: "Tell Pedro and Archer, 'You boys settle down or I'll turn this uterus right around!"
Bruno has decided that the one thing he can control here is my nutrition and he's created an Excel spreadsheet to track various foods across my pregnancy nutrition needs. I swear he'll be a registered dietitian before this is done. Each day, the list of foods grows longer and the spreadsheet more complicated. I find all this charming, except when being force-fed flax seed smoothies and arugula.
I'll save telling you more for future updates, but highlights will include a description of our hospital room, which is larger than an NYC studio apt, and a recounting of my visit from a Chabad of Oregon rabbi - I know, I know. an oxymoron.
Let me sign off by sharing a poem that was sent to me, but I never fully understood it until now.
First things first, an update: I've just made it through my first week in the hospital and things have not gotten any worse than when arrived here, in fact, they are a little bit better. After two days upside down and after Pedro moved his foot, the doctors took me out of Trendelenburg position and decided the risk of bladder or kidney infection was greater than the risk of my rupturing my membranes, and they took me off the catheter. Never knew that peeing sitting up could make me so happy!
So, where we are now is that the cervix is still open and the membrane is still in the cervix, but it doesn't seem to be getting any worse than that. If you talk to my pessimistic doctor - we'll call him Dr GD (gloom and doom) - I'm still extremely high risk and can't count on making it past tomorrow. If you talk to my optimist doctor - we'll call him Dr Cuddly - it hasn't gotten worse in a week, so there's a good chance we can hang out just like this until these babies become deliverable. I'm going with Dr Cuddly's projection.
Business aside, thank you each and every one for your fabulous good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, poems, jokes, ecards, stories and tales of your lives in the outside world. They are the fuel my soul is running on, so feel free to write anytime you feel so moved.
I want to share one comment that had me had me laughing so hard my belly monitor went beserk: "Tell Pedro and Archer, 'You boys settle down or I'll turn this uterus right around!"
Bruno has decided that the one thing he can control here is my nutrition and he's created an Excel spreadsheet to track various foods across my pregnancy nutrition needs. I swear he'll be a registered dietitian before this is done. Each day, the list of foods grows longer and the spreadsheet more complicated. I find all this charming, except when being force-fed flax seed smoothies and arugula.
I'll save telling you more for future updates, but highlights will include a description of our hospital room, which is larger than an NYC studio apt, and a recounting of my visit from a Chabad of Oregon rabbi - I know, I know. an oxymoron.
Let me sign off by sharing a poem that was sent to me, but I never fully understood it until now.
Hope is a thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all
And surest in the gale is heard
And sore must be the storm
That could abash that little bird
That keeps so many warm
I have heard it in the strangest land
And on the chillest sea
Yet never, in extremity
It asked a crumb of me.
Emily Dickinson
My deepest love and gratitude to everyone, Lisa
p.s. A lot of people asked why Archer is nicknamed Archer. Every time we see him on ultrasound he is arching his back and constantly moving and squirming around. I think he'll be a yoga instructor. Bruno disagrees.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
First E-mail From Hospital (July 9th)
Hi Everyone,
I am currently in a hospital in Portland, Oregon on strict bed rest. The babies are fine but my cervix opened when Bruno and I were 3 days from reaching San Francisco. By the grace of God we recognized the signs of pre-term labor and we went to the hospital in a small town of Seaside, Oregon. There they evaluated us and sent me by ambulance to the best Perinatal unit in Oregon. They did an ultrasound and found that my cervix was dilated 1cm but was still long and I wasn't having contractions - both of which are good. But, one of the twins had placed his foot into the cervix - which is bad. They put me on strict hospital bed rest, not even getting up to use the bathroom and put me in a bed tilted backwards to take the pressure off the cervix and try to convince the boy to take his foot out of there (by the way, to keep ourselves in good humor and in honor of the twin with the rogue foot we nicknamed him "PEDro RETRACTovich"). I spent the night trying to sleep and mentally imaging him changing his position. The ultrasound in the morning showed that Pedro had in fact moved his foot - he RetractovichED! The goal now is to get his water sack to move out of the cervix so I remain lying with all the blood rushing towards my head. The general thought is that I will be in Portland hospital on bed rest until I deliver these babies and we're trying to keep them in me as long as possible.
There are some truly scary possibilities for how this could end but I remain utterly hopeful. Babies are viable for survival at 26 weeks and I'm currently at 21.5. So I would love and deeply appreciate all positive thoughts, prayers, and good energy for a competent cervix and as long of a term of gestation for these boys as possible. I miss you and thank you for all your positive energy and I'd love to hear what's happening in your worlds.
Love,
Lisa (and Bruno and Pedro and Archer)
I am currently in a hospital in Portland, Oregon on strict bed rest. The babies are fine but my cervix opened when Bruno and I were 3 days from reaching San Francisco. By the grace of God we recognized the signs of pre-term labor and we went to the hospital in a small town of Seaside, Oregon. There they evaluated us and sent me by ambulance to the best Perinatal unit in Oregon. They did an ultrasound and found that my cervix was dilated 1cm but was still long and I wasn't having contractions - both of which are good. But, one of the twins had placed his foot into the cervix - which is bad. They put me on strict hospital bed rest, not even getting up to use the bathroom and put me in a bed tilted backwards to take the pressure off the cervix and try to convince the boy to take his foot out of there (by the way, to keep ourselves in good humor and in honor of the twin with the rogue foot we nicknamed him "PEDro RETRACTovich"). I spent the night trying to sleep and mentally imaging him changing his position. The ultrasound in the morning showed that Pedro had in fact moved his foot - he RetractovichED! The goal now is to get his water sack to move out of the cervix so I remain lying with all the blood rushing towards my head. The general thought is that I will be in Portland hospital on bed rest until I deliver these babies and we're trying to keep them in me as long as possible.
There are some truly scary possibilities for how this could end but I remain utterly hopeful. Babies are viable for survival at 26 weeks and I'm currently at 21.5. So I would love and deeply appreciate all positive thoughts, prayers, and good energy for a competent cervix and as long of a term of gestation for these boys as possible. I miss you and thank you for all your positive energy and I'd love to hear what's happening in your worlds.
Love,
Lisa (and Bruno and Pedro and Archer)
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