Shout out

I think I am beginning to find some rhythm and fun in all this. Today, Bruno and I decided to go on an outing to Napa. Our doctors had said that a drive of that distance would be fine, and since we anticipate an ever closing ring of movement, we decided to try getting out while the getting was good.

We were both pretty grouchy wrecks this morning, nervous that somehow something would go wrong. Bruno shouted a bit about, hmmm...I don't know what he was shouting about, and I changed outfits a few times, desperately trying to imagine clothes I could wear over my ballooning body for a whole day out and not want to tear off after a few hours. But eventually Bruno shouted out whatever nerves he needed to get out, and I packed a bag of alternative outfits, along with lunch, water, second lunch and a book, and we made it out of the house. And we only had to double back once, to pick up the bag which I left on the kitchen counter: pregnancy brain is sort of at the level of cow consciousness.

But then, really, we were off, and we started to relax a little and enjoy life. The California rain stopped and I was able to take in the beautiful green rolling hills, and the vineyards filled with yellow flowers: it's mustard season in Napa. We ate lunch as we drove, and even stopped in Petaluma on the way where Bruno let me trade in my 20 minute walk for 30 minutes on my feet trying on clothes at the Motherhood Maternity outlet. (I got a fetching red dress for $20 that floats effortlessly over my bubble belly, impinging no part of my body: bliss!) Then I sat like a queen on a series of chairs and fitting room benches declaring Yea or Nay while Bruno modeled various renditions of male work clothes. A lovely drive through more Napa scenery while I ate second lunch, another sit at the coffee and cupcake cafe (of course) and then an early dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Ubuntu, a bio-dynamic vegetarian place with first-rate food all from things grown either in their own gardens or locally by other gardeners. On our drive home, I reclined the passenger seat all the way down, turned on the tushie warmer, and napped the whole way.

And here I am, having spent 9 hours out of the house (but only 45 minutes total on my feet), and I'M NOT FREAKING OUT!! I know it is too much to hope that I've turned this emotional corner for good, but I'm going to shout out my gratitude for this new found peace and happiness for as long as it lasts!!

Journey On

So here we are. Nearly halfway through the journey, and yet also at the beginning again. I am now 17 weeks and 4 days pregnant, and when I was 17 weeks and 4 days pregnant with Pedro and Archer, we had a detailed ultrasound which showed my cervix to be "long" and "closed". We never got any measurements, and it was the first time in the pregnancy that anyone had measured my cervix so we don't really know what "long" meant. And as far as I know, no one pressed down on my belly to see if there was any funneling. But we were given the stamp of approval and sent on our way to drive across the country. Three weeks later, without my having felt a thing, my cervix had completely opened and our pregnancy was in peril.

So, here we are. At a familiar moment, embarking on a familiar journey, again through the dangerous period, but this time with so much more to guide us. We have taken so many steps to prepare for this moment, to try to pave the way onto a new road. We had the cerclage placed, added vitamins and supplements to bolster my immune system and quiet my uterus, started weekly monitoring of my cervix and our girls, began modified bedrest at week 12. And today, we started p17 shots, a painful little injection into my gluteal muscles, another weapon in our arsenal to fight against the path of the past.

So, here we are. I feel as though everything we have been through so far has been leading to these next three weeks. Of course, we need to make it much father than the next three weeks, but I feel the true battle begins now, the battle to change the course, to not repeat history. If we make it through the next three weeks without my going into labor, without my cervix opening, then I think we will have achieved a major step forward and an immense morale boost for the troupes.

So, here we are. And I, for one, am excited and even hopeful about what happens next.

White Flag

I am wrestling with some angel inside myself, and finding myself ready to surrender.

I've always been an info gal: gotta know! We did a CVS with Pedro and Archer without doing any other tests first: we just wanted to know for sure if anything was wrong, and we chose CVS instead of the less risky Amnio because we were planning to be on our cross-country trip during our Amnio window. I could just scream when I think now of how blithe we were, and how we tried to micro-manage everything, really believing that we could. Now, here I sit with statistics for downs syndrome that, while certainly not bad, are far from comforting, sitting right on the cusp of a positive test, a red flag. I can chose to know for sure, and take the higher risk involved with amnio for twins, piercing my uterus twice when we are working so hard to keep it calm and non-contracting. And then if (pu-pu) we find that one of our girls has downs, take the 5-10% risk that in terminating one twin we lose them both.

Or, I can surrender. I can say, "99.7% is a really good chance that nothing is wrong. I'm going to have faith in that, and if one of them has downs, then Bruno and I will be really really upset, and then we will suck it up and learn all the lessons and blessings in raising a downs child. And her sibling will also find her way to learn and grow from it.

"But", my mind screams, "this is not who I am at all!!! I am a gal who needs to know!! I need to manage!! I don't want my life changed by a special needs child!!" Except, my heart seems ready to surrender. It doesn't want to take any more risks of pregnancy loss. It doesn't want to need to know that last 3/10ths of a percent. It wants to lean back into the pillows and stay calm and see what happens next. And I am going through the stretching and tearing and growing pains of expanding into that new person.

Just The Facts, Ma'am, Week 16

Cervix is looking great: strong, no funneling, stitch holding beautifully. Measurement was 4.2, which freaked me out 'cause it seemed smaller than at my OB's where it was 5, but peri says forget the number, 4-5 is all the same thing with just differences based on equipment and technicians. Phew!

Genetics, Integrated Screen: Trisomy is rock bottom at 1 in 100,000. Neg screen for neural tube disorders. Downs is somewhat of a disappointment at 1 in 300. We sat down with the genetics counselor for a while to try to understand what this means for twins. The long and the short of it is, for twin moms with our numbers, 1 in 300 of them will have a child with downs syndrome. It sounds so much lower than my sister-in-law's numbers of 1 in 2500, but 1 in 300 is a 99.7 percent chance that everything is fine, and there is a high rate of false positives with multiples. And, they didn't find any soft markers in the ultrasound. They are going to do another ultrasound in two weeks, but right now, I think we are leaning toward no amnio and just taking the leap of faith that all is well.

Sex: OK, ready......two girls! Apparently, we don't do anything by halves!

A good friend of mine summed up all this information with the following pronouncement: "This sounds like fantastic news, all the way 'til High School!"

Numbers

It has been 11 days since my last blog post, and I have been through approximately 34 mood swings, 63 bouts of paranoia, 176 glasses of water, 231 trips to the bathroom, 14 episodes of The Tudors, 1.4 books (shameful!), 44 attempts to meditate (6 of them moderately successful), 66 meals (OK: 74), 8 hours of tutoring, 16 searches on Google to look up imagined symptoms, 3 occasions of being unnecessarily short with my mother, 9 naps, 500 Facebook log ons, 6 conversations with the insurance company, 3 moments of "having words" with Bruno and 4 good cries.

Wednesday we get our numbers back from our second trimester blood work. These numbers theoretically tell us the percent chance that our children have certain genetic disorders. We will also get numbers describing how long my cervix currently is, numbers telling us how all the limbs and parts of our children are measuring against what they are supposed to be right now, and the number of ounces they each weigh. We'll be told the number of weeks and days they are each measuring and the number of weeks and days my uterus is measuring. We'll hear the numbers of my weight and my blood pressure and my temperature. We'll be told the number of times a day I can stand up and the number of times a week I can leave the house and how many minutes I can shower for.

Meanwhile, I am keeping close watch on some numbers of my own: today I am 16 weeks along in this pregnancy, which means we have 140 days until I hit 36 weeks (full term for twins), 112 days until we hit 32 weeks (great chance for twin viability), 84 days until we hit 28 weeks (the first time we will feel a little safe), 60 days until we hit 24 weeks and 4 days (the time at which we lost Pedro and Archer), and only 36 days until we hit 21 weeks and 1 day (the time we discovered my cervix was open).

And only 3 more hours until I can respectably go to sleep and count myself another day closer to bringing our children to safety

Closing the Chest

When we left the hospital in Oregon, we had a cardboard box used to hold breast milk bottles filled with our last tangible memories of our sons: the baby blankets they were wrapped in, the little woven hats they wore, the diapers for preemies, which hung off our teeny tiny pre-preemies. The stretchy beaded ring Bruno bought for me to wear when I became too swollen to wear my wedding bands. Two little pandas my Mom got to decorate the hospital room. Cards and cards and cards, sent to cheer us on during our stay and then accompanying flowers to acknowledge our loss. Hand prints and foot prints of our darlings, tucked into paper boxes given to us by the hospital, a card signed by all the hospital staff who helped us through this time, MIT baby blankets we'd optimistically ordered while in the hospital, certificates of baptism and blessing, the wrist tags they'd worn identifying them as ours, ultrasound pictures of them along the way, photos taken the day of their birth and death, and finally the tiny sage colored urn, decorated with small enameled flowers that holds the remains of our sons.

It's been sitting in the closet in that cardboard breast milk box since we got home, and periodically we take it down and go through the contents, each time commenting that we need to get something beautiful to replace the cardboard, but knowing we didn't have the heart or stomach to shop for it.

So we passed the task on to my wondrous Momma. Who has been culling the antique shops of the area, looking for such an item, guessing at our taste and at the dimensions we need to house this love and this pain. Patiently, she has bought and returned offerings deemed by us to be too big or too small, too plain or too or ornate or just not us. Or perhaps we just weren't ready.

Yesterday afternoon, hours before 2009 drew to a close, my wondrous Momma showed up at our door with a new candidate. She put it on our table, took a step back and started in with her usually disclaimers about how she could return it if it wasn't.... Bruno and I didn't even have to confer with each other. It was perfect. It was exactly what we would have picked if we had been able to do this task ourselves. Hugs, tears, thanks, and wondrous Momma was off, task completed.

Now it was our turn. Our selection stood on our table for several more hours as we continued our lives around it, knowing it was there, but not quite ready to deal with it. As the sun set, we took the new, handsome but simple, small, dark-wood chest, with its subtle metal clasps and details, into the bedroom, and took out the cardboard breast milk box for the last time. Piece by piece, we transferred our memories, looking at each card, remembering the love and support Archer and Pedro generated in the world. We looked at their little selves, captured on camera by our loving nurse, and we cried, so sad that we couldn't bring them safely into this world. Piece by piece, we transferred them to their new home, the discrepancy between this and what we wanted to offer them not lost on us.

And then we were done. And we closed the chest. Its not locked and we can open it whenever we want, but our boys and their memories now rest in a place of beauty, selected lovingly, respectfully, by family.

And now it is 2010.

Bruno, sentimental heart that he is, couldn't yet recycle the breast milk box; it still sits in the corner of our room. We'll see how long it takes him to let go of that.