We've made it to 23 weeks and 3 days :)

This week's appt. was more of the usual. We had an ultrasound to check all the vessels they are watching and they took a quick look at their hearts again. Nothing has changed, for better or worse. Dr. Walker came in to see us, followed by our nurse Donna, then Melissa, the nurse coordinator. Uh, oh, I thought, what now? The big gun is coming in followed by his support group reinforcements. I knew something was up....argh, what are they going to say?

Dr. Walker showed us on the ultrasound that both babies still have a leaky valve, which we knew, but Baby B has an additional heart issue. Her pulminary artery is looking very narrow and sending the blood flow through her heart very fast. This doesn't give one chamber enough blood to be able to pump fast or hard enough to grow as big as it needs too. He referred us to a fetal cardiologist for another Echo and consult at Children's Hospital. The cardiologist will be able to diagnose the situation and determine whether or not she will need heart surgery after she is born. Dr. Walker did say that this is something that can happen to the ex-recipient of TTTS, which Baby B is. There is a procedure they might be able to do inserting a balloon in the artery to help expand it, but we will have to wait and see what the cardiologist thinks will be the case.

We did get some good news though. Since everthing is reletively stable at the moment (hematoma was not detectable and the extra fluid pocket is very small), Dr. Walker feels that we could wait until maybe 25 or 26 weeks for hospitalization. We will discuss it more at my next appt. on Monday June 23rd. I will be 24 weeks this coming Saturday, so though the new goal is not that far away, it is one or two weeks more I can have at home. My boys are out of school this Friday, June 20, so I will get to see them a little more before I leave for my "summer vacation" :)

So, for now, I am still keeping my couch warm for at least another week...we are thankful for the small things!

Weekly ultrasound report 22 1/2 weeks

My ultrasound appt. was on Wed. this week and Tom decided to stay at work. Every time he goes with me he has to make up time so he can save all the time off possible to bail me out after these kiddos are born. My dad drove me and I got to go in by myself. By now, the ultrasounds are very routine and I can tell what they are doing and how much trouble they might or might not have catching the babies as they swim around my belly. I got a good profile shot of Baby A as well as more DVD video...check her out...

All was pretty routine. They did the normal dopplers on the vessels they keep an eye on and found the usual. All looks good except the heart leakage, which is still there, and low fluid on Baby B. I thought they might measure their growth, but the tech explained they only do that about every 4 weeks unless they think the babies look too small or something. My babies were measuring big the last time, so they are not concerned. I have also gained 7 pounds in 3 weeks, so we know something is growing....yah, me too, blech. I am quickly growing right out of the tons of maternity clothes I have accumulated through the last couple of years....just might have to throw them to someone else :)

During the ultrasound I got really dizzy and felt hot and yucky. I had to sit up for a minute and have a cold washcloth on my forehead. I felt like I was going to pass out and fall off the table...I have never felt like such an invalid (ok, maybe not the right spelling, but you catch my drift!) before in my life! Donna, the nurse, hung out with me to make sure I wasn't going to fall off the table and got me crackers and juice. It took a little while, but I soon felt better.

Dr. Paek came in to talk to me and double checked the fluid levels on both babies. Last week, Baby B's fluid was only about 2 cm and this time it was down to about 1.54 cm. This was not news in our favor. We have been waiting until 24 weeks, which will be June 21, to see if my fluid leakage was over with. I haven't had any noticeable leakage, but they suspect I am still losing it from Baby B's sack since her levels aren't where they are supposed to be. They are not worried about her though because they can still see her bladder. This means she is producing the fluid, it just isn't being retained in her sack. Soooooo, hooray for us, Dr. Paek reminded me we have been waiting to hit the 24 week mark for an extended hospital stay and wants to talk over plans at our next appt. The next appt. is Monday, June 16th...they will be doing another Echocardiogram on both babies' hearts, and the usual, followed by incarsaration plans for me. It looks like I have one last week of freedom, haha, if you call bedrest freedom!

I had to add this funny note. We hit a new all time record in the "bill receiving" catagory today. Tom walked in from work and handed me a stack of 9 envelopes all from our insurance company! Inside each envelope was at least 3 or 4 explanations of benefits showing how much our insurance isn't covering for all this...thank goodness we have a secondary that picks up the tab!! My mother-in-law thinks I should frame all the bills and pull them out when the twins have a cow over what color of lip stick to chose or something :) The cost is definitely hitting the "impressive" range....and is only going to add up even further with my new Summer Vacation plans at the hospital! Ha ha, I guess at least I will be in air conditioning. Because of my upcoming plans, I have been online shopping. I need some bigger comfy clothes to wear, so while laying around for months in the hospital, it will not include living in a lovely hospital gown and those oh so comfy mesh undies every day!

Until next time, I will go...starting to fall asleep at my keyboard......goodnight :)

Nesting time is here! :)

This last week I spent going from couch to lawn chair cleaning out my kids' rooms. We had sooo many toys we could hardly walk in those rooms! Fortuneatly for me and my sanity, my friends Angie, Joyce and Jamie, and my parents of course, came to help. We worked like dogs, throwing away broken toys and sorting others for my mom's garage sale Saturday. Every day my dad hauled away boxes of priced items and I got to go on a field trip to my parent's house to sit in the driveway :) I made a little bit of money and my sis and I took the bulk of the leftovers to the DI truck at the church. Ahhh, I feel so cleansed of toys! Now that things are cleaned out, the boys are all moved in together and the babies' room is cleared out. Morgan's room got cleaned out, my dad took down the crib, and put up her new toddler bed. She thinks it's pretty fun to jump on and tuck her animals into, but sleeping in it is challenging! Oh well, she was climbing out of her crib anyway...ah, toddlers are so fun! :)

Weekly ultrasound report...from the couch :)

Hi again! I am now 21 weeks, 4 days pregnant, yeah :) We had our weekly ultrasound this morning. Tom really looks forward to this, haha. He made a sarcastic comment that "maybe we will get to have another ultrasound today" so I shared this with the nurse while Tom was parking the van. She laughed, and as she went out the door, Tom was coming in. She told him that he got to sit through another ultrasound today and giggled. Ok, this may not sound very funny, but at this point we have lost track of how many we have had and though Tom is tired of sitting in the doctor's office for 2 hours every time, he still goes in case something new is discovered. His sarcasm is part of his charm :) At the right time of course :) We have to find humor somewhere in all this roller coaster of a pregnancy!

Enough with the dribble and on to the info! Babies are moving alot and I am really feeling them now :) Baby B even had the hiccups today. They did the usual dopplers on the main veins they are watching and all looks good. Each of their hearts still have a leaky valve, but Dr. Walker explained a little better what exactly is happening. He isn't too worried at this point that it will continue to be a problem or even if is a problem at all. He said this is typical behavior of the former recipient twin (baby B), which I think I explained before :) And, of course in my case, both babies are showing this in the same valve. The new thing we learned about this is that it could all go away once they are born. The upper valve connects the upper and lower sections of the heart and is affected by the lungs. Since babies in utero have collapsed lungs, they do not put pressure on the heart. Once a baby takes it's first breath, the lungs fill with air and apply pressure to the heart. This forces the small amount of pooled blood out and the valves then seal off. He said a cardiologist would probably not be too worried about this either and would just want to watch them closely after they were born to see how it might resolve. The important thing right now is that they both have normal blood flow running through the center of their hearts and blood is pumping normally through their systems.

It has been 10 days since I lost any fluid (I sound like someone at AA, haha, the pocket looks significantly smaller than it has, and the hemotoma (blood clot) is almost completely gone. Fluid levels for Baby A look great, but Baby B looks a little diminished. Dr. Walker feels that maybe Baby B ended up with less share in the placenta after the laser surgery, and though she has been the bigger twin up to this point, may not grow as quickly or as large as Baby A. Baby B's bladder is still visible, which we have learned is very important, so she is still producing fluid. Her sack is the one with the leak, so it is possible that I may still be losing small amounts of fluid that is un-noticeable. Though her fluid is low, since she is a twin, she still has lots of room to move, providing joint and lung development, because of Baby A's sack cushioning her.

Dr. Walker told us it was pretty amazing that we have made it this far and all looks pretty good, especially where we are as opposed to where we were even 4 weeks ago :) He said he was fairly confident that we will have a positive outcome and as long as the babies are growing and developing as they are, we will be in good shape. And if all is still going well, the longest we will probably go is 34 weeks...according to Dr. Walker, "When enough is enough :) We don't want to tempt fate any longer than we have too". :)

So, until next week...I will be here on my couch :)

Weekly ultrasound report @ 20 1/2 weeks

Yesterday I had another ultrasound...we have so many, I have lost count! The babies were extremely active, as usual, and the tech was thrilled about it, haha. Of course, it would help if I didn't drink root beer or orange juice right before my appointment! Sorry tech. :)

They did an echocardiogram on both babies. It took over an hour to chase them around and focus in on each blood vessel on their tiny, dime size hearts. A couple of weeks ago they were concerned that maybe Baby A had a hole in her heart, but found it is not a hole, but a leaky valve. Baby B is following suit with the same leaky valve. This means the blood pumping through their hearts is being pushed through quickly and has some back flow. Sigh.... We heard the statement, "it is still so early" again...this is good though. It means there is time for their heart valves to firm up and repair themselves. This is fairly typical of at least one twin recovering from TTTS, but not in both. Of course, my babies have to be an exception to the rules....maybe this will change over time...this is my hope :) They will repeat the echocardiogram in 4 weeks to re check them.

Good news...at this point, I have not lost any amniotic fluid since last Saturday :) This means that the hole in the sack is sealing and things are settling down. If I can keep this record going, I will not have to go in the hospital at 24 weeks...this is our hope too :)

So for now, we pray for healthy hearts and no more fluid :) Can we be that specific? I'm sure Heavenly Father knows what's best :) We have certainly been blessed so far! Our next appointment is next Wednesday, June 4. Let's hope we continue with better news :)

I'm Back! :)

After spending 4 nights in the hospital, I got to come home :) Wed. I had an ultrasound at the MFM doc's at Valley and all is improving. Both babies are doing great and have plenty of amniotic fluid. They found a pocket of fluid between the outer amniotic sack and the inner chorionic sack that tracks up around the placeta a bit. The water I lost, and am still losing, is making its' way out little by little. It also looks like the blood clot I have is starting to resolve itself. In case you didn't read my previous entry, the pocket can form near the surgery site with some leakage that is trapped as the hole seals. This is both good and bad. It's very good since it means my water didn't break, but it is still a concern because it means part of the membrane wall has come loose from the inside of the uterus.

Good news first :) Since the hole where the leak was coming from was machine produced, it will heal better and faster. The hole is also very high up the side of the uterus so natural bacteria cannot enter as easily through the cervix and cause an infection. I am still on antibiotics as a precaution and have to watch my temp. and other signs of infection. If an infection occurs, it could endanger both me and the babies....we'll pray for that not to happen :) And, we were told the TTTS (twin to twin transfusion syndrome) is pretty much over with, thanks to Dr. Chmait! :)

Bad news...I'm still on bed rest. Oh well, this IS a very small price to pay to keep these kiddos, so I will try not to complain! And, hey, I DID get an awesome new couch out of the deal :) Thanks honey :) We had an appt. at Evergreen MFM today...Dr. Walker, who is the fetal surgeon that was in Nepal at the time I needed surgery, told me to take it easy and to keep the uterus as still as possible. This will help prevent the membrane not to tear away from the wall any further, which could cause my water to actually break and other not so good things we won't think about. He told me I was not allowed to have any more complications because I have pretty much had them all already! UGh...at least this is very minor compared to the babies having TTTS. At this point we are going on a day to day basis. If I am still leaking some fluid from the pocket by 24 weeks, I will have to move into the hospital and have the babies at 32 weeks. Ok, this may sound bad, but it is the original news we received when we found out there were two of these little parasites :) So, we will just have to fall back on our original plans and hope for the best possible outcome! So far, the hundreds of prayers offered in our behalf have definitely not been in vain! Thanks :)

Next Wed. my appt. at Evergreen MFM will be another long ultrasound and echo cardiograms on the babies' hearts. I got a DVD recording today of the ultrasound so will get it updated every week I am there. It is about 20 minutes long so it won't download...oh well, I will just have to post printed pics again...I'll hopefully not be updating this story until next week with more good news! Oh, and due to recent events, we have decided to name the babies Trauma and Drama, ha ha ha :)

Greetings from Valley Medical Center

Well, just when things started to look like they were getting somewhat normal (oops, I said normal!), a new scare came along. At 19 weeks pregnant, I was on bed rest for 1 and a half weeks like I was supposed to be...I was laying on the couch Sat. May 17 with my cute little daughter asleep by my side, and I suddenly felt a warm gush of fluid. I rushed to the bathroom and discovered my water had broken. Needless to say, Tom and I were scared. We thought it was all over, that the babies would be lost. We called Dr. Paek, the MFM doc at Evergreen, to see what we should do and where we should go. She told me that it didn't look good. There is an extremely high risk of infection when the membranes are ruptured early, and the babies cannot be born until at least 24 weeks. She suggested I call my OB and go to Valley Medical Center just down the street, so I did. Dr. Channel was on call for Doc Oxford...she told me not too worry too much and to come down and they would check things out. We got my friend Angie to come stay with the kids and went to the ER. Every time I stood up, I lost more fluid and I got more and more nervous. We got a wheelchair escort to the Birth Center and were sent to triage. They found both babies' heart beats, they sounded great, and then took a sample of fluid. Dr. Channel left the room to confirm that is was amniotic fluid, and I laid there, crying. As I laid there, more fluid was pouring out and we thought for sure this was the end. I have felt from the beginning that these babies are supposed to be here, and was not willling to accept what we thought was our fate.

I was admitted to the hospital and taken to my room. They started giving me antibiotics immediately to prevent any infection and I continued losing fluid. At around 9:00 they did an ultrasound. The babies were very active, as usual, and their fluid levels were completely normal. Baby A measured at 19 weeks, and Baby B measured at 20 weeks, 2 days. This was good news, but they were still concerned that I might start contracting, and go into labor. They hooked me up to constant monitoring and tried to comfort us. They told us several success stories where women carried their babies far enough, problem free, even after their water had broken. I have never known of anyone breaking their water this early, so was surprised that something could actually change for the better. The hope was to see no contraction, little or no more fluid loss, and strong heart beats on both babies.

I continued losing fluid through Sat. night, but by 6 am Sunday it had stopped. Tom was here with me and we watched a movie and tried to relax. We were still nervous...waiting always does that to me! The nurses continued pumping me full of two different antibiotics, checking my temperature and drawing blood. It was a fairly uneventful night. Tom fell asleep fairly quickly, as only he can do, and I eventually fell asleep. At about 4 AM, I woke up and coughed. Out came more fluid and my heart sank. I kind of fell asleep, I think, but nervous again, and at around 6 AM I lost some more fluid. Tom went to work and came back around 1:30 to stay with me.

Dr. Harding, from the MFM group at Valley, came in to talk to us about what was happening. He told us based on the ultrasound, lack of contractions, and state of the babies, he felt like the situation was getting better. He explained that sometimes after the laser surgery I had, some fluid can leak from the entry hole in the amniotic sack and get trapped between the outer wall of the amniotic sack and the inner wall of the chorionic sack (the outer sack that encloses both babies' sacks) and the hole will close up. This extra fluid is trapped there and when pressure is put on it, it can release and drain. He said there definitely was not a break in baby A's sack, because her levels were normal. She is also closest to the cervix and the pressure from gravity alone would have caused me to lose her fluid, go into labor and more than likely lose both babies. Another possibility was that Baby B's sack was losing fluid through the surgery hole and the hope was that it would seal itself and stop leaking. We were so relieved to here this! He scheduled us for an appt. on Wed. to recheck everything and maybe send me home. :) The rest of the day was uneventful (thank goodness!) No more fluid loss and still no contractions.

This morning at about 6 AM I lost a little more fluid. Dr. Harding checked in at around 8 AM, told me it looked like things were slowing down. I have now gone 13 hours without losing any more fluid and still no contractions! Tomorrow is my appt. with Dr. Harding's office to check fluid and baby growth. If all looks well, I will get to go home :) Wish me luck!