Twins?!?!?!

Bleeding at any stage during a pregnancy is scary. You feel as though you are about to miscarry, about to lose the life that was growing inside you, that your body was not healthy enough to take care of another human being inside of you.

I started spotting labor day weekend, I was 7 weeks pregnant. I woke up in the morning to pee and there was blood. I started to panic and told dave, but I talked myself down. I knew there was nothing that we could do if I were to start bleeding heavily, that nature needed to take its course. So I waited a couple of hours because it wasn't flowing, just spotting. But it happened again a little later. So I called the drs office. It was Saturday, so they were closed and they would page the on-call dr. Thank goodness Dave's cousin's husband happened to be the dr. on call that day. He has such a calm and soothing demeanor that he made me not worry about it. He told me that if it would make me feel better, I could go to the lab and get blood drawn. I asked him what he would do if I was his wife and this was happening. He told me he would have me rest for the weekend and call him if it happens again and have blood drawn on Tuesday. So I told him thats what I would do for right now.

On Tuesday, I went to the lab to have my hcg level drawn. Wednesday, I got a phone call that put a smile on my face. The nurse called me and told me that my hcg levels were high enough to see something on ultrasound and the dr wanted me to come in to have an ultrasound tomorrow. Tomorrow! I wasn't supposed to go to the drs to get checked out and get an ultrasound until I was 8 weeks pregnant and that was a week away, but now I get to see what was going on inside me tomorrow! I was nervous and excited and I could barely sleep that night.

Dave and I drove separate cars to the drs that day because we both had to go to work afterwords. I went in and filled out the paperwork nervously. Then we both sat down and watched their big screen flat panel tv. We laughed nervously at the babies in the magazines and then dave pointed to the screen because they were talking about twin pregnancies and he said to me, maybe we're having twins! I said no way, what are you smoking?? There's no way I was carrying twins...

I never realized that I never told dave that this first ultrasound was an internal ultrasound. So when we walked in and the ultrasound tech told me to take off my pants in the bathroom and come out with a sheet wrapped around me, he looked at her and looked at me with the most confused look on his face. I laughed and I told him it was ok, that it was just an internal ultrasound. So when the tech was looking, she turned the screen away from me probably because she wanted to make sure there was something there to see because of the bleeding. dave and i looked at each other nervously. Then she turned the screen to me and pointed and said there is a heartbeat here and pointed to another spot on the screen and said there is another one here and then turned the screen away and said I have to see if there are anymore. I looked at dave and he was jumping up and down saying I told you! I knew it! Thoughts of risks of twin pregnancies raced through my head, wait, did she say she was looking for more heartbeats???

After the ultrasound, the tech told us that everything was fine and to sit for a few mins so that she could get a dr to talk to us about the ultrasound. I sat there in shock. Twins? How did this happen? Did I release two eggs or did the eggs split? All the risks of a twin pregnancy went through my head again: increased risk for Pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes, twin to twin transfusion, and not to mention how huge I was gonna get. What were we going to do?

Dr. Namkoong, dave's cousin's husband said he would take a few mins to talk to us. He explained to dave and I that our babies were identical. that it looked like they shared a placenta and that they each have their own gestational sac but share a chorionic sac. They were monochorionic diamniotic. He looked at me because I probably still had a look of shock on my face that was followed by worry. He asked me what was the matter. I told him that I was now a high risk pregnancy and I was worried about twin to twin transfusion. Dave said wait wait wait, what does that mean? Peter explained that twin to twin transfusion was like when two people are living in a condo: they each have their own living spaces, but they share a heating system. sometimes one person gets too much heat and the other side doesn't get enough. The placenta is the twins heating system but they each have their own living spaces. So we went on our way full of joy (and shock) of carrying not one baby but two babies.

Are you pregnant?

3 weeks was a very long time to wait for my mother and sister to get back from their trip. I wanted to tell them every time I talked to them on the phone and every time I read an email from my sister I cried. I also remember being so exhausted. My coworkers would make fun of me for falling asleep at 8 pm.

I remember the day we went to pick my family up from the airport very clearly because it didn't go as planned. I wanted to wait until we had gotten home from our 3 hour drive from LaGuardia Airport and make the big announcement to my family and then drive to Dave's parents house and give them the big news.

We had borrowed dave's parents car to pick up my family so we only had to take one vehicle. We got to dave's parents house and I immediately ran to the bathroom because my morning sickness taking over. I heard dave's father walk in the door and ask dave where i was. He said she doesn't feel so good, she's in the bathroom. When I walked out of the bathroom and into the kitchen he looked at me and said what's the matter? are you pregnant? I couldn't lie to him. So I said yes and the smile that took over his face, overwhelmed me. He was ecstatic. He said that the only time his wife patty had morning sickness was when she was pregnant with the twins, dave's older brothers. Twins? Impossible.

As we were approaching the airport, we were late and I could see their faces. They were impatient after a 24 hour flight and their faces showed just that. Who could blame them? They just wanted to be home and we still had a 3 hour drive home. We pulled up to sidewalk to get their luggage and get people in the car and I felt the wave of nausea come over me. I opened the car door and threw up right in front of my mother. Nice. This was how I was gonna tell my mother and sister I was pregnant, by throwing up on them. So I told them, I just couldn't hide it. My sister's response in her typical fashion was are you sure? how do you know? My mother's response was not the excitement that I had hoped for, but my mother is never one to show much emotion. So now our family and close friends knew and I was about 6 weeks pregnant.

Creating life out of love and devotion

I will never forget the day we found out we were pregnant. Its a moment that I shared with my husband and I remember the joy and love we felt that day. The idea that I was carrying life inside me filled me with overwhelming thoughts of joy and love. I always wanted to be a mother, a nurturing soul at heart, I grew up taking care of others before taking care of myself. This is our story of love and loss.

Dave and I had been thinking about trying to conceive for awhile but we had wanted to wait until I had gotten my bachelor's degree. So April of 2009, we stopped birth control, but vowed to not aggressively try to conceive. We didn't want to become the over aggressive couple that became so obsessed with becoming pregnant that we would lose sight about what it was about: Creating a life out of love and devotion.

Months passed and we kind of forgot that we were "trying to not try" to get pregnant. One day, my sister asked me if we were pregnant because she had had a dream that we were. I laughed at her and told her no. It was the weekend before she was leaving for a trip to China, Hong Kong, and Japan with my parents for 3 weeks. During these 3 weeks, my life would drastically change.

I was overemotional when my family left for their trip. My coworkers asked me about my family and their vacation and I burst into tears because I missed my sister and mother so much. I didn't realize I was pregnant at the time and brushed it off as being PMS.

One day, a friend of mine asked me when I was supposed to get my period and I realized that I was late. It never even crossed my mind that my period was late. I hadn't even thought about my period because I was so tired and I was thinking about my family on the other side of the world and missing them.

So the next morning at 3 AM, I woke up because I had to pee. So I took the test. This was the longest 2 mins of my life. The house was silent except for the heavy breathing of my husband Dave and our dog Finn in the bedroom. I got back into bed because I didn't want to stare at the test because it would probably be negative. So after about 3 mins, I went back into the bathroom to look for the one word that had wanted to see but thought wasn't going to be there. But as I walked closer to the counter I saw the magic word: PREGNANT.

I wanted to jump for joy but I didn't want to wake Dave because he had to work at in just a few short hours. But I was so overjoyed that I woke him up by jumping in the bed. I scared him half to death. He immediately grabbed his glasses to see the test. He was looking for lines like the old fashioned non digital pregnancy tests. He was half asleep, not comprehending that it was a digital pregnancy test.

We hugged and kissed and layed there staring at each other for the next few hours, unable to sleep from the excitement of our news. We both wanted to call everyone and tell everyone right then and there, but from experience as a Labor and Delivery nurse, I knew we would have to keep our lips sealed for awhile. We vowed to keep our secret, a secret until our first appointment.

I wanted to tell my sister and mother first, but I couldn't tell them over email or phone, I wanted to tell them in person, but they wouldn't be back for 2 more weeks. So I couldn't keep my mouth shut and I told my 2 best friends, Kelli and Kristin. I called Kelli first and she didn't answer her phone, I was so excited that I called her husbands phone too. I knew she would know something was up after that. We were both super excited because she had just had her first perfect little baby girl and our children would be close in age and could grow up together. Then I called Kristin. I work with Kristin but she was in a different office than I was that day. She screamed! She was so excited for us. Later that day I had texted her to tell her that I didn't know if I was crazy or not but I might be having morning sickness and she responded that maybe I was crazy OR I was gonna have twins! I remember being so surprised that she thought I was having twins. Twins? that was impossible!!