Baby Gibson at 26 Weeks

It's been 6 weeks since the last baby update, so I figured it was time for a new one.

October 22, I had another ultrasound done with the high risk doctor at the Fetal Care Center. Gibson was 23 weeks at that point. It was the first time we took Liam with us to that doctor's office. The first thing he said when we entered the waiting room was, "Where da fish?" since my regular doc's waiting room has a fish tank. He's been there several times and always enjoys the fish. Since there were no fish, Liam decided he did not want to be there and tried to hulk out of his stroller while loudly complaining. Will had to take him out into the hallway. Liam was still complaining while we were in the ultrasound room waiting for the doctor to come in, but we were able to distract him with watching Thomas videos on the cell phone. The doctor came in and did a thorough ultrasound of Gibson. He looked great, and she told us everything was fine. However, she also told us she wanted me to have an ultrasound done every single week until he was born. I thought it seemed excessive, but this is my first high risk pregnancy and I figured it may just be protocol for people in my unique situation.

It was decided later on that day that the weekly ultrasounds would be done at my regular doctor's office and that I most likely wouldn't have to see the high risk doctor again, assuming everything continued to go well. At an appointment with my doctor a week later, she mentioned that I might have one more ultrasound over there during the pregnancy even if everything is still fine. So we'll see what happens.

The only concern my doctor has had so far concerning my health has been the fact that I've gained a lot of weight during this pregnancy. I honestly don't know how much, but I think it's between 25-30 pounds. Since I started out overweight, I have now already reached the limit of what my doctor's weight chart says a woman my size should gain during pregnancy. Oops. However, I haven't eaten poorly or eaten too much (in my opinion, at least). Have there been a few occasions when I ate more than I should have? Yes, but that's only been a few times. In October, my doctor told me she thought I had gestational diabetes because of all the weight gain. I ended up taking the GD test at the end of October. After four days, I still hadn't heard the results, so I called to find out. Thankfully, I had passed it. But at my appointment this week, I had gained almost 5 pounds in a little over two weeks. I really have no idea why! I did partake in more carbs than in previous weeks when I had the gestational diabetes thing hanging over my head. So now I have to seriously watch my carb intake for the rest of the pregnancy and keep a food journal. I pretty much have to pretend I have gestational diabetes without actually having it. I've already been walking regularly, but now I will start doing more. She doesn't want me to gain any weight at all by my next appointment (which is the day before Thanksgiving). I really don't want her to make me freak out about my weight the next three months. I seriously doubt I can go the rest of the pregnancy without gaining any weight. The doctor told me I was on track to have a much bigger baby than Liam (he was 7 pounds, 2 ounces). I certainly hope she's not going to try to use the big baby excuse to pressure me into a C-section. I know my hips can birth a 10 pound baby if it comes to that (and I really don't think it will).

Anyway, back to Gibson. I've now had an ultrasound done every week for the last four weeks. I'm starting to get used to having to go all the way to Baylor Dallas every week. The worst part is Haskell Ave, which is pretty much the last stretch before the hospital. I swear it's the bumpiest road in Dallas, and as a pregnant gal, I ALWAYS have to go to the bathroom badly by the time I get to that road. Not cool, Dallas. The ultrasounds have been really quick, as in it's taken me three times as long to drive there as it has to do the actual ultrasound. However, I'm not complaining because every week so far, I've gotten visual confirmation that Gibson is healthy and growing well. We've seen him open and close his mouth, stick out his tongue, kick, punch, and put his hands over his face. My mom got to go to an ultrasound while she was in town. At the ultrasound yesterday, I got to see Gibson in 3D/4D for a few moments. He looks like a normal baby! I think he looks a little like Liam. We'll see if that's really true, though. When Liam was born, I thought he looked like a pretty generic baby. Then after a week or so he started having his own look. It has been very reassuring to see Gibson every week and to know that he's fine. He's typically been head down during these ultrasounds, but a week ago he had flipped head up, and yesterday he was back head down. I hope head down is his favorite position. As of yesterday, Gibson weighed approximately 2 pounds, 3 ounces and is measuring a few days ahead of schedule.

These days, Gibson is kicking me hard. There's no such thing as "light movement" anymore with him. If I'm looking at my stomach, I can see all his moving around from the outside. Will gets to feel him regularly. Liam can't keep his hand still on my belly long enough to feel him. The other night Liam was sitting in my lap and laying on me (and Gibson). He was falling asleep so he was very still. Gibson was just pummeling him, but Liam was too drowsy to notice. It was like Gibson was telling him to get off of him. He even poked out a foot and left it there for several moments trying to move him. It didn't work. I still really don't know how much Liam understands about Gibson being inside me, but he laid his head on my belly recently and said, "Hey Gibson. You in there?!" He will also put toys on my belly to share with his brother, so I guess maybe he does understand a little. Either way, it's cute and sweet. I still think Liam will be a great big brother. It's hard to imagine that he'll get to be a big brother in less than 3 months.

I definitely don't want to leave out Collin. I've also had the chance to see him on ultrasound every week as well. He is still there, but he is so small now. It's not hard for me to see him on there, and I actually ask to see him. I don't know exactly what his size is, but Gibson seems like a giant compared to him. You can still see that Collin has a head and a body. He doesn't have much in the way of facial features anymore as far as I can tell, though. Earlier this week, I called and talk to a chaplain at the hospital to find out what our choices would be as far as what to do with Collin after both boys are born. I can't handle the thought of him just being thrown out as medical waste. There's no way I could let that happen, even if all that's left of him by then no longer resembles a baby. I talked to my doctor about it a couple weeks ago, and she suggested talking to a chaplain since they are the ones that deal with deaths at the hospital usually. I spoke to a woman who helps families with babies. It has to be a tough job to deal with the deaths of the youngest on a daily or weekly basis. She was very nice, and told me what my options were. Will and I have talked about this a lot, and had decided we wanted to have Collin cremated (if it's possible). There's a chance there won't be enough mass left to cremate, but we won't know that until it happens. Thankfully, planning for cremation is an option, and she said that when the babies are born, we'd get a visit from her or another chaplain and sign a paper saying they could contact the crematory (that we will choose beforehand) to come and get Collin and take him to be cremated. We would just have to pay the cremation fee. The other option was to release him to the hospital, they would have him cremated, and his ashes would be scattered in the Memorial Garden on the hospital property. Baylor has this garden just for the ashes of babies who are miscarried before 20 weeks there at the hospital. They do this with the parent's permission, but it sounds like they also do it if the parents don't want to do anything with the remains after a miscarriage. She said there are babies there who were miscarried at even just 6 weeks of age, which I think is amazing because some women miscarry that early without ever knowing they were pregnant. I think it shows a great reverence for life that they do this. It means Collin would not have been thrown out as medical waste anyway. The good thing about this option is that we'd have a place we could periodically visit. The bad thing is that we wouldn't be allowed to be there when his ashes were scattered. We want to have his ashes with us. We don't know what we will do with them yet, but we'd like to have him with us for at least a little while. It'll probably only be a tablespoon or less of ashes. It was a difficult conversation to have, and I was definitely pinching myself so I didn't bust out crying on the phone, but I'm glad it sounds like Collin will be treated like the human baby that he is, and that he'll be treated with dignity. I'm glad I don't have to fight and prove that he was and is a real baby. He is loved and already missed.

Gibson's foot and boy parts at 23 weeks

Gibson at 24 weeks

Collin

My belly at almost 25 weeks

Gibson on the left and Collin on the right-25 weeks

 

Sorry these next two are sideways:

3D of Gibson at 26 weeks

Tired of all the pictures

Gibson at 26 weeks

The massive amount of ultrasound pictures I was given this week

The Day Liam Met Curious George

Although Liam has moved on to Thomas the Train as his favorite character, he still loves Curious George. We saw on TV that there was a museum in Fort Worth with a temporary, interactive Curious George exhibit. Liam saw the commercial and said, "Liam go to it." He talked about it enough that we decided we should take him even though it wasn't cheap to go!

Because we always leave later than we originally plan to, we got to Fort Worth around lunch time instead of mid-morning. We went to our favorite restaurant, Spiral Diner. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a wait, so Liam had pretty much reached his limit of redirection and don't do that's by the time we sat down. The first high chair didn't have a buckle (really?), so it was a struggle getting him into another one. We distracted him with snacks and a to go cup long enough to scarf down our meal as quickly as possible before getting out of there before he got screamy.

At that point, it was nap time and he was tired and he was hungry because he didn't eat much. That was his fault. He was offered plenty of food. In the car, he got excited about going to the "George 'Seum" once again, so I was hoping it would all go well.

It was kind of dark in the Curious George room, and there were so many activities and people around, that I think it was just a tad too overwhelming for a tired Liam. He got fixated on the boulder moving station, and kept getting in other kids' ways. Then he got fixated on the golf station and kept trying to interrupt other kids playing. So before too long, Liam absolutely lost all patience with the amount of redirection we were having to do. I tried to get him to try other stations, but he kept wanting to go back to his two favorites. It's hard to remember all the details now, but I know Will had to pick him up and remove him from a situation, and then Liam became the one screaming in the room. Curious George was scheduled to make an appearance soon after that, and I didn't want Liam to miss it if we could help it, so we took him into the hallway and calmed him down the best we could.

Then we carried Liam to the room where Curious George was posing for pictures, and there was a long line of people waiting their turn. When Liam saw George, he wanted to go to him immediately and struggled to get down. When he wasn't allowed to do that, more screaming happened. He was so tired and now angry that he couldn't go see George. We took him out one more time and calmed him down yet again. Then we tried one last time. The line was much shorter now, and we only had to wait a few minutes. Liam was still crying, but thankfully not screaming, so we stayed put. When it was Liam's turn to meet George, he immediately stopped crying and smiled the biggest smile ever. He loved meeting George and was genuinely happy to be sitting next to him. I'm pretty sure he decided he was just going to stay there all day. So when our minute or so with George was up and we had to move on, you can imagine how Liam reacted. So we once again carried a screaming Liam out, and then we just left the exhibit. We didn't want to put him in the car so upset, so we gave him some water and crackers in the hallway (again), and then we left the museum.

It was unfortunate that he was so tired by the time we got there, but we had gone all the way to Fort Worth, so there was no way we were going to skip it. All the chaos was worth it, though, because of how much he loved meeting Curious George. Then he took a good nap all the way back home!

Pictures From the Past Three Months

August

 

I guess coconut ice cream is loud.



At our disastrous birthday lunch at Spiral Diner.

The day he stole my breakfast.

Doing some big boy swinging.

Liam through the tube.

Cheeze.

Liam with all the Georges.

September

 

The day he was obsessed with a paint brush.

Flowers from my best friends after Collin passed away.

This happens every single day. Still.

Liam's first locust shell.

Brothers.

Seems reasonable.

October

Painting aftermath.

Can't forget to cover the arms.

The picture Liam drew of George. It might be upside down.

Outside of Spiral Diner Fort Worth.

Easting salsa with a spoon at Spiral Diner Dallas.

Painting a pumpkin.

Drew a smiley face on the pumpkin. (The dot on the left was an accident!)

Liam at 29 Months

Yes, I've been meaning to write a post about Liam for a long time. I started one two months ago, never finished, and now Liam is more advanced than he was then. Therefore, I decided to just start over. I haven't done an update since around the time he turned two, which now feels like years ago.

As you read from my previous posts, there's a big change coming to our family in just a few short months now. Our survivor, Gibson, is doing great and we are healing more everyday from the loss of Collin. I actually like talking about Collin now, and the majority of the time it doesn't even make me sad anymore. Liam talks about both Gibson and Collin. When Liam names the members of our family, he never leaves out Collin (or the cats). I do try to make him understand that there will only be one baby, though. He will tell us, "Collin lives in heaven with Jesus. Gibson lives in Mama's belly." He will understand one day because we will always talk about Collin. I think Liam is going to be a great big brother, and I can't wait to see what brothers are all about! I have no experience with that and neither does Will. I'm sure it will be a lot of fun, though!

Liam has had a love of letters for a long time, and has been able to identify them for many, many months. Lately, he finally learned the order of the whole alphabet! He can spout them off A-Z, and warbles the LMNOP part like a pro. He's very proud of himself for learning it, and usually claps for himself afterwards and says, "All the letters!" He can also read them in order when they're written down, and can read them backwards. He also knows them all in lowercase as well. He's recently learned all the sounds for each letter too. So we can ask him what letter a particular word starts with, and he will either know it right away or can answer when we sound out the first letter. Liam can also name at least one animal for every letter of the alphabet. So when I write down the alphabet for him, he usually goes through them and sounds out each letter and then says the animal name. I'm wondering when I can start teaching him to read some words! He does recognize his name when he sees it.

In addition to letters, Liam has also been all about the numbers lately. He can easily count 1-10 (and does so way too many times throughout the day). After 10, he will say 11, 12, but still skips to 14, then 16, but can then count 17-20 with no problem. He has also counted 20-30 a couple of times. However, when I ask him to count objects, he will usually still count all the way to 10 no matter how many there are. Also, when he's playing and pretending something is a rocket, he will count 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10...Blast off! So there's no counting backwards yet!

Over the summer, Liam developed a love for Thomas the Train stuff. I don't even know when he saw it the first time; it was probably just for a few minutes on TV. He was hooked, though, and really hasn't stopped talking about Thomas since then. He quickly learned all the names of the trains, even the obscure ones, and can identify them by their number and color as well. He seriously sometimes even counts in trains and is always correct. He knows the catchphrases for them all too. One of Will's coworkers gave us a big box of trains and tracks, and these days there's always some tracks laid out on the floor somewhere with trains on them. It's what he plays with the most and he uses his imagination well with them. Although lately (as in this week), Liam has loved playing with his Mater and McQueen cars. You can usually find them on the tracks as well. He really loves all of his trains, trucks, and cars, and, like I said, they are what he plays with the most. His Legos are a close second, but he builds trains out of them!

When he's not playing with transportation themed toys, Liam enjoys art. He colors and/or paints everyday. He seems to have lost some interest in coloring books, though, and prefers to make his masterpieces on plain white paper. Today, he painted two small pumpkins for Halloween. I may get a bigger one and let him paint it outside soon instead of carving one. His art is still the abstract toddler type, but he is starting to draw smiley faces sometimes (before giving it a third and fourth and fifth eye), and drew a picture of Curious George last week. It looks nothing like George, but some facial features are present, and he got out a stuffed George to look at for reference while drawing it. I hope he has artistic ability. He's always asking me to draw trains and Mater, but I always tell him, "Liam can draw it. Mama can't! (because I really can't)" If that doesn't work, I tell him to wait for daddy to draw it because Will actually has artistic ability and can draw those things. I do love that he loves art, though, and I'm looking forward to doing more complicated art projects with him one day.

Liam is starting to get into songs and singing. He never showed any interest in singing until recently. He's always enjoyed hearing me sing, though, which scares me because I'm not good at all. I'm probably teaching him how to sing off key! At bed time and nap time, we have our routine. Lately he has added two sings to the line-up. Pretty soon, I will be doing a 30 minute set! First is Jesus Loves Me, then part of All You Need is Love, then ALL of Yellow Submarine, then I recite Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and the new additions are the ABC song and a very short song I made up about Will called "The Daddy Song." Before all those songs are sung, we say prayers. It takes awhile, but Liam loves his routine. Anyway, I've sung them all so many times that he knows pretty much all the words too and will sing along with me. It's so sweet to hear him sing with me! I know that before too long he will busting out singing them on his own. His solos these days are usually just jibberish in a sing-song voice.

As far as Liam's personality goes, I kind of think there are two of them! When he's at church or someone else's house where we are not the ones watching him, he is very laid back and easy going. I don't think he hardly says a word at church and just goes with the flow! At home around me and Will, he is very assertive and sometimes even bossy. He talks all the time, and throws a fit when he doesn't get his way. I'd definitely describe him as stubborn! "Liam do it!" is one of his favorite phrases, and he's already pretty good at procrastination and getting us to let him play for just a few more minutes before bedtime! He's not shy, though, and loves being around other kids. He refers to the kids in our small group Bible study as his friends, even though they are all at least two years older than him and I don't even think they interact with him much since to them he's just a baby! Overall, though, Liam has a tender heart and is a sweet guy. However, he also ignores us sometimes and is willfully disobedient on occasion. If he doesn't want to be in a situation, he will let us know. I can count on one hand the number of times we've taken him out to eat in a restaurant since the spring, and I think all but one or two times ended with Will carrying a screaming Liam out of the restaurant. The other times, we quickly ate and somehow managed to effectively distract him long enough to do so. He's not a fan of high chairs in public anymore, but doesn't understand that he can't just walk off and go bother people. He is the type to struggle and scream until he is free. I am so looking forward to the day he grows out of that. Positive reinforcement and talking to him about it don't seem to work yet. I know it's just a phase, though, but I'm starting to wonder if Liam has managed to learn how to read and has taken this post to heart: Rules Toddlers Live By.

On a positive note, however, Liam is well-behaved the vast majority of the time, even at home. He loves to snuggle with me. I recently got my first unsolicited "I love you" from him, followed by him coming over to me and asking for a "Kiss, mama." It was so sweet! Love you's and kisses are still rare coming from him, but he shows his love all the time. In what I also think is just a phase, he's not nearly as affectionate to Will. It definitely hurts his feelings some, but I think it's just because Liam spends all day everyday with me, and is for sure a Mama's boy at the moment. I think it will all change when Gibson is born.

Liam is improving his speaking skills all the time. He correctly uses pronouns, and has started saying "I..." instead of  "Me..." most of the time. He's into differentiating ownership of items. "For you," "For me," "That's Liam's," and "That's for you" are common coming from him. He's speaking in sentences the majority of the time now. One of his favorites is, "No, I don't think so." Yesterday, he asked me, "Where's my cup?" "There it is!" Whereas recently, that would've been, "Where cup go?" "There go!" There are improvements all the time with his speech although some words still aren't pronounced correctly. He does still say, "Dee Doo" for "Thank you," but he has also recently just started saying, "Thanks." I know some kids his age speak much better, but I think he does a great job! He always gets his point across.

Some of Liam's Favorites:
-Thomas the Train and all his buddies
-Mater and McQueen cars
-drawing and painting
-pretending while playing (using that imagination!)
-playing with friends
-hanging out with Mama (all the time!)
-hearing me sing his favorite songs
-going to church
-playing on playgrounds
-watching shows
-letters and numbers (he's borderline obsessed!)
-claiming that food is Deeeeelicious!

20 Weeks

As of today, I am 20 weeks pregnant and officially at the halfway point. I don't think I'll go to 40 weeks, so really I'm more than halfway through this pregnancy.

We've been grieving the loss of our son Collin for almost a month now. The first two weeks after we found out were very hard on me. I didn't want to talk about it out loud with anyone but Will, and I didn't want to be around anyone who knew I was carrying twins and that one had passed. I didn't want to be asked about it, or worse, asked how the twins were by someone who didn't know one was in heaven already. I cried everyday about a lot of different things. I was missing Collin and scared at the same time that Gibson would pass as well. I felt very alone in this, because I am. No one around me is experiencing this exactly like I am, not even Will. I was just overall sad and paranoid and emotionally drained. I believe everything I felt was completely normal for a mother going through this unique type of loss. Through all of it, though, I was never angry that he died or upset with God or anyone. It was obviously meant to happen, and while it's not the outcome I would have chosen, I can accept that it happened for some good reason. Maybe both boys would have had a very tough road ahead of them had they continued on together. Maybe we would've had months of bad news about them only to still lose one or both of them in the end. Many people have lost one of their twins at the end of a pregnancy. Some are even told they will lose one of them upon their birth because of some defect that won't allow them to survive outside of the womb. How do you live with the knowledge that the day one of your children will be born is the day one of them will die? I'm thankful we will avoid that. I know our situation could've been so much worse than it is. And while it is still very sad for me to think about, we are healing and I know that life will be just fine. Like I've said before, we will never forget Collin or pretend he never existed. Both kids will know about him, and Gibson will always know he's a twin. I don't have to worry about Collin anymore. He is happy and whole, and when he opened his eyes for the first time he saw Jesus. How amazing is that?

About a week after the fateful appointment, I got a call with the results of my bloodwork (from the 20 vials of blood taken that day). It's truly amazing what blood can tell you. It was tested for Down's Syndrome, the Trisomies (not sure of the numbers), clotting disorders, and a number of viruses. It was thousands of dollars in tests. Thankfully, it ALL came back normal. No concerns whatsoever. Of course, it doesn't help with figuring out a medical reason for why Collin passed, but it's great news for Gibson that none of those things are going on with him (or me).

Two weeks after the appointment when we learned about Collin, I went back to the doctor to check on Gibson. A lot of tears were cried over the health of Gibson, and by about two weeks, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to know he was OK. So I called my doctor's office and asked to come in. Thankfully, I was able to get a spot exactly two weeks after the previous appointment. Will and Liam went with me. It was a pretty quick appointment. No ultrasound was done, but we got to hear his precious heartbeat on the doppler. My doctor could tell he was quite active, and his heartbeat was strong and perfect. It was a healing moment for me. That was a good day all around for our family because Will had a great job review and got a raise, and I went out with friends for the first time since Collin's passing and had fun.

After that, I felt like I was ready to be around people again, so life returned to normal, or our "new normal" as people say. Liam has been a wonderful distraction this whole time. He's kept me from sitting and pondering and worrying as much as I would be if I didn't have him. Liam is a precious child, and I know he and Gibson will be best friends. Liam talks about both of them and says that Collin is in heaven with Jesus. Does he really understand any of what's going on? No, but I tell him anyway. He's seen me cry a lot in the month of September, and he knows when "Mama sad." While we do mention Collin to him (and always will), I've made a point to talk about Gibson a lot more. I'm afraid that when Gibson is born, Liam will ask and wonder where Collin is. He won't even be three yet, so I'm sure he still won't understand though.

Even though we mourn Collin, Gibson is still very much alive! I had an appointment Friday at the Fetal Care Center to have Gibson's heart and brain checked out. We were blessed yet again to have a friend watch Liam for us so we could go alone. I was nervous about it, but I knew Gibson was still alive because I had recently felt movement. A different doctor than before came in to do the ultrasound. He was nice, though; all the doctors there have been nice. As of Friday, I've seen them all. Immediately after starting the ultrasound, he let us hear Gibson's heartbeat. He didn't waste any time. He's a pro, and he knows what mamas want to hear. It was a detailed ultrasound where he measured and looked at everything. He did look at Gibson's brain, but not as in-depth as I thought he would. He told us everything looked perfect. He had us poke Gibson while he was on the screen, and we got to see him react and kick back. It was neat to interact with him. He did show us Collin, who looked tiny compared to Gibson. He has gotten smaller while Gibson has gotten bigger. He was curled up and off to the side. The doctor said his facial features are already diminishing. One thing we've been praying for is that Collin would still look like a baby when he is born. It's not for everyone, but we would like to see him after he's born. However, it's looking like there won't be much left. There's still a long way (hopefully) to go in this pregnancy, and my body is doing what it's supposed to about Collin, as harsh of a reality as that is.

At one point in the ultrasound, Gibson did reach out to where Collin is. He obviously can't see or touch him since there is a barrier between them, but I think he knows he's there. At the 13 week ultrasound (the one where I left worried if there was a membrane between them), they were right next to each other interacting. So I do think Gibson realizes something is different on the other side of the wall. Seeing them on the screen together again did make some tears fall. It was concrete proof all over again that one of our children is dead. After the ultrasound was finished, we talked to the doctor some. He told us that we should not keep Gibson at a distance just because we are afraid of losing him too. He encouraged us to love him and get attached to him. I have been attached to Gibson all along. Even with how scared I am of losing him too and feeling like I have to say "IF he's born," not "WHEN he's born," I am totally in love with him already. It's just sometimes hard to admit that to myself even. But, I feel like the doctor gave us a lot of hope and sort of "permission" to look forward to life with Gibson. And I have been doing that. I finally went and bought maternity clothes this weekend. I had been making do with one pair of pants and two shirts from the last pregnancy that were fit for public. At home, I look like a bum most of the time. I also registered for a few baby things online. I'm not expecting a shower or even gifts, but it helps me get excited about Gibson's arrival. So I'm really registering just for me.

Anyway, after the great news from the regular ultrasound, we met with the fetal cardiologist who did a detailed ultrasound on Gibson's heart. She looked at everything in and around his heart...every vein and blood vessel too. Even though it looked grainy to us like a regular ultrasound, I guess she could see everything she needed to. Gibson was moving around a good bit, though. After checking everything out for a good 20-30 minutes, she told us she didn't see anything wrong with his heart at all. She said the heart is fully formed by 8-10 weeks, so any defects could be detected for sure at this point. His heart is perfect too! We don't have to see her again.

So we left the appointment feeling happy and blessed. Whenever I start to worry, I just remember that ALL the news we've gotten about Gibson has been good...every last thing. I know that may not always be the case the rest of the pregnancy, but for right now, it's the truth!

Gibson's profile at almost 20 weeks. He seems to have big cheeks like Liam!

I know it's kind of hard to tell what this is, but on the left is the outline of Collin's whole body. On the right, is the outline of Gibson's head. You can get an idea of their size difference. Although they look really close to each other here, there's actually a good amount of space between them. 

We don't have a full-length mirror at home, so I took this headless shot while trying on clothes. As you can see, I'm huge for 20 weeks.

The One I Wish I Didn't Have to Write

It's been nearly a week since we got the devastating news that one of our twins had passed away.

Will and I went in for my appointment worrying about whether or not there was actually a membrane between them. The ultrasound was started, and of course the membrane was found within the first minute. I had been worrying for nothing. The ultrasound tech focused on Baby B and started measuring body parts and looking at organs. Everything looked fine. The heartbeat was 141 BPM. We told her we wanted to record the screen as she announced the gender. Then she announced that she was almost completely positive they were boys! We were so happy to hear that; both of us thought they were boys.

Then she started focusing on Baby A. Very quickly she took the wand off my belly, took of her gloves, and told us she would be right back with the doctor. She didn't answer me when I asked her if something was wrong. She left the two us in the room wondering what was wrong. I was freaking out on the inside, but trying to stay calm. She was gone for what seemed like an eternity, and returned with my doctor. She took my hand and told me it looked like Baby A no longer had a heartbeat. I started sobbing while that was indeed confirmed by the ultrasound tech, and I saw my lifeless baby on the screen. He was perfectly formed with his legs curled up. He was measured, and it was determined he had passed a week earlier. I was 16 weeks, 2 days pregnant at the appointment, and the baby had passed away at 15 weeks, 3 days.

I had no idea anything had happened. My body gave me no indication that one of my babies was no longer alive. The thought had never even crossed my mind. I was worried about several other things that can go wrong with having identical twins, but I honestly never thought I would lose one.

We were ushered into an empty exam room and left alone to cry for awhile. During that time, my doctor made an appointment for me with a maternal-fetal medicine (high risk) doctor down the street for an hour later. My doctor finally came into the room and told me they didn't know why it happened and that they may never know why it happened. She assured me several times it was not because of something I did. She was crying a little, too. She was reluctant to tell me the surviving twin would be fine, which is why she wanted me to see the other doctor. After pulling myself together as best as I could, we walked out of the room and the office without checking out or scheduling another appointment.

We had lunch in the hospital cafeteria and then went to the new doctor's office. I was doing a good job at that point of not crying. I had a lot of paperwork to fill out which distracted me. After a very long time waiting, we were finally called back. After a stop at the blood pressure machine (it was surprisingly normal), we were shown into an ultrasound room and waited for my new doctor to come in.

Just like before, she started the ultrasound thoroughly checking out the surviving twin. She confirmed that he was indeed a boy and that he looked perfect at the moment. She briefly looked at Baby A, and I noticed that the nurse in there with us kind of put her head between me and the screen so I couldn't see very well while he was on there. When she finished with the ultrasound, she took my hand and gave me pretty much the same speech my regular OB had given me about it not being my fault and that she didn't know the reason why it happened either, at least not yet. She cried a little bit, too. But then she got down to business to let us know what the next steps would be. I was to come back in three weeks so she could do an in-depth scan of his brain. When twins are sharing a placenta and one dies, it can briefly affect the amount of blood and oxygen going to the surviving twin. The further along in the pregnancy this happens, the greater the likelihood of there being lasting damage to the surviving twin, usually in the form of cerebral palsy. However, she said my loss happened at what was considered early in the pregnancy as I was only two weeks into the second trimester. She said that the fact that they were still small and would not have been sharing very much blood at all yet made the chances go down significantly that he would have any lasting problems. However, she also said she just couldn't be absolutely sure nothing happened since the event had already occurred. She said his brain looked fine, but it was still too small to really examine it. The doctor assured us that the vast majority of the time, the surviving twin in this situation goes to term and doesn't have any problems at all. At the next appointment, an echo will be done on his heart to see if it is having to work harder now than it should. She said he had a normal, four-chambered heart, though, and that was great.

Even though she said we may never know the cause of death, she wanted to do some blood tests to see if that would uncover a reason. She said the deceased baby's neck was thicker than usual, and then she said that it becomes thicker after they pass. However, it can be a marker for Down's Syndrome or the Trisomy's. Now, I really don't know much about them, and I've always declined the testing for them since it sounds like there are a lot of false positives. She also wanted to test my blood coagulation levels to see if a clot could have caused it. So after the ultrasound and speech were finished, I was taken into someone's office and the nurse came in to draw literally 20 vials of blood from me for all those tests. I had no option but to stare at the paperwork in front of me that said the reason for the tests was "Demise Fetus A." Somehow I managed not to cry, though. Will had left the room because blood makes him queasy, but it really doesn't bother me.

Finally, after making my next appointment for three long weeks later, we were able to leave and go home. I held it together long enough in the car to call my mom and tell her the news. Then I cried all the way home. A gracious friend had been watching Liam for us, and his 2.5-3 hour visit turned into more than 5 hours. Once at home, I just sat on the couch sobbing, stunned at how the day had gone. Liam was thankfully a good distraction, and has been for the past five days.

The past five days have been really tough. This is the first time I've dealt with this kind of loss. I cry easily and haven't wanted to be around anyone but Will and Liam. I don't want to talk about it out loud yet with anyone. I cry about the fact that I lost a child. I cry about the fact that there won't be two babies to hold and raise together. I was looking forward to having twins. I cry because I have to carry my deceased baby for the remainder of the pregnancy. I cry with worry that I will lose the surviving twin as well. I am very scared and paranoid about that right now, especially since I don't feel much movement yet. At 12 weeks, I felt both babies kicking me at the same time, and it was even strong enough for Will to feel them too. That's not typical at all for babies that small. I think now it was a miracle and a gift to get to feel both of them kicking so early. They WERE both alive and now one is gone. Our hearts are broken for sure. However, I think each day is a little easier than the one before and I cry a little less each day. I do think it's one of those things I won't completely get over, though. I will always know there should have been two. But I do know that life will still be fine in spite of this fact.

Wednesday night after we found out the news and Liam had gone to bed, Will and I were both grieving the loss of our son. We had talked about names before that day, and decided on the names Collin and Gibson if we were having boys. In my mind, Collin was Baby A, and Gibson was Baby B. So that night we named our angel baby Collin. We had not decided on middle names, but Will wanted to give him the middle name Noel (pronounced Nole), so we did. Collin Noel. We named our living son Gibson. Later on we decided to give him the middle name Noel as well, since it was the only thing we could give them that they could share. Gibson Noel. Since then, we refer to them by their names and talk about Collin a lot. Liam has learned both of their names, and tells both of them good night and good morning every day. When we ask him what are his brother's names, he replies, "Cah-yen and Gif-son." When I ask him where Collin is now, he replies, "Heavent." I think it's precious and I love hearing him say both of their names. I think he will be an amazing big brother, and I sincerely hope and pray he gets the chance to be one to Gibson.

I think it will always feel like someone is missing from our lives, but I know we won't ever pretend that Collin never existed. We will talk about him and tell Gibson about him. I hope that somehow Gibson has a connection to his brother. I don't know if that's possible at all, but I do want Collin to be a presence in our lives somehow.

Both babies at 9 weeks

Collin at 9 weeks

Gibson at 16 weeks and proof he's a boy.

Yeah, We Were Just as Surprised as You Are

We figured we would have another child at some point. We hadn't really planned out a time frame for such an event, but we knew our family of three wasn't complete. One more kid was the plan.

So when this happened June 26, I was surprised but happy.

Foreshadowing

We handled this news much better than the first time, when we spent the first couple weeks in all-out panic mode. But, we were experienced this time and knew what to expect and what we had to do regarding insurance and all that other grown up stuff that goes along with this sort of thing. Plus, I didn't really have much time to ponder on it since I still had a rowdy two year old to deal with and he had no idea what was going on.

That first day, I told Will and JAAG (friends forever) the news. Then we told our families in person when we went to Louisiana for July 4th. Everyone was happy!

As far as pregnancy yuckiness goes, I definitely felt much worse this time than with Liam. I was more emotionally unstable that time rather than physically ill. But this time I had the all day stomach-ache that occasionally turned into nausea and extreme tiredness. It still wasn't nearly as bad as a lot of women have it, and I was still able to function pretty well as a mother...until Will got home from work. Then I needed to lay down for a while!

The midwife I had with Liam left the office where she was working, so we had a decision to make regarding who I would see this pregnancy. After some research, we decided to go with the newer midwife at the same practice and deliver at the same hospital where Liam was born. We like the familiar. So on July 19th, all three of us headed into Dallas for my first appointment with the midwife and confirmation ultrasound.

We had to wait 30 minutes past our scheduled appointment time, but thankfully Liam did not completely lose it even though he was strapped in his stroller. The ultrasound was up first, and since we were pros at this now, we were pretty calm. We were expecting to see one little baby blob with a beating heart on the screen with the news that "Everything looks great!" Well, we certainly did see that.

In fact, we saw two of them. Twins.

That's when the crying and subdued freaking out started. Sure enough, there were two tiny wiggly babies with beating hearts on the screen. Shocked is an understatement. Twins do not run on either side of our family. We never even considered twins were a possibility. I was shaking and had tears running down my face as the ultrasound continued. They appeared to be in the same chorionic sac (I know you probably don't know what that means), but were thankfully separated by a membrane into their own amniotic sacs. So not only were we having twins, but they appeared to be identical twins! And identical twins are a random (God) event not caused by genetics, so everyone pretty much has an equal shot at identical twins.

After the ultrasound, they took my blood pressure. (Really? My hands were literally shaking.) It was up, but thankfully not too high. Then I was told I could no longer be a midwife patient since I was expecting multiples. Bummer. Since I obviously didn't have an appointment with a doctor that day, I briefly talked to the midwife. Then I had to choose a doctor to see for the remainder of the pregnancy. Since Liam's midwife had been out of town the day he was born (literally her one day off for the month), Liam had been delivered by the backup doctor from the same office. I didn't know her at all really, since she showed up about five minutes before Liam was born, caught him, and told me, "Great job!" I saw her the next day, though, and I remembered her being very nice. So I chose her. At least my kids would be delivered by the same doctor that way! As it turns out, she has boy/girls twins!

*The previous part was written before today's appointment.*

Today I had my first visit with my doctor. We talked some about twins and she answered some questions I had. Then she used a small, portable ultrasound machine to see the heartbeats. She said it's still kind of difficult to distinguish between two heartbeats just with doppler this early. I'm 13 weeks. The bonus of this was that I got to see the babies again! They had certainly grown a lot since 9 weeks. Both measured at 13w3d and had heartbeats around 160. They looked great and perfect! However, the doctor was not able to see a membrane between the two babies. They were very close to each other stacked liked a yin yang. They are definitely identical twins and sharing one placenta. This is fine...as long as they have their own amniotic sacs. Of course, this no membrane news was very disheartening. This kind of twins are called mono-mono, which means one placenta and one sac. Since there's nothing dividing them, their cords can get tangled and, as you can imagine, that's bad news all around.

However, there's still a chance the membrane actually is there. In my emotional state, I'm trying to remember these four things:
1. The membrane was there at 9 weeks. The sonographer easily found it and marked that there was one on the chart. Unless is wasn't really a membrane in the first place or it somehow disappeared, then it should still be there.
2. The ultrasound machine used today was low resolution, and it didn't provide a clear picture of the babies. It's a portable one used mostly for just finding heartbeats.
3. My doctor is not a sonographer, and does not spend all day looking at ultrasounds of babies.
4. When she and a different sonographer reviewed my 9 weeks pictures, they agreed there was a chance there was a membrane there.

I'm definitely scared and thinking of the what-ifs. If the babies are still trucking along at 24 weeks and are definitely mono-mono, I will have to move into the hospital for constant monitoring until (hopefully) 32 weeks, when the babies will be delivered. There will be NICU time. I have no idea how Will and Liam would handle me not being at home for at least two months. I can't imagine not being at home for two whole months. But if it's what I end up having to do for these babies, then I will obviously do it. If you pray, please pray the membrane is actually there and separating them. If that's the case, then the pregnancy will be business as usual, at least as much as twins can be.