Twice the Blessings

As most of you know, Mark and I are pregnant with TWINS! It definitely hasn't been an easy journey to get where we are now but it's been such a blessing. I wanted to give a quick synopsis of the entire process that we went through to get to the place that we are today... 11 weeks pregnant with twins!! Let's back up...

We had to use fertility options to get pregnant and we started back in July. We didn't tell any family or friends that lived far away as we wanted it to be a surprise (only those close to us at church knew what we were going through). Three days before we were to go through the first part of the procedure, Mark was admitted to the ER with all kinds of medical complications. You can read about that here. It was a rough few months of many ER visits for him. He was put on blood thinners and we canceled our round of fertility treatments. Praise God for healing him completely. We are so thankful for Him getting better! He was able to go off of the blood thinners and we restarted the fertility treatments in October.

After all the injections and meds, we had our first procedure on October 27th with the 2nd part on November 2nd. All went well until the 7th of November when I ended up back at the doctors office with complaints that I was having trouble breathing. I just couldn't get deep enough breaths. I was immediately sent over to the hospital procedure center and I had a paracentisis done. Basically I was suffering from a severe case of Ovarian Hyperstimulation. My ovaries were very enlarged and there was a huge amount of fluid collecting on my abdomen and chest. It was causing pain, extreme shortness of breath and abdominal swelling. A paracentisis is a procedure where they locally numb a spot on the abdomen, each layer at a time, and then stick a big needle in the stomach to drain the excess fluid. Ten pounds of fluid was drained off of my belly at this time. I was measuring 4.5 months pregnant! After the procedure was done, I was given more fluids via IV so that my body wasn't so "shocked" for losing 10lbs worth and then I was watched for a bit as my blood pressure got very low. I was eventually released to go home and told to drink lots of fluids.

Two days later, I was miserable. It got to the point where I was cramping so bad that I couldn't move. I wasn't urinating normally and I was extremely swollen again. I was also having serious bouts of nausea. I had Mark call the Nurses Line who in turn contacted the nurse practitioner I had been working with at the clinic. She gave orders to take me to the ER. Who would've thought that the ER would've been so busy on a Sunday afternoon. When we checked in there were 17 people in front of us! I sat in a wheel chair in the middle of the waiting room bent over in pain. At one point I had to ask Mark for a basin because I was feeling very ill. *The easiest way to get into the ER to be seen when it's full is to start throwing up.* The nurse asked me if I was pregnant and I had to say that I could be and BAM! they rushed me to the back and got me in a bed. I don't remember much after this as I got a bunch of pain medications. Our good friend, Paul, was working and he took good care of me. They took lots of blood and even took a pregnancy test (we found out for the first time that we were indeed pregnant! Rather anticlimactic). Eventually they told me that I was dehydrated and that they wanted me to stay overnight. I was admitted, put on a morphine pump for pain, and was given an injection of blood thinner. My wonderful husband Mark went and got us Jimmy John's for dinner so I didn't have to eat hospital food!!!

I was released the next day despite the fact that I kept telling the doctor on call that I felt like I might need to be "drained" again. And sure enough I was back at my doctors office on Tuesday. I had gained 20 pounds in 2 days because of extra fluid retention. Everything on me was swelling.. legs, fingers, thighs, hips! It was extremely hard for me to handle and very discouraging. I did appreciate the fact that the nurse called my fertility doctor (who is based out of Indy) and had him talk to me. I thought that was awful nice of him. I was sent over to the hospital again for another paracentisis and another 10 pounds of fluid was removed! I was sent home and told to drink lots of fluid... By the way, during this whole thing I was drinking about 32-64 oz of fluid per HOUR!!!

About a week later I slowly started to get better and I could see that my abdomen wasn't getting any bigger. I was feeling better and was getting more encouraged. I had this hyperstimulation when I was pregnant with Madalyn but it was definitely mild compared to this.

We had another follow up pregnancy test a few days later and learned that I was indeed still pregnant. My beta had doubled perfectly which led us to believe that there was just one baby in there. The first week of December we had our first ultrasound and were shocked to learn that I was carrying two babies! We were definitely excited but it just didn't seem real. I've had two more ultrasounds since that day and it's definitely feeling real now :) I'm so excited to be carrying twins and I'm excited to see what 2009 holds for us and our family.

I have to say that this was one of the most discouraging times of my life. I've never really had any serious health issues and so this episode scared me a lot. I was on bed rest and couldn't do much of anything. It hurt that I couldn't take care of my daughter or my husband and I hated feeling so helpless. I was extremely discouraged a lot throughout this time but I definitley learned what it means to truly lean on God through the good and the bad! It was a growing period for me and my faith and I'm thankful to my wonderful friends and my amazing husband who helped to encourage me! The biggest lesson that I learned through all of this is that I need to be thankful for whatever the Lord brings my way. He does all things for a reason and even if something gloomy is thrown my way, I still need to be thankful. His purpose is bigger than I can ever imagine! I will praise Him in the calm and the STORM!!!