That Time I Almost Had Twins

Disclaimer: Graphic, with some profanity. And I apologize if you are reading this and wondering why I didn't call to tell you directly. I just couldn't get there. 

We never made it to our fertility test appointments last month. They were on the calendar and we were psyching ourselves up for them, but two days after my 36th birthday, I got this:

What the what?!? Pregnant. For some reason I wasn't sure how long the stripes would last, so I snapped a picture before the second one had even fully darkened. It was only 10 am. I had hours to stew with this crazy secret until Les got home from work.

When I told him that afternoon, I thought he was going to burst. I have never seen him so excited. We danced and hugged and then had to decide who, if anyone, we would tell. We drafted a short list. My excitement was tempered with my ever-present anxiety. "It's early" I reminded him. "A lot can happen". But I told a couple of close girl friends and we laughed and cried and prayed and squealed together.

A week passed. I still didn't feel particularly pregnant, aside from crushing exhaustion in the afternoons. I was usually napping or at least sprawled on the couch when Les got home from work. I made a doctor's appointment for my 8th week and checked out some pregnancy books from the library. I tried to will myself to not obsess over the thought that this baby may not stick. Or that it would be born with birth defects, or a syndrome, or a disease. I tried to be positive and excited. I stretched my imagination to find other hints of pregnancy symptoms. My boobs should have been growing. I should be nauseous. I should have food aversions or smell aversions or cravings. I should be really, really excited. None of things were happening.

In an attempt to Stop Worrying, I made a new secret board on Pinterest and starting pinning baby things. Les and I talked about names and house re-arrangements and baby proofing. I went to Old Navy and bought a couple of gender-neutral winter outfits that were on serious clearance. Since our baby would be born in October, winter infant stuff made sense to me. It was something fun and cute and cheap. It felt like grasping. I already felt different that Tuesday afternoon as I stood at the cash register with tiny baby stuff in hand.

On Wednesday, I saw blood. Just a little, but definitely blood. I called a couple of friends and tried to stay calm. By Wednesday afternoon, I was bleeding and cramping. My body felt different. I felt an icy sad calm settle into my bones. I called the OBGYN office after hours and spoke to the on-call doctor. He said to call the office first thing in the morning and make an appointment.

On Thursday morning I called at 8 am sharp. A doctor I had never heard of could see me at 2 pm. Les had gone to work so I spent the day trying to distract myself with Netflix and random websites. I left the house at 1:30 and arrived at the office by 1:45. The nurse showed me to an exam room almost immediately and she talked to me in a quiet, gentle voice. I got undressed and waited for the doctor, who appeared a moment later. I had never seen a male OBGYN before, but I was so numb I didn't even care. He did a vaginal ultrasound and kept the screen tilted so only he could see it. His face was stern as he looked at the screen. Eventually, he turned the screen to me.

"See this circle right here? That's what we call a Yolk Sac or an Embryonic Sac. There's a little embryo right there. I'm using this tool to measure the length. It is measuring right at about 5 and half weeks. By your calculations, you should be 7 weeks, right?"

"Yes. I have been tracking for a while now. I know when I ovulated. I know when we got pregnant."

"Well, I am not enthusiastic about this embryo. It is just not big enough to be 7 weeks along, even if we account for some margin of error. And even if you actually ovulated later than you think you did."

"And shouldn't there be heartbeat by now?"

"Yes, if it were 7 weeks along, we'd expect to see a heartbeat."

"Ok"

"And I wanted to show you this. See if we move the instrument a little bit, you can see this other circle right next to the first. As you can see, it doesn't look like there is anything in that Yolk Sac. Something got started, but an embryo didn't really take shape. This is pretty rare. We sometimes call this a "Failed Twin"."

"Twins. I was going to have twins."

"All we can really do is wait. If your bleeding tapers off and the cramps stop, well, maybe that one embryo will surprise us. I am not enthusiastic about that possibility, but I have been surprised before."

He told me what to expect if I had a full miscarriage. He reminded me that miscarriage is very common, and that there is no reason to believe that I couldn't go on to have a healthy baby in the future. I reminded him that I was already 36. He just said "Well, then, the near future".

I was sent for a blood test and scheduled a follow up ultrasound for the next week and then I went home to wait.

Les was supposed to work late on Thursday, but I called him and had a complete shrieking melt down on the phone and he ducked out of his meetings and came home. I told him about the twins and that the bleeding and the cramping had not let up. It had gotten worse. We lay down on the floor and cried together, and Auggie climbed onto our heap of sadness and did his furry darndest to comfort us. We stumbled around in a daze that night. I called a couple of friends. Jackie came over with ice cream and chocolate and a favorite sharp cheese that I like. Les broke his Lenten fast to indulge with us and drink some wine and talk and sit.

It was March 13. My mom's birthday. Both friends who realized that I was miscarrying on my mom's birthday had said exactly the same thing: "And it's your mom's birthday?? Fuuuuuuccckkkk." My sentiments exactly.

On Friday morning, I sat up in bed as Les was getting ready for work. He told me that he wanted to name the twins. I protested at first, but he said he wanted to think of them as babies, and not as blobs. I asked him what he thought we should name them, and he said he would think about it. I moved to the couch so I could be miserable all day and watch crap TV on Netflix. As he was leaving, he turned back from the door and walked up the stairs and said that he wanted to name the twins Reuben and Gad. They were two of Jacob's sons - two of the tribes of Israel - who never made it into the Promised Land. But God added their lands into the Promised Land after they died. I said that I thought that was perfect. We looked at each other for a moment with wet eyes, and then he went on to work and I geared up for a day of shitty pain and aimlessness.

That night, beginning around 10 pm, I was wracked with incredible cramps. I moved to the couch so I could thrash around and clench blankets in my fists and do some Pilates style "In-2-3-4 OUT-2-3-4" breathing to keep myself from freaking the fuck out. I took some Motrin. I paced back and forth to the bathroom. I was sure that this was the "crescendo" of pain and nausea that the doctor had warned me about. It lasted until about 1:30 am, but I hadn't had the "obvious tissue and membrane loss" that the doctor had predicted. I was still cramping on and off all night, but I could sleep through it.

Saturday morning dawned and Les had to go to work for an event. I stayed in bed until after noon and my rage surged along with my pain. I was so, so angry. At my body, at God, at the fact that I was still cramping, still waiting for "something" to come out of me, worried that the doctors would have to go in and clean me out anyway after all this misery. And I was pissed that yet again, my fear and anxiety were proved right and reasonable. How am I supposed to give up fear when the things I fear keep happening? Seriously. How?

Les came home and we debated about going somewhere for a late lunch. I was hungry and tired and still cramping. But I decided that I wanted to go and run some errands. It was sunny outside, and I needed to get out of the house. I came home and started cleaning up the kitchen when I felt a surge of heat pulse through my body - like right before you vomit - and I dropped the broom and ran to the bathroom. A large plum-shaped mass slid out of me in a cloud of blood and instantly the cramping stopped. I wave of relief washed over me and I smiled for the first time in about 5 days just to know that that part was finally over. I came out and told Les, and we sat on the couch together and cried some more.

I managed to go to church this morning, but I was kind of a mess. Before we got out of bed, Les told me more about what he was feeling and how he was processing everything. We had a good conversation about disappointment and hope and moving forward together. He admitted that this has all been much harder on me, but he wanted me to know that he is sad too. He was, and still is, excited to be a dad. He doesn't want us to give up. We shook on it. So I guess at some point we will try again.

Miscarriage is so common, and yet so few people really talk about it. I get why people wait until Week 12 or 13 to tell people, since so many babies are lost in those first weeks. But really, my body is not my own, and those babies are not my own. I have no more control over their fate at week 7 than I do at age 7 or 17 or 57. And I cannot make good things happen to me or for me. Every day of my life and every breath are in God's hands.

I feel like God reminded me of this verse on Friday. I wrote it down and stuck it to the fridge with a magnet. I had had it written on a scrap of paper and taped to the wall next to my bed for many years while my dad was sick, and then again when mom was dying. It was true then, and I know that it is true now, even if the words choke in my throat:

Yet I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord. Be strong, and take heart, and wait for the Lord.  Psalm 27: 13-14 

We're waiting, Lord. We're waiting to see how you build a family from all these broken bits. But that, I remember, is your specialty.  A couple of people have said that my mom and dad got to meet their grandbabies this week. That didn't give me much comfort until I thought of all the un-met babies and all the broken mommas who will embrace someday. I don't know if I'll ever give birth, but there is some eternal comfort in knowing that I am already a mother.