Post-Op

In case you've ever thought otherwise, I am not a happy pregnant person. Any time I've been pregnant or had pregnant-like hormones (ie: regular birth control) I cycle erratically between anger, depression, and panicked anxiety. Unfortunately, double the babies this go 'round has meant double the hormones. It's not been pretty, especially these last couple weeks as my back and belly grew beyond what they were when I delivered Paige.

After a bad night's sleep, I went grumpily to the hospital for my 2-week check up on Tuesday. The tech did a couple measurements with the sonogram, then went to go get the doctor without finishing--not a good sign. He looked things over, we finished the sonogram, took extra measurements, and he gave me the bad news: the babies had developed TTTS, a condition where identical twins' blood vessels get linked through the placenta and they share unequally. One twin had tons of blood and amniotic fluid, while the other was stuck in a corner with very little fluid or blood. Luckily, neither had experienced heart or brain failure yet, so we might be a candidate for a laser surgery which would cauterize the blood vessels and split the systems.

My charts were faxed to UMMC, where they specialize in this surgery and condition. They got me in the next morning, confirmed the diagnosis, and prepped me for surgery. Being awake during surgery is an odd experience. It was cool to hear him explaining everything he was doing to the student doctors, but I couldn't see anything and being the exhibit, I was trying to be bored and detached so they could, you know, laser my body.

The first 24 hours were really stressful, while we hoped the babies survived the surgery and I wouldn't go into preterm labor. Thursday morning, the sonographer cheered when she saw two heartbeats: they both survived!! More than that, pressures were equalizing, heartbeats were strong, and both babies were active. Today, things still looked good. Pressures were continuing to equalize, little donor-baby was making amniotic fluid, and I hadn't had any contractions in almost a day.

I'm surprisingly calm about everything right now. I feel optimistic, I haven't had any anxiety issues, and I can connect to the babies as people--my family--rather than pain. The doctors cautioned us a lot that we're not really out of the woods until the babies are born and in our arms. There are still a million things that could go wrong at any moment. But for this moment, we're okay. And for the first time in this pregnancy, I'm okay too.