Our Journey to Twins

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.  My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.  -Pslam 139: 13-16

Matt and I started talking about having another baby when Carter was about six months old.  We were not ready at the time, but our battle to conceive and carry Carter to term were still fresh in our mind, so we knew we didn't want to wait too long.  We also try to coordinate bed rest/delivery around football season when possible, so that really narrowed down our calendar for us!  After Carter turned one we were ready to pay Dr H another visit, but I had to stop breastfeeding first.  Honestly, we probably would have been back in his office sooner if it wasn't so hard for me to stop breastfeeding! I nursed Carter up until the morning of our appointment on June 22.  

My nightly date the first half of July

After much discussion and debate we decided to try another round of IUI before moving onto IVF.  Besides some insurance hoops we had to jump through, it was relatively easy for us to jump back into the "trying to conceive" game.  Admittedly, I had a much more laid back approach this time around, and honestly didn't stress to much over the size of my follicles, or what I was eating, or going to acupuncture.  And at insemination time when we didn't have a SINGLE mature follicle (we proceeded anyway) I just knew it wasn't in the cards for us.

 A picture of all of my beautiful follicles early in the cycle

Two weeks later when I started bleeding and my pregnancy tests were negative and I actually felt the weight of what I had been praying for all summer.  As relaxed as I had been, I had not been admitting to myself how badly I really wanted another baby.  I cried into Matt's arms the night before my blood test and the next morning when I ran into Dr P.  In my mind I was just convinced that it would take us another three years before we would be pregnant again.  I was devastated.  Can you imagine my surprise when the nurse called me that afternoon to tell me my blood test was positive?!?  What?!  

Battle wounds

So for two weeks I went into the office every-other-day for blood work to see if my HcG, progesterone and estrogen levels were where they were supposed to be.  Why didn't anyone remind me NOT to look at the numbers?!? Your HcG is supposed to double every-other-day and my numbers were slightly low of doubling each time.  I stressed myself out for two weeks over those DANG numbers!  Finally on Friday, August 16 we were able to have our first ultrasound (I was 5 weeks 3 days) and not only did we see our little baby, but we were also able to hear the heartbeat!! Matt was with me (he rushed over after practice) and it was just as magical the second time around as it was the first! 

The next Tuesday, August 20, I went back for my second ultrasound by myself.  The nurse, Lisa, spent a lot of time letting me lay down and just listen to the heartbeat.  What a beautiful sound!  At the end when we were about finished I joked with her "Now you're sure there aren't two in there?" and she assured me there were not.  Just as she was pulling the wand out I saw an unmistakable black spot on the screen and asked her to go back and check that out.  What do you know but THERE WAS ANOTHER BABY HIDING IN THERE!!!! And it had a heartbeat! We were having TWINS!!! Both of us stared at that screen and each other for a long time digesting what we just found out.  Remember...my pregnancy tests never turned positive.  We didn't have ANY mature follicles at insemination time.  I had my period for a few days.  My blood work was LOW for just one baby (typically with twins those HcG numbers are much higher.)  NOTHING pointed us in the direction of twins, but there were TWO heartbeats staring us in the face.  If that's not God's work, then I don't know what is.  

Baby A on the right, Baby B on the left

To be continued...