We were so excited for our early morning appointment to see our little baby for the first time on ultrasound. We showed up early and were escorted into a little cubicle of a room. I was scheduled for my NT ultrasound. The "NT" stands for nucal translucency and measures the amount of fluid behind the babies neck. If there is more fluid than normal (or high NT) the baby has a greater risk of chromosomal abnormalities, like downs syndrome, and since Jesse's sister likely had a chromosomal abnormality we thought we should get this early screening. It also meant we got an earlier ultrasound and could better date the pregnancy.
I joked with our tech: "We're here to find out if we have twins", as she squirted the goo all over my still flat belly. As soon as the magic wand hit my skin this transpired:
Tech: Well, why do you say that?
ME: Because we heard a heartbeat in a different place this weekend and I think I'm a bit big for how far along I am.
Tech: Yes, there ARE two babies.
Me: WHAT???
Tech: Two babies (she turns the screen around), see?
Me: Holy shit
Jesse: Calm down
Me: hahahahahahahhaha TWINS....hahahaha (this is hysterics)
Jesse: Laura, I swear we're going to be fine. I promise I will be a superdad (he already knew i was a bit apprehensive about this whole motherhood thing in the first place and now I was going to have to mother TWINS)
Me: hahahahahahaha........sigh
The tech continued to do the test. I asked her repeatedly how they looked, was everything OK? (because she seemed concerned and was being very detailed)...she said "I do this every day, the doctors will have to talk to you about the results"...
She came back and forth about 4 times to get more pictures (while we were waiting we texted our close family and friends "TWINS")...and then we were finally sent out to the waiting room where we continued to talk about the fact we had twins totally oblivious to the next shock we were about to get. I remember there was another pregnant women with twins who was going for her scheduled c-section next week. She told us about TPOMBA (the Toronto Parents of Multiple Births Association). I made a mental note, but was still in shock.
We were told to go straight down to genetic counselling to get our ultrasound results. We thought we would get a little piece of paper before leaving the ultrasound area, like everyone else was getting, that gave us the low-down...but since we already had planned to go to genetic counselling we didn't think anything of it.
I must say, the next few hours were horrible. The counsellors were amazing and broke the news to us gently...long story short: Both babies had elevated levels of fluid around their little bodies. Baby A had an NT of 7.9mm, anything over 3.5 is considered elevated and cause for concern. Baby B has a normal NT but she had fluid around her called cystic hygromas, Baby A had this too. They told us we had a 50% chance of keeping both babies full term, and that Baby A had more like a 75% chance of not surviving or of being severely handicapped (my own research later showed that they were actually being generous and according to the stats that baby had a 10% chance of being normal). We agreed to an emergency CVS, where they take parts of the placenta(s) out to test the chromosomes and look for abnormalities. They did this an hour after they told us the news...just enough time for me to go and get some food and have a good cry with some family and friends on the phone...then it was time to rally. The CVS consisted of a long needle inserted into my uterus to take out pieces of placentas. It wasn't pleasant and took over an hour when it should have only taken 20 mins - there were a few complications. We were promised results within a week or so.
After recovering from that for about an hour we were on our way home armed with the knowledge that we were pregnant with twins, but not sure what the future held. Could we handle this? I wasn't sure.
I clung to the visions of the babies on the ultrasound. Both were clearly visible, moving around like they hadn't a care in the world. Just seeing those moving images solidified the fact - I was already a mom of two beings. They were there, they were moving, we were all going to be fine. In the coming days I was constantly looking at the ultrasound pictures and reading the report. Trying to find out as much as I could about their diagnosis. The outlook wasn't great, but there was hope. We focused on the hope.
The best parts about this horrible week was that it really solidified Jesse and my relatioship. Our marriage was rock solid. We leaned on eachother, reasoned with eachother and took care of eachother. Jesse really took care of me. My parents were also a great support. We all cancelled the trips we had planned and decided to stick close to home and ride out these few weeks together.
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