Saraday: Lydia's story, born Feb 28 (long and loss ment)...First I want to say that I have enjoyed reading all these stories and it really makes me appreciate how lucky I am. I haven’t endured nearly the IF heartache that most of you have. Here is how Lydia came into our lives... I went off the pill right after I was married in 1995. We weren’t TTC, but if it happened we wouldn’t be upset. LOL. We moved twice in two years after we were married and when we moved into our house in early 1997 we decided it was time. New house, new baby, right? By May 1998 when we still hadn’t become pg, I went to my OB. She had me chart my temps for two months then prescribed Clomid based on what she called “screwy ovulation.” I don’t think that would be the technical term. I was completely naïve, took the Clomid for 2 months and luckily conceived on the 2nd round. I was sooooo excited. We told everyone. My pregnancy progressed normally. At my 18 week u/s, my DH was with me when the tech said - “You do know you’re having twins, right?” What??? We had no idea, although I always secretly felt like there might be two in there. The OB sent us to the local hospital for an u/s because their machine wasn’t equipped to do twin scans. When we had the 2nd u/s, I could tell on the tech’s face that something was wrong and I could see a solid white dot on twin B’s heart. I asked her if something was wrong and she flat out lied and said no. We found out we were having a boy and a girl. The next day my OB called and said there was something on twin B’s heart that could be a genetic marker for down’s and she wanted me to go for another ultrasound with a maternal fetal specialist. We were nervous, but I felt that everything would be okay. The 3rd u/s went fine and the doc said not to worry, everything was fine, both babies looked absolutely healthy. We left the office practically floating – we were on top of the world. 10 days later I was folding laundry when my back started to hurt a little. I had been in a bad car accident less than two years earlier so I attributed the pain to that. The pain slowly got worse, but it came and went. Later, I had what felt like strong muscle spasms in my rectum and still stronger back pain. I called my Mom and she told me it was probably anxiety. I told my DH that I was going to try taking a shower to relax. He came in the bathroom with me because I was literally doubled over in pain. I finally got out of the bathroom and called the Dr. I had to page him twice (it was a Sunday and I got whoever was on call) before he finally called me back. When I told him my symptoms he said, “Beats the hell out of me...why don’t you come to the hospital.” I cried the whole way there, partly out of physical pain, but mostly out of fear. When I stepped out of the car at the hospital I could fell something bulging between my legs and I knew it was over. The Dr. and nurse got me on the bed, took one look and said, “The babies are right here. You’re going to lose them.” I just said, “I know.” They gave me an epidural and pitocin and I had to push out the babies. Tanner Stephen was born shortly before midnight on February 7, 1999 and Chloe Catherine was born shortly after midnight February 8, 1999. Had they lived - their birthdays would have been on different days. I think that’s neat. A few weeks later we met with the Dr who had delivered my twins. He gave the reason as unexplained, that sometimes these things happen. He said if I wanted I could have an HSG performed, but he didn’t think it would show anything. I had it done anyway. Ouch! It felt like someone dropped a wrecking ball on my uterus. The results came back as possible synechia. The Dr. said that it was impossible, that synechia (scar tissue) is only present in women who have histories of multiple D&Cs. To be on the safe side, however, he would perform a hysteroscopy. He clipped a polyp off my cervix at the very beginning of the procedure and filled my uterus with so much blood that he couldn’t see what he was doing. He said that he “felt around in there”, though and didn’t think there was anything to worry about. Go home and you’ll get pregnant again. That’s when I found INCIID. Looking back, I cannot believe how naïve I was! Taking Clomid without really understanding what it was…then allowing my pregnancy to go unmonitored, not knowing I was carrying twins until 18 weeks? I scoured the internet for information about synechia and also stumbled on the Grief and Loss board here. What a relief to find other women who knew how I was suffering. I was surrounded at work by women who were oops! pregnant and I needed help dealing with my envy. To this day, I still feel twinges of pain when I hear someone other than me is pregnant and I don’t think it will ever go away. Armed with my new research off the internet I had my Dr refer me to a reproductive surgeon. This man was the gentlest, kindest Dr I have ever been to. He performed another HSG – this one didn’t hurt at all. He found me to have severe synechia and did a laparoscopy to remove it. I would never have been able to get pregnant without him. We started a follicle study without Clomid, did an endometrial biopsy, everything was normal, but I still wasn’t getting pregnant. He offered us the opportunity to do IUI to speed things along. I certainly wasn’t old, but who knew how long the old-fashioned way was going to take? We would do an IUI the very next cycle and I got my Clomid prescription filled. Somewhere in my research I had read about taking Robitussin to help those little spermies swim. On a whim, I had taken it the cycle before we were to start IUI and guess what? I was pg! I have no idea if that’s what did it, but I sure think it had something to do with it. Early on, I was monitored so closely. I was spotting right from the get go and continued spotting for 8 weeks. I had ultrasounds every other day, then weekly. I took baby aspirin and progesterone suppositories. At about 9 weeks, my RE discharged me to an OB. There was nothing more he could do; it was time to move on. I was constantly searching for something to go wrong – and it did. I had a new Dr. who knew the basics of my history (I dumped old Mr. Go-home-and-get-pregnant). From about 13 weeks, I always had an odd bulging sensation in my vulvar area (which I know now to be varicose veins) that I was certain was an indicator of incompetent cervix. I was in her office weekly complaining of the feeling and she would check me and say everything was fine. Fortunately at this time, I had just quit my job and was able to stay home and take it easy – and surf the internet for possible problems. I was sure I had incompetent cervix and was even considering asking for a cerclage just to be safe. At this time, after everything I’d been through, I was still too timid to take charge of my medical care and I let the Dr make the decisions. I carried on as if everything was fine. My DH and I got jobs in our hometown, we sold our house and were ready to move home. (one thing we realized when we lost our twins was how important our families are to us and we wanted to be close to them) The day before I was to start my new job, I went to a new hospital for my 18 week ultrasound. Again, I could tell by the tech’s face that something was wrong. When I asked her, she said, “Yes, something is wrong. The baby is fine, but let me get the doctor.” He came in and took a look at the screen. My cervix was dilated 3 cm and was funneling open. He told me I wasn’t leaving. They paged my OB who got there amazingly fast. She examined me and found that my bag of waters was bulging through into my vagina. I didn’t understand the seriousness of this, but she said she would be right back. They put me in Trendelenberg (tipping the bed so my feet were higher than my head) to try and get the waters to move back into my uterus. My OB came back and said she had paged another Dr who had experience with rescue cerclages. They were going to give it a try. Using a balloon, they pushed the amniotic sac back into my uterus and then sewed me up. The next few hours would be critical, but it appeared everything was fine. Later that night, as I was trying to get up and use the bathroom for the first time, I felt a big gush of water. My OB was paged again and she confirmed that my water had broken. The cerclage had to be removed due to a great risk of infection. That was it – we were losing another baby. We found out at the u/s that it was a boy and we named him Harrison, a name we tossed around previously to knowing the sex. We gave him a name in a hurry because we knew we’d be holding him soon. The night after the cerclage was removed my DH and I just held each other and talked about the future. We cried very little. We’d been through this before and knew what to expect this time. All we had to do was wait for the contractions to start. I decided I would be induced, why wait for the inevitable? This is where Divine intervention took over. I was in a Catholic hospital and their policy prohibits induction of live babies unless it is life threatening. My Dr. offered to transfer me to another hospital. She did an u/s to see how everything was progressing and there on the screen, acting like nothing had happened was my beautiful son. There was no way I was going to be induced. I would be killing my baby. I decided to wait it out. In the mean time, the Dr noticed that my fluid levels weren’t decreasing, and in fact were very good. It turned out that the sac resealed itself! Another cerclage was put in and I was released from the hospital on complete bed rest for the next 4 months. Well, to make a long story short – the pregnancy was still very rocky after that, but my beautiful DS, Harrison Christopher, was born by c-section on August 9, 2000. So...that brings us to Miss Lydia, born on February 28, 2002. Her story is very simple in comparison. As soon as I weaned DS from breastfeeding, I tried Clomid again. This time with a new Dr (again – since we had moved) who was extremely thoughtful and understanding to all my freak outs. We conceived on the very first round. I had a cerclage placed at 14 weeks and my cervix stayed relatively long and closed throughout the pg. I had some mild contractions throughout for which I was on oral Terbutaline, but never any other problems. I was able to carry on my life as normal. I opted to have a repeat c-section and it went flawlessly. Lydia Miriam is our little princess. She is demanding at times, but has so much personality. She rolled over at 3 months (DS was 6 months the 1st time!) and is itching to crawl any day. She babbles and blows raspberries and giggles at her crazy brother. She completes our family perfectly. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading. I am so grateful for everyone here and for everything I've learned. It is difficult to express how important INCIID has been to me, but I can honestly say my children wouldn't be here without you. Sara |