My Story

In the Spring of 2005 we had decided to build our family. What initially started out as an exciting endeavor turned into ovulation cycles, blood tests, specialists, and miscarriages. Starting a family soon became all consuming, and my 2 hour commute and 24/7 high stress job started to take a backseat to fertility. I quit my job and began focusing all my efforts to making a baby. We had been trying for almost 2 years at that point and things were starting to get confusing and challenging and emotional. I needed an outlet; I took to writing. In addition to our big project of getting pregnant, my main hobby was cooking. So my complete domestic quest ensued and I decided to be a little snarky in my blog title “Making Babies and Making Dinner.” It turns out there would not be a lot of baby making in the years to come. More like failed attempts. In November 2006 I had my first miscarriage. I was devastated. We had tried so hard and finally thought we were going to have a baby, only for a short lived pregnancy of 7 weeks to fail. More tests were performed and still all came back negative for any issues. The next step was Clomid. It made me horribly ill and after 2 months I stopped. Then there was the HSG to check for blockage. This seemed to clear the way, even though no blockage was found in my fallopian tubes. I became pregnant with Sophia at the end of July 2007 without additional treatments or fanfare. I cherished every minute of my pregnancy. I embraced even the not so fun stuff, because I had worked so hard for these moments. I decided to close down my other blog and start with a clean slate full of new hopes for our life with Sophia. “Making Babies (and making dinner when possible)” was created. After Sophia was born, we wanted to try again within the year. I had been told by my doctors that I’d probably get pregnant right away without complication. The first miscarriage was when Sophia was 6 months old. It was a brief pregnancy of 6 weeks. It was hard to experience another miscarriage, but Sophia was keeping me distracted and I was so grateful for her. After a little break, we became pregnant after Sophia’s 1st birthday. This pregnancy ended July of 2009 at 10 weeks. I found out the baby measured 8 weeks and had passed, but my body didn’t want to let go. I needed to have a D&C and they were able to perform a biopsy of the tissue. The results showed a chromosomal disorder of full Trisomy 16, which always leads to fetal death in the first trimester. This was considered a fluke and we were told to wait a few months for my body to heal, and to try again. So a few months later, we conceived again. I found out I was pregnant on Halloween, October 2009; Rick was away on his yearly hunting trip. One week later I started to bleed. Fearing yet another miscarriage, I went to my doctor for an ultrasound. The baby had implanted in my fallopian tube next to my ovary. It was an ectopic pregnancy and I needed to be injected with Methotrexate, a drug used in chemotherapy, to dissolve the pregnancy. Yet another fluke. I decided to consult with a Perinatologist after the last failed pregnancy to find out if there were other reasons all these flukes were happening. He reviewed my file, we had a brief chat about genetics and age and he told me to go home and try again, that the odds are in my favor for a healthy pregnancy the next time. By Spring of 2010 we were ready to try again. I found out in May that I was pregnant. I started to bleed shortly after, and believed either another miscarriage or ectopic was looming. Turns out that I was pregnant with twins. What is typically a shock for most people anyway, was shock and complete fear that something would again go wrong. And it did. As the result of another fluke, the twins were identical and sharing the placenta. This increased the chances of many things and I was referred to the Perinatologist for care. At 12 weeks, the level 3 ultrasound and NT scan showed an abnormal thickness in the nuchal fold, in addition to the presence of a cystic hygroma (fluid on the back neck region) in twin B. An amniocentesis was performed on each amniotic sac. The results showed that twin A was perfectly normal, where twin B had Turners Syndrome. Turners Syndrome happens when the X or Y pair is missing, resulting in an XO chromosome map. Turners Syndrome only occurs in females and 98% result in miscarriage by the 2nd trimester. There has been no reported cases of this with an identical twin pregnancy sharing the placenta, and no statistical data to give us any indication of what to expect. With both girls sharing a placenta, the death of one twin could potentially result in the death of the other. We were sent to the Fetal Care Center in Cincinnati to meet with a team of specialists that care for high risk twin pregnancy. After 2 trips out there, it was determined that the best choice was to do no intervention and to let nature take its course. Twin B, Julia Bea passed away at 26 weeks. Because of her passing, twin A, Ava Marie was in danger and was delivered at 27 ½ weeks. Ava stayed in the NICU for 2 months and came home 1 month early, a few days before Christmas 2010. She is currently doing awesome, by the way. This blog started out as a place to keep friends and family current in our struggles to create a family, hopes to post about the everyday humdrum of raising kids, and my increasingly infrequent dinner recipes. I hope if anyone else happens on a similar situation, when they search they might happen on my story and find out that they aren’t alone.