Test results and f/u appointment

I had my follow up appointment on Monday at Bethesda. I thought it would be a physical appointment, but we actually just talked to the doctor. The doctor that delivered the boys came downstairs and met with us. I had not talked with her since I delivered Ethan and Jacob, so seeing her brought back all of those emotions. It was very hard to see her at first, and Joseph had to do a lot of the talking at the beginning. She was one of our doctors for three weeks, then delivered the boys.

We first talked about how we were doing emotionally. She gave me a prescription for Ambien, to help me sleep. I have been really struggling with sleep. My doctor said that it was completely normal to have problems sleeping after a traumatic experience. I usually stay up until 2 or 3 am, then fall into bed. It is easier to watch tv or play on the internet, than lay in bed and think. Joseph will eventually have to go back to work, and I want to be on a normal schedule again... so Ambien it is. Hopefully it will help me to fall asleep instead of just laying there.

My doctor answered a lot of the questions we had about the delivery. I don't remember a lot of what happened, and Joseph was not allowed in the room... so I had a lot of questions. She answered all of them, and she talked to us about why everything happened the way it did. It really made me feel better to have some answers. I feel like I finally know exactly what happened in the OR that morning. I also know exactly what happened to Jacob and Ethan while they were in the OR with me. She said that anesthesiology really dropped the ball when it came to my pain management, but they were not expecting me to deliver as fast as I did.

We finally got the results to the testing they did on Jacob while I was pregnant. They originally thought there was something chromosomally wrong with him, which caused my water to break. The tests all came back normal, so there was nothing wrong with Jacob. He was a normal little boy. They also got some of my cells in the test, and apparently I am a normal girl. Jacob being chromosomally normal is great news. We still have a frozen embryo waiting on us, and if Jacob had any abnormalities... it could be an issue for when we use the frozen embryo. I am happy to know that my little guys were both normal.

They also sent both of the boy's placentas for testing. They both came back normal, but very infected. According to my doctor, this is why I went into labor. This is also why my contractions went from cramping to unbearably painful in such a short amount of time. My uterus was really infected, causing the extreme pain. The infection is also why the medications they were using to try to stop my contractions, were not working. We knew from the beginning that infection was our main worry. The odd thing is that I never ran a fever. All that time in the hospital, the nurses were checking my temperature every four hours! I lost a lot of sleep from those stupid four hour temperature checks. The good news is that the placentas were formed correctly and had no abnormalities, which is also good news for future pregnancies.

We still don't know why Jacob's water broke so early. There are many reasons that it could have happened. Jacob's membrane could have been infected from the start, and the infection traveled up to Ethan's placenta. My cervix could have been thinning and dilating. It sometimes just happens for no reason. Since both placentas were infected, the doctor leaned toward that reason, but there is really no way to be sure. My doctor gave us a consult to talk to Maternal Fetal Medicine on the 20Th of October. They are the perinatologists that treated me while I was admitted. They want to make a "plan" for the next time I get pregnant, before I get pregnant. I will be considered high risk from day one next time around. I will only see the perinatologists and watched very closely.

Joseph and I are doing alright. Our days are a mix between good days and bad. I usually struggle with Sundays, since that is when I had Jacob and Ethan. We are working on getting our normal routine back, and it feels good to be as normal as possible again. We leave next Monday to go on vacation, which I think will be great. I will post some pictures once we get back to Virginia. Once we come back, Joseph will go back to work and our normal routine will be that much more normal. We have been so lucky that he has had so much time away from work. Since we lost Jacob and Ethan, I have become really attached to him. I will definitely be a little sad when he has to go back. He has to go back eventually though, so I will have to get use to being alone. I am sure Tina and I will have plenty of stuff to do. Other than that, we are moving forward. There is no time limit for grieving, so we are taking life one day at a time.