Still good news...

Good news today, unexpected but couldn't have came at a better time.

So today we got a call from the genetics specialist in the office we go to and as of now all results since the preliminary FISH are negative and normal findings.

Are we off the hook so to speak, yeah sort of in a degenerative way. When there are no chromosomal abnormalities involved with birth defects and issues like that there does seem to be a host of alternative options and more aggressive care to continue and remain hopeful for the pregnancy. Do I agree with the idea that if our children have a chromosomal/genetic disorder that we should accept less? No. I would have found somewhere, like I did for Aubrey to at least fight...try...habor hope till the answers were clear.

This is very complicated to explain, and I'm sure many would not agree, however...your life stands still until you know about these things. Although in your mind and heart you are on the same path with the hope and desire for the same outcome...the truth is that there are crossroads that you come to in pregnancy after a loss, any loss, that you just stand still and do anything from scratch your head to pray to inflict numbness so that you don't allow yourself to wonder prematurely down a path.

I once told someone that our pregnancies were a lot like having a treasured classic car.

Cherished, aged, well cared for, respected, handled with kid gloves, wouldn't trade it in for anything...but you hold your breath each morning you go out to start it to head off to work.

So with all the good news over the last week, I know in my heart that the Lord has touched our babies and is working with them...selfishly, yeah I have sighed a breath of relief. Truth. Reality. It has been a week since I have seen them, those little hearts a bumping along...I do hope and pray that they both are doing well after the invasive procedure and week marathon of stress on them. There is still the nuchal of 5 mm.

As to with this we will deal as it unfolds...ahhhh.

I was thinking the other day, "How far would I have to go back to be so naive about pregnancy and conception?"

12 Years.

Wow!

Good news and no news...

Short but sweet, I will post later.

There is no Trisomy 13, 18 or Downs.

Waiting on Turners Syndrome and De George's Syndrome.

There was a distinctive nose bone present , a good thing so they are leaning towards heart defect and then there is the hydrops, CDH issue.

Lesson here is with my age, my pregnancy and infertility history and previous pregnancy...we will never have normal, we may end up with normal but we will never know normal...so I must stop imagining normal in my dreams. We are going through the entire pregnancy under a microscope so we best hold on tight because we have all but been promised a bumpy, rocky tough road ahead.

The general thought of my frame of mind is that I'm good, in a much better place then last Friday, especially Monday, however once your foundation has been fractured..this happened with the death of our daughter a year and half ago...it doesn't take much to rattle the walls again. I just didn't realize how fragile my foundation was...physically, emotionally and spiritually.

So there may be periods of insanity and babble, I will at times lick my wounds. I know this one thing. In our last pregnancy I was the strength and courage for many...I shorted myself of emotions that I was entitled to as Aubrey Evangelene Grace's mother, I robbed Sarah Anneleise Klaire of moments that I could treasure for a live time...I will never be that person again...

There are times and moments in a persons life when you are to be brave, strong, courageous...set an example. Then there are times when friends and family should be this for you and allow you to be broken.

Momentarily broken is good, it's therapeutic and it healing.

And insight on the whole infertility,pregnancy loss and infant loss...there are no Oscar awards for the person who grieves the best, puts on the best front, becomes the humanitarian of the year...there is nothing but membership dues...and they are high.

There are no magic formula to how much pain and agony a person is entitled to...some will occur once in a life time, some their whole life through. The only statue of limitations is the amount of time a worried, scared grieving mother has to "get it out of her system" and get back in the game.

This road. It's tough, it's scary, it's not much fun, but with the right support and a honest heart and clear mind..it is all worth it in the end...

Tomorrow, the best day of my life, thus far...

Tomorrow. For only 24 hours I'm sure it will fly by like lighting.

Tomorrow I will be pregnant with twins and thinking of them both coming home to our house, being little brothers or sisters to Anneleise.

I will cherish tomorrow because although tainted with fear and anxiety and heart ache it will be the most innocent day of my pregnancy. I want tomorrow to never end...I don't want to hear how very sick or deformed my child is, rather they are incompatible to life, that they will be profound in many areas of their life...I don't want to have anymore bittersweet in my life.

I love my children, both of them, I have prayed for them for 10years, specifically for theses babies for 18months. I truly just can't bare to imagine the thoughts of this test findings...

What will happen if another child of mine is not found needing of a miracle and healed of it's afflictions? Would it be because I didn't ask enough, pray enough?

As much as I don't want this day to end, I can't go another day loving another child that will never know me, my love for them, to feel the warmth of their head against mine.

Just two and half short years ago I sit here waiting for the truck to hit me head on as I stared my eyes stuck into the headlights. Honestly, I really didn't ever think that I would go this road again..nobody signs up for it, but I really didn't think this would happen to me.

You know, you may think that I am feeling sorry for myself and today I am, sorta. But really I think that I am grieving, the joy of this pregnancy, the hope that is being lost again. To lose a child once you know that you lose more than the child,you lose a piece of you that you would have given them...the piece that would have been nurtured. After Tuesday, as these babies mother, it can't be about me me. Mom's get a very limited time to grief, when there is a twin that survives...the time is even shortened. Life becomes so bittersweet that you remind yourself daily of joy, and hide your grief. After all how can I be sad? I have a baby...one survived...at least... Not many have ever said it ,but you know I do it, I find the silver lining for people all the time. I'm going to stop that , it just as bad as telling tells. I robs some one of their feelings.

Pregnacy and lighting...similar or different?

We'll what I imagined to be a wonderful day has played out much like the day we found out our daughter had a fatal form of CDH almost 2 years to the day. I feel really quit stupid right now to think that we would make it through another pregnancy with out heart wrenching agony. Until Tuesday we don't know but today I had to have a CVS test done on baby "a", things are not looking good for this blessing of ours. At best this was a false impression and will redefine it self as the pregnancy continues, if what they think is going on is ...our best hope is Down's Syndrome with a heart defect which isn't the best but in the list of things it can be if not a false image...it is. I really just can't even think of what I feel right now. Can't figure out who I am angry at, I guess because there is no one...I am feeling a bit sorry for myself, I can't believe this is happening to us... and another child. I love theses babies and I want theses babies so badly, but at the moment I wish I could just take them out and set them somewhere while I just ran away. Who says lighting doesn't strike twice in the same place...right...I has found my heart again, I'm just so broken right now...scared and I don't really know if I want the results. I feel like my hopes and dreams have never much mattered in the outcome of anything in my life and the Lord does use me a lot in his lessons, but I don't want to be brave and strong anymore...I just want my babies here normal and healthy...who'd though that was just an impossible dream.

Imagine this.

Can you guess, come on, I know you got it in you... It's already snowing, it's sleeting in addition. It's 10:26 pm and it was to start at midnight, so there is a two hour head start on plans to ruin what was to be a wonderful and exciting day for us and the babies... Rats. I have hope though that the storm will just stall (sorry Southerners) and when the appointment is over and we are over the mountain ridge...it comes at us with all it's got and we just get snowed in for the weekend. But, at last, mother nature decides to get involved in my infertile life and is throwing us a party tonight so it is looking slim or nothing that we will make it to the appointment in the morning. Yeah. Did I mention that slim just walked out the door? I don't want to lose electric. It's too cold for that...but telephone and err, TV...ahh how grand would that be.

I am beginning to think that we will not get an ultrasound anytime soon, seems like every appointment there is a change of plans...errrrr. By the time we get one they will be able to tell the sex...double errr. I don't want to find out, I want that true real surprise that you get at birth. Tom doesn't get this. I try to tell him that after IVF and all the years of fertility treatments and calenders and militant living, this would be the first true ultimate shocker and surprise (good one that is) we have ever had. I'm hormonal, going through Internet withdrawal and frankly spent way too much money at the store tonight in the "snow" frenzy of the year and have nothing to eat...double rats!

Time delay.

Our computer has been bothered. At best those are the words I can come up with. We know almost nothing morethan before the appointment other than i have lost 2 pounds and my blood pressure and sugar are okay...big deal I want pictures! I could have fired the doctor today but his theory is sorta right so I'll let this go and we will have to wait...yeah, I said wait till Friday. Jerks. So assuming that we are not attacked again and a host cyber nut balls don't lock up computer again...I will be posting on Friday and I will have pictures if not of our babies then the picture of the bloody nose of the person who tells me NO!

Tick, tock, tick, tock...

I have made it, no big hurdle other than the fact that I go tommorrow at 9:30 am to see if the babies are okay.

Honestly I can't even wrap my head around how the women in the circa 1800~1900's did it. I guess if that was all they knew, then that was all they had. In our last pregnancy we saw the babies every week sometimes twice. This is really so different, and hard. Strike that it is almost cruel.

Everyone was sick in the house last night, I was sick due to nerves and the pregnancy so I didn't make it to church today. I really needed that too.

I have worked so hard to become numb theses last three weeks that I have been sort of like a zombie. I forgot to pay the water bill and the electric bill and I forgot to get anyone anything for Valentines Day. I have just been trying to stay distrcted and not watch the calendar. It actually worked, however I upon reflection last night realized that I also avoided to work on my relationship with the Lord over the last week. That's wrong. Guess I sort of hid my head in the sand so to speak to make it to Monday, however I lost out on some vaulable times with my family and the Lord...lesson here...live each day as you are to live...lean on the Lord to get you through and in the end you will be all the same if not better.

UUUggghhhhh. Wouldn't you think after all my years that somewhere I would start learning these lessons only once?

Well, if anyone wants to know what they can do for me and the babies...yep. Pray.

The appointment is at 9:30 am. After some phone calls to family who are already talking about the appointment...I will make sure I post.

Please Lord calm my nerves, sooth my soul, strengthen my heart...let me bond with theses babies and stop avoiding my love for them. Lord, I know through you Lord all things are possible, you are the ultimate physician and in your perfect time and will your will be done, Lord help me not only learn this but know and trust in all you do... In your name a nervous greiving mother.

Hello darling(s)...

Just like the ol' country song says....

Hello darling(s) it's been a long time...
since I've seen you.

Yup that is what I'm doing...thinking of ways to just see these little ones.

Yup sick isn't it?

Yup, that is what I will be doing all day tommorrow.

Yup, we still need the prayers...maybe me more than them.

I've got it!

Okay this is a self diagnosis here but I just know that I have it.

OCUSD

What is it?

Obsessive Compulsive Ultra Sound Disorder.

You laugh...I wish I was.

Like a druggie surfingthe parking lots, I have found 100 reasons why I should just call the doctors and get one, I need a peek in my uterus.

If the whole "test tube" baby thing was really that simple. My babies in a tube, clear glass where I could sit for hours on ends and watch cells divide and hearts beats....ahh :).

Okay, I have admitted it...it is my uterus and I want to know what is going on in there! I just need to know that they both are okay, that everyone is accounted for. If I was a duck I would have whiplash by now getting up and checking my eggs, counting them, moving them etc then sitting back down to only turn around and do it again. The first trimester is probably natures way of giving our babies the well deserved break they need, I would probaly bother them to the end.

It has been our goal to have less invasive exams in the first trimester due to the history, which meant less ultrasounds. I don't know what I was doing that day when I jumped on the "I want to treat this pregnancy like it is normal train." "Lets not look for problems yet." Someone should have reminded me that the pregnancy may be normal but the mother is ...well, err, NOT!

The roads are covered in snow...calling for ice. Don't want to lose the eletric and people have injuries but some ice would at least remove the idea of getting one tommorrow...then there is Valentines Day~ Whole nother post...

Hanging out..err...in.

I'm here at the house just hanging out, inside,isolated and bored. Well worrying is quite time consuming however gets boring.

Everyone in our house is passing the flu, cold whatever it is around. I really did all I could to not get it, but have and have of course kept it the longest.

I really didn't need this, it just adds worry to my mind. We don't go back to any doctors until the 18th of Feburary. Good because each trip is abut 30.00 in gas and 35.00 copay, but honestly I would pay it everyday to just see those hearts beating....uggh. I don't know if I can make it two more weeks.

Iam very anxious for this pregnacy to get past that first trimester point and even more anxious to get to that moving around point, then you have some kind of knowledge things are at best...going.

The plan is to go in on the 22nd for the first of the scans for birth defects. Lovely. I remember these weeks not so long ago. I have been praying that this pregnacy remains so uneventful and all my concern will be fruitless.

I haven't posted much because really there is nothing to post. I have of course all my hopes and dreams about this pregnacy but I can't bare to share them yet, so I have been trying to concentrate on fellowship and prayer.

This is where you ask, "is there anything I can do?" and this is where I say,"Pray, pray for two healthy babies and a healthy mom (me)."

I would like to say that I plan on posting again soon, but really, I can almost hear the minutes ticking in my head. It is unremarkable how when I have a list of things a mile long that need attending to the day is not nearly long enough...but since the moment I have found out that I am pregnant...I feel like I am in the Matrix movie, the scene where everything moves like super sonic speed in reverse.

I really don't like wishing my days away, especially with this pregnacy, I want to embrace each day and have joy...maybe you could add some of that into the prayers too, that I can find the courage to relax and embrace the days with this pregnacy. Looking back, some of my best memeories were made during pregnacy.