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Reba's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 6/25/08 -------------------- 4/13/08 2/18/08 1/17/08 11/24/07 11/13/07 10/31/07 10/17/07 9/18/07 9/2/07 8/24/07 8/18/07 8/15/07 -------------------- Reba's Introduction

Following up

June 25, 2008

It has been a long time since I have written anything. I hardly know what to say. So much has happened, and yet time stopped for me on April 10. I literally keep thinking that "last week" means March.

For those who had continued to follow my story through my pregnancy blog, I have not updated it since the twins were born and died, and I don't have any plans right now to continue it.

Jeff and I are not ttc again yet. I'm just not ready. I can't believe it has been almost three months since we lost our son and daughter. I still can't believe all this happened to us.

However, I had started this diary sort of as a way to tell people what it's like to go through infertility, all the different procedures and the ups and downs. So lately I've been thinking, I should write an entry about what happened after we lost the twins.

Two weeks after the twins were born, I had a follow-up appointment with my ob-gyn. She didn't examine me then, we just talked. She asked me about my physical symptoms and prescribed me some anti-depressants, since I was pretty much a mess at that point.

I bled for about 4 weeks after the twins were born. Then about a week and a half after I stopped bleeding, I got my first period. My cycles seem to have gone right back to normal ever since then.

I had to take a lot of iron supplements every day ever since leaving the hospital because I lost a lot of blood during my labor. I had my annual physical last week and my blood level is back up to normal, so I got to stop taking the iron finally.

At the beginning of June I met with a high-risk ob-gyn who specializes in pregnancy loss. We talked about what had happened and about some ways to lessen my chances of going into preterm labor if I get pregnant again. She sent the twins' placentas to Children's Hospital in Boston for further testing, to learn more about the infection.

I also met with my RE a few weeks ago. He said he thought my body just didn't do well with twins, and hopefully if I get pregnant with just one baby, things would be different. He wants to petition our insurance company to let us try IVF with just one embryo. Our insurance company won't cover IVF unless we try two more IUIs with injectables. We have plenty of time to decide, since we aren't trying again for a while.

Earlier this week I had a hysteroscopy done. My ob-gyn looked inside my uterus with a tiny camera. Everything was projected on a TV screen so we could all see what my insides looked like. I saw uterus and my fallopian tube openings and my uterine lining. I was surprised by how clean everything looked.

The procedure wasn't too painful. I also had an endometrial biopsy done--that was pretty painful. It felt like a long and crampier IUI. And I had more of my cervix cauterized, to hopefully lessen or stop the bleeding I had during my pregnancy.

Jeff and I are still slowly working our way through this forest of grief. We were so excited to welcome the twins into our lives. Now our lives just feel so empty and meaningless. We visit the twins' grave at the cemetery every day, and we enjoy decorating it with flowers and ornaments. We started a memory garden for them, and planted trees and rose bushes in our yard for them. I also created an online virtual memorial for them, http://abernathy-and-malachi.virtual-memorials.com/. Please be aware that their online memorial contains pictures of them, and they were born very prematurely. 

We have been so appreciative of everyone's thoughts, prayers, and support through this extremely difficult time. I'll continue to post diary entries about what we're doing, but I apologize that they may not be that frequent.