Final Update

Hi all! We are home now and *crossing our fingers* infection free. We will be taking it easy over the weekend then life goes back to normal.

I will be leaving the blog up for a short time while I transfer it to a book to be printed. Even though our little squirts are not with us, the book will be a keepsake for us.

Thanks again for all of your support!

Thursday Update

I am still at the hospital and hoping to come home tomorrow. They wanted to do another round of antibiotics to make sure I was all healed. Right now, I am scheduled to return to work on 11/18 - I was shocked at how long it was!

I have to laugh at Mark's taking over command of my little blog - what would take me 3 pages to write takes him 1 sentence! I would have to say that Tuesday was the worst day of my entire life - physically and emotionally. Between the two babies and the infection, I basically had labor 3 times and drugs only dulled it once. I had 3 OR procedures with 3 anethestics. But, I am feeling better now and I am ready to go home. I thoroughly believe that anesthesia causes hair loss so if you see me in a wig, you will know why and I hope you have the good graces to ignore it :)

Just a bit about our little ones! Jacob was born at 10:45 and he was very similar to Little M. He definitely was a little baby - 10 toes, 10 fingers, arms, legs, etc but he still looked a little alien like. I was drugged up but I swear he looked like he had a little beer belly :) The only other thing I remember is that he had my nose. The hospital did an excellent job of taking photos - lots of clear photos of him, his little feet, him holding a little heart pillow.

While it was unfortunate that I was not drugged up for Xander, it was a blessing in the sense that I remember him more clearly. He was so darn cute! I could definitely see both Mark and me in him. He had my nose (apparently, my nose is predominant in our kids - all 3 had it) and in the pictures, it sure did look like he had Mark's mouth. He was really the first one that I held for an extended period of time and examined because he was the first one that was truly like a baby. While he didn't look like a Gerber baby, he also didn't look like an alien! He had long legs and arms, large hands and feet, I could move his chin and open his mouth. I triple checked for a butt chin but I firmly believe that those are not truly indented until later in the process! He was also the first one that the clothing fit on - he had a hat and robe and they had a little knit blanket for him. Our little Xander was alive when he was born and I actually got to hold him while he was moving. He was baptised and he stayed with Mark for a long time when I was in the OR. While we don't know how long - it is all a blur for Mark, I feel blessed in knowing that he died with his daddy and not necessarily by himself.

We are unsure what we are going to do with the babies from here. We are either going to move Little M and put them all together at Westlawn or we are going to talk to St John and move all 3 there. Since our plots are already purchased there - next to Larry & mom - I would like the 5 of us to be together. We will work through that next week. We will do something private with just us two and we were thinking of calling the Father who did Bob's service to come say a prayer with us.

Thanks to all of you who have called, emailed, left comments on here, visited and sent flowers. We appreciate all of your love and support. Even though we are not good at sharing our grief with others, it helps to know that we have support available when we need it. I have a feeling that the worst is yet to come for me as I get home so I will rely on my friends and family for movies, margaritas and mozzarella cheese sticks :)

Crossing fingers to be home in the morning!

The end of the Journey

Late last night we unfortunately came to the end of this wonderful journey. I am sorry to have to be the bearer of bad news, but Stacy developed an infection last night and we lost Xander. All is well with Stacy, but we are going to ask that people hold off coming up till later tonight because they are going to give Stacy medicine to sleep.

Tuesday update

We came back to the hospital last night around 11:00, because Stacy was having cramps most of the day and started to spot last night. She slept through the night, and at 10:45 Jacob was delivered. She had to wait until 3:00 this afternoon for the surgery to put in a stitch in her cervix. She is out of surgery and we now have to wait to make sure that she does not develop an infection. Dr. Bonebrake said the next 72 hours are critical for the infections, but we have to watch it through the whole pregnancy. Everything has gone the way we needed to, but still are not out of the woods. We think that we will be here for the next 3 days, so if anyone would like to come up tomorrow or Thursday that would be fine. We are at Methodist hospital for those who did not know room 926.

Mark

Monday Update

Still at home and no labor! We go back to the doctor tomorrow at 3 so we will see what he says then - whether we will come back home until Friday or whether we need to be in the hospital.
Do have some sad news to share - we know that baby Jacob left us yesterday. He hasn't been born yet but he is no longer alive. This was not unexpected - we knew he wouldn't be able to make it outside and we didn't know how long he would make it inside. We pray that he is surrounded by the other babies we have lost and our family that is up there. I dreamt about Lexie last week so I am sure she is being a freak to him too :) Mark and I are doing OK with the news - I think we were prepared for it. However, I am sure that we will continue to experience little bursts of fits - cry, scream, get it out, wait for the next one!
Will post another update after the doctor tomorrow - unless he keeps me!

Back home...

We are back at home now. No baby/babies decided to show up. We tried to leave yesterday afternoon but we only made it as far as the elevator before things felt funny again so he had me stay overnight. No changes! We now have to go to the dr twice a week. Monday will mark 18 weeks for our pregnancy. While we know that the baby who's water broke (Jacob) won't make it no matter how long we last, we really want the other baby (Xander) to make it to 24 weeks at a minimum. At 24 weeks, the pregnancy is considered viable. However, the odds are still not good. At 26 weeks, his survival rate goes up and the doctor said that if we can stretch it to 28 weeks, the odds of survival REALLY go up. But, this is all still a long shot. Right now, we are still expecting to go into labor sometime over the next week - statistically, it happens in 10 days to 2 weeks after the water breaks. We are a week out from the water breaking. We have to pray that Xander's water doesn't break during that labor, that he doesn't decide to follow his brother out and that both of their placentas (which are fused together) decide to stay in. The doctor said that it is not unusual for the placenta to want to stay in because it isn't ready to come out yet - that happened to us with the other baby. We pray for all of those stars to line up for us!

Right now, I am on disability from work until something happens. Best case scenario is that I am only off a short time for now and then would work for several months until Xander comes. Worst case scenario is that I would be off for delivery then recovery.

Thanks to any of you who are reading for your continued prayers!

Back at the hospital

But, at least I have a laptop now! We went in for our routine visit yesterday morning and everything looked the same - one baby was still floating around and one baby still had no fluid. Both babies were ok and both had a good heartbeat. We got all of our questions answered and we headed out the door. Unfortunately, as I was walking to the car, I felt something strange. We turned around and went back to the dr. He did an exam and it appears my cervix opened up a little bit and the baby's umbilical cord was coming through. I got admitted and I think all of us thought that I would deliver within a couple of hours. However, it is 29 hours later and I am still in the hospital and both babies are still moving around and their hearts are beating. I am not sure what the long term plan is - the doctor should be coming back sometime this afternoon. I don't know if I am here for another 24 hours or through the weekend. I have no idea. We are all really praying that the baby is delivered and the other baby can stay in with a cerclage. However, a lot of stars need to align for this to happen and we are just in a wait and see mode.