On Monday, the 31st, things started the same. More using the bedpan, another nurse, and more IV's. At 2:30pm, we reached the critical 48 hour mark and knew that we were a little safer. Now to just get to 10:00pm,which was the 48 hour mark for the steroids. We were doing it, we were making it, hour by hour. At 2:45pm Lucas' heart rate was 144 and Caleb's 154. The boys were doing great, I felt like I was leaking less fluid. At 5:00ish, I told Willy things were looking good and that he could take the boys home for the night. I had plenty of friends who had offered to stay wit me and we thought it would be good for the boys and Willy to have a night at home.
At 7:30pm, I started feeling some pressure that was coinciding with the monitored contractions. I called for my nurse as instructed. She decided to check the boys' heart rates and try to put them on the monitors. She began to give me meds to stop contractions in case I was beginning to go into labor. She found Caleb easy enough. They brought in an ultrasound to find Lucas since he seemed to be giving them a hard time. Jill, one of my MOPS mentors, was there with me. We were looking at the screen and seeing what looked like Lucas sucking on his thumb. But in the position he was in, they couldn't get a good look at his heart. They really needed to see it, because it seemed my heart rate was interfering with his. They were reading in the 120's.
The doctor came in to look and was also having troubles. She called for the high-tech ultrasound again. She kept reassuring me that Lucas wasn't the one we were concerned about and to not panic. She did a visual exam and I was still closed and there was no sign of cord prolapse. The ultrasound techs arrived.
At around 8:30pm, May 31st, I learned that we had lost Lucas. The movement we had seen just an hour earlier was my pulse running through his cord. Once again I completely lost it. I just lost one of my babies and I never had a chance to hold and smell him. He was gone so quickly. Everything was great just a few hours ago. How could this happen? And to us? And what about Caleb? And I have to call Willy, get him back to the hospital. And make arrangements for Colton and Ethan.
Right after Willy arrived, the perinatologist came in to figure out our new plan and what had happened. She looked at the boys on ultrasound and confirmed my worst fear. We had lost Lucas to TTTS. He was the recipient twin and passed due to congenital heart failure. His tiny heart had worked too hard to pump the extra blood through his body. Within 24 hours we went from everything looks good to we've lost one of our sons and the other is in jeopardy.
The perinatologist said that it looked as though Caleb still had fluid around him. She said in "most" cases the donation of blood stops and withing hours there should be more fluid for Caleb as his kidneys began to produce again. The hope was to keep him monitored and carry both twins as long as I could to give Caleb the best chance. And you know, I was going to do it. I took slow, deep breaths, and was determined to see this through. I mourned the loss of Lucas, but knew that we still had Caleb and we were going to fight for him.
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