Are You Sure It's Not a Cyst?

July 2008: Here I am; in the doctors office for the 2nd time in two weeks. I have been spotting since I was 5 weeks pregnant. Something must be wrong with the baby. I have never had any problems with my other two pregnancies. My husband and I were trying one last time for a baby girl as we have two other boys already. I am hoping we will see a heartbeat today. Last week there wasn't a heartbeat yet. The doctor said it was probably too early to see one on the ultra sound. After begging the advice nurse on the phone to be seen, here we are again hoping all is well with the new baby.

My husband sits next to me in the tiny room as I am dressed in the beautiful, baby blue plastic "gown". The Nurse Practitioner wheels in the ultra sound machine and says “Let’s take a look.” My eyes close and I pray we can see a heartbeat. The little glimmering spot emerges and I feel a sense of relief. The Nurse looks closely at the embryo and confirms everything looks ok. I ask, still afraid, “Why would I be spotting?” She states that it’s common in some pregnancies to spot throughout. That being the only logical answer, I was feeling a little better.

Before the ultra sound ended, I jokingly asked, “Can you just double check that there is only one baby in there? I am starting to show a lot sooner than my other pregnancies.” The nurse exclaims, “Well, this is your third pregnancy so you will show a lot sooner.” She double checks just to reassure me, and says "Yep! Only one in there!" I look at the monitor and notice something that looked unusual but felt that she knew what she was looking at. The nurse then stops the wand. She says, “Wait a second.” My heart stops. That didn’t sound reassuring. I’m thinking...What’s wrong? She moves the wand a little more and pushes some buttons on the machine. Another tiny spot shows up on the top my uterus. The nurse says, “What's that? There’s another one. Let me see if it has a heart beat.” Now I go from relieved to worry as she finds another glimmering heart beat on this little speck. My husband, Mike, begins to laugh as I begin a nervous laugh. I never thought that there would be a yes to that question! It was just a joking statement. I said it with my other pregnancies...there wasn't supposed to be a "yes" to that question. In disbelief I ask, “Are you sure it’s not a cyst?” The Nurse Practitioner laughs and says “Honey, cysts don’t have heartbeats!”

I would like to be able to describe what happened next but I was in utter shock for about three to four hours after our "diagnosis" of twins. My husband literally had to tell me what to do and where to go the rest of my visit. My memory serves it like this: Mike is laughing and smiling with a big grin. Some other doctor who specializes in high risk pregnancy's comes in and gives me a vaginal ultra sound (so pleasant). Then she confirms there are two babies in one gestational sac, with healthy heartbeats. She proceeds to give me a run down of the worst case scenario twin pregnancy (got to love doctor’s tact). Something about being on bed rest..if they share a sac that would put me on high risk and the babies would be born at 28 weeks, perhaps 2 lbs each and being tiny and having to go to NICU…blah blah blah. I do a nervous laugh as I am still lying on the bed. The blunt doctor is going over all the nice possibilities I now face with having twins. I was in so much shock I couldn’t even sit up, so the doctor asked if she could help me get up. I am feeling a little woozy now. Not sure if its the blood rushing back to my head or shock. Some more talking takes place as my mind races with thoughts of "Oh my god! What am I going to do? This wasn’t what I had planned. How am I going to take care of two more children? This is crazy! Twins?"…and other thoughts like that. The doctors leave me to get dressed and I looked at my husband who was still smiling. I started crying. I wasn’t finding this amusing whatsoever. He asks, “What is wrong?” I exclaimed, “There are two!” He says, reassuringly “It’s ok!” I ask “It is?” and he says “Yes!” I told him he better help me out this time around because there are two babies now! Mike promises me he will be there to help and everything will be ok.

The next thing I remember is Mike walking me over to a prenatal office to get blood tests and ultra sound apts etc. All I remember her saying was “…babies this…” “…babies that….” And I am thinking “babies????” This was so weird to me to think I have two little lives growing inside. I knew there was a slight possibility but this never happens to me. Nothing like this is supposed to happen to me! What are the odds that my egg decided to split in two the one month I was trying to conceive out of all these years??? God thinks I can handle twins? Is He crazy? Doesn't He know who I am? I can't handle twins let alone 4 kids!

We call everyone in the family and got all different types of responses. Most were pleasant and congratulatory. My sister thought of course it would be me who had twins! They all reassured me it will be ok. Inside I knew this was a whole new adventure that I wasn’t so sure I could handle. I am glad everyone had faith in me. Was I the only one concerned? What would the pregnancy be like? Would the babies be healthy? How are we going to survive with two more mouths to feed? Little did I know, this would be the greatest adventure of my life.