My Miracle Baby

Tomorrow is Zach's birthday. He'll be six. He's my miracle baby. I've cried more tears over him, and had more prayers said in his behalf than all my other babies put together. At one point I even had doctors telling me I should just abort him and start all over again. There was a lot of risk involved, but oh how we feel so blessed and thankful to be celebrating six years with him.The trouble started in the beginning. I think I was only six weeks along or something. I don't think I had even told anyone besides John that I was pregnant before we found ourselves in the emergency room because I was bleeding. I had lost a baby before, and I had to get to the hospital to find out if everything was still okay. That night was awful, for so many reasons that I don't need to go into here, and it is probably on my top ten list of most terrible nights in my life, but it was probably a blessing in disguise. The real drama started the next week at a follow-up appointment at another ultrasound office across town. They were much nicer than the cranky technician at the hospital, I didn't even have to fill my bladder for them to get a good picture, and I'm sure if I had they would have let me fill it up the traditional way, other than the hospital's way. I even got to see the screen as they were doing it. The good news was there was still a heartbeat, but the bad news was is that it was twins, and only one baby was still alive. It's hard to describe what went through my head in those few seconds it took for the ultrasound lady to tell me that. For half a second I was having twins. Two babies. For half a second I had visions of double strollers and matching outfits, and twice the chaos. But just for half a second. How was (am?) I supposed to feel about losing something I never knew I had in the first place? "Congratulations! You've won the lottery! Oh wait, sorry. My Bad. That's a 6, not a 9. Sorry about that." In my journal that night I wrote- I'm sad. I want a miracle and the other one to be all right.6 years later, and I'll be honest, I still wonder what life would be like with two Zachs. I'm still a little sad when I think about it every once in awhile. But then I think of twice the mess, and twice the sleepless nights, and then I read my friend's blog and she talks about her twins, and even last week, as I was reading it and what her two year olds are up to and then just one word popped into my head- "Conspirators". Not just twice the mess. This could be one of those situations where the total is greater than the sum of it's parts. But I am sure my friends, the parents of these adorable little girls would tell you that the joys more than outweigh any of the troubles."So what next?" I ask. "What happens to the other baby?" They just say that the dead baby will just dissolve (ew) and my body will absorb it. (Ew-ew.) And they wanted to do more follow-ups, so I was to come back the next week.

At the next appointment I remember laying there on the table watching the monitor, looking for that reassuring little heartbeat to know that I still had the one baby, and relieved to see that he had grown, and then I noticed something. (Which I am sure caught the ultrasound lady's attention right off) I wrote this in my journal that night- The other one is still there. I'm confused, but I don't say anything. (maybe it's a miracle!)

By the next week I noticed it still getting bigger, and this time I voiced my thoughts- "Um, isn't that other baby supposed to dissolve and go away?" I asked. "Why does it look like it's been growing?" It didn't look like the other one, it wasn't growing like the other one. And then my emotions took a weird turn here. I was barely trying to figure out how to mourn a baby I never really had, wishing against odds that it would turn out alright and now I wanted it gone! I wanted it to dissolve and go away and leave my other baby alone!

(This is the part where my memory gets a little hazy- shock does that to you) Another doctor came in, and they looked and they looked, and they measured, and they double checked, and they followed the blood flow in the umbilical cord, and it took quite awhile. And their super-friendly, outgoing attitudes were replaced with very nice, but very serious expressions. And then, we had to go sit and talk to the doctor, the guy who's name is on the door, the expert in this area. We had to sit in his office. The last room you want to sit in when you visit with a doctor. With him behind his desk, and John and I on the other side, and then he explained my "condition".I had or the babies had, what is called TRAP Sequence. Twin Reversed Arterial Perfusion Sequence. 6 years later, and I still remember those words. I even spelled them right without spellcheck. Basically the umbilical cords were messed up, and the dead twin was stealing blood (and therefore nutrients) from the healthy baby. I guess this happens in like less than 1% of identical twins. Then (and this is where it gets really hazy) he proceeded to outline the list of problems that can occur from this. Everything from missing a finger to heart failure before he was even born. There was even a really good possibility of terrible chromosomal abnormalities, that if the baby survived til birth he would have no quality of life, probably be in a lot of pain, and then die within a few days anyway. I don't want to bore you with numbers and percentages, but they were bleak. The odds truly were against us. This is the part where I started having doctors offer to "take care" of this pregnancy, and then I could start over fresh in a month or two. Several times I had that offer laid at my feet. This was a baby I wanted, and loved, and could provide a happy home for, and I never imagined or thought in my wildest dreams that abortion would be offered to me as a viable solution. How crazy is that? John and I each dealt with this news in the only way that we could. I went home and crawled into bed and pulled the covers over my head and cried and cried and cried. John went straight to the computer to learn all he could. And what he learned was terrible. He wouldn't even show it to me. Grotesque images of deformed babies who had sucked so much life out of the healthy twin, that the dead one was twice the size of the living one. The one image that will stay with me forever is an ultrasound a had a couple weeks later. The other baby was moving. The really creepy part was that because the blood supply he was stealing was inadequate, only the bottom half of the body was developed. It had no heart, no head, no arms or brain, but it did have a smaller torso, and legs, and those legs were kicking. Because it did have a nervous system. Like the creepy science experiment I saw in college where they cut a frog in half and hooked the spine up to electricity to watch the legs kick.We did learn that there was a surgery that was another option. There was a doctor in Philadelphia who could do a surgery when I was twenty weeks along that would separate the twins, and fix it, but it would cost somewhere around $75,000 or more, and insurance wasn't gonna pay for it. "Experimental" they called it. And it was only successful like 50% of the time anyway. I think by this point I wasn't on bed rest any more, but I still spent a lot of time in bed crying and praying. Wishing that pulling the covers over my head would make it all go away. Friends and family were never far away, doing what they could, and praying for us as well. And all those prayers were heard. The chromosomal analysis we had done at 13 weeks came back normal. While both babies continued to grow, Zach's growth remained healthy and normal (if slightly on the smallish side) and the other baby seemed to get smaller and smaller on the monitor, but only because Zach was getting bigger and bigger. The special surgery wouldn't be needed, and Zach was healthy and strong. My mom came out to stay with us when I was about 28 weeks along. She slept on my couch for two months and took care of my other kids, and cooked and cleaned, and I was put back on bed rest (because by then I had already had two babies with no drama in the pregnancy born 8 weeks early). She stayed as long as she could, and when I was 36 weeks along, she had to go back to work.

My water broke the day after she left to go back home to Utah. 36 weeks. That's seriously a record for me. My water broke in the middle of the night and a good friend and neighbor came to stay with our kids and sleep on the couch until someone could relieve her. My water broke, but the contractions didn't start so the hospital put me on pitocin to get things moving along. What a horrid, exhausting, painful, day. My water broke at midnight, but Zach wasn't born until after ten pm the next night. I got an epidural this time, and the pain was so bad I was crying and begging for it first. (I've heard that pitocin makes the contractions downright unbearable- I believe those rumors)

So Zachary Ian Berrett was born at 10:47 pm on August 20th, 2002. He was my biggest baby at 4 lbs 13 ounces. And he was perfect. Ten fingers, ten toes. The moment they put that bloody, slimy, disgusting, little thing on my stomach, I fell in love. They always whisked the others away first to make sure they were okay and clean them up. He was so perfect he got to come home with me. All of my other babies had to spend 2-3 weeks in the hospital before they were strong enough to come home. I saw the other baby when it came out of me, it looked like a little gray mushroom. I think we had to sign papers so they could take it back to some lab for study. We didn't name it or anything.
So I got my miracle. When all this started before I even knew how bad it was gonna get, I was praying for a miracle. While I didn't get that particular one, I know our prayers were answered, and I will forever feel blessed to have my healthy, blue eyed little boy Zachary in my life.

Happy Birthday, Zach.