Playing The Odds Part 1

First of all I must say thank you for the support you've freely gifted me with after last nights post.  Sometimes we are lifted up where we least expect it but know that your generosity of spirit is awe inspiring.

I will post later about today and "The Report" but right now I'm still processing but suffice to say, we shall overcome or at the very least map out the detour.

Tonight I'm travelling down memory lane and looking at how far we've come.  This post comes with a warning *self indulgent maudlin ranting ahead*.

When my marriage ended I was so gun shy that a starters pistol could induce hyperventilation just watching athletics on the TV, so 6 years ago I met a man who snuck into my safe little world and proceed to turn it upside down.  Not only did he love and accept who I am but had this crazy idea  that we should splice our DNA and have a baby.  I was 37 at this stage and warned him of decreased fertility, blah, blah, blah.  Long story short and wave the magic wand (there's a metaphor for you lol) and second cycle in I'm pregnant.  Cue debilitating exorcist style vomitting and yep we're well on our way.

12 weeks in and time to book in to the hospital, I'm offered a dating ultrasound as a point of reference.  Drink the water, lay down and we're off.  Mission control we have lift off, yes heartbeat confirmed, but wait there's more.  Luckily I was laying down because Mission Control we have received signal of alien lifeform, yes for those playing at home it turned out that Baby A was in a share house because right there in living black and white grainy image was Baby B.  I must confess that the word Fuck was used as a noun, adjective and verb for the next 3 hours or so.

Apart from the compulsive expulsion of stomach contents we moved through the weeks at what seemed to be lightning speed.  Everything was on track but in the back of my mind I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Little B was nowhere near as active as Little A but I kept telling myself that it was just positioning.

A routine growth ultrasound was ordered for 28 weeks and off we went excited to be seeing the Dynamic Duo again.  Everything was perfect, so perfect that the technician told himself that he could toddle off to work again as we wrapped up the last measurements so off he went and I doubt that he made it off the hospital grounds before I heard the sound that no mother wants to hear during an ultrasound "Oh"  It's amazing how one sound can tilt the axis of the world.  Within those two letters was the unspoken sentence that changed our destiny.  The technician had done a measurement that wasn't standard but had she not done it our little boy would have almost surely have died in utero. The blood flow in one of the arteries in his umbilical cord was reversed and his blood flow was restricted.  It was expected that this would gradually reduce until his placenta ceased to function.

The on-call obstetrician was adamant that we'd have to deliver that day.  The thought of delivering at 28 weeks just terrified me and reduced me to a puddle.  Luckily I was in the right place and the head of FMU came to see me.  He was prepared to try and get me to 32 weeks, no guarantees but he'd do everything he could to protect my babies for as long as possible.  Done deal and away we went.  Ultrasounds and CTGs every 3rd day for the next 2 weeks.  Once we hit 30 weeks we started to scan every day and at 31 weeks I was admitted to hospital and we were scanning twice a day.  We were scheduled to deliver by c/section on the Tuesday (32 weeks).  The Peri had to go away for the weekend but he'd arranged for one of his attendings to open up the Dept and scan me and ring through the results.  Saturday night at about 9pm they came to get me from the ward and off for the scan we went.  Within 10 minutes they'd stopped scanning and were on the phone.  We weren't going to make Tuesday our babies would be here tomorrow morning.  In the morning we would be playing the odds...........