Baby B a.k.a Dean

Since our last post there has been weight gain, swelling, stretching, growing and several Dr. appointments. At my ultrasound on 8/9 I was informed that they found a small mass on Baby B’s lungs. They actually saw it during my previous ultrasound but hadn’t told me since the Dr. wasn’t in that day. The techs do not tell the patients anything. It’s always the Drs. who share the information. During my ultrasound on the 9th they were checking to confirm what they saw previously. The Dr. came in and explained what she saw. Also, she had to take more pictures and video. She saw that there was a blood supply going to that mass and she was trying to figure out where it was coming from. Once she had enough information she explained everything to me. To spare you confusing details, I’ll just say that the blood supply going to the mass was coming from the heart. She said she wanted me to see a Pediatric Cardiologist for an echo in order to determine exactly what the issue was.

We met with the Cardiologist (Dr. John Stock) at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. Dr. Stock is a wonderful Cardiologist! He put us at ease and did an excellent job of explaining everything in terms we could understand. The whole appointment lasted about 3 hours and we walked away feeling more comfortable about what to expect. Here is the easy-to-understand version…

Baby B (a.k.a Dean) has an extra vessel branching off his right atrium. These vessels don’t belong there at all, they are just extra. We don’t know what the mass is and we won’t find out until after he’s born. Dr. Stock said he thinks there will be an option of two procedures once Dean is born. 1. They will make a surgical incision on his side, cauterize the vessels and remove the mass. 2. Using a catheter, they will travel up and insert a coil into the vessel to stop the blood flow and then remove the mass. So, either way, a procedure will be done to stop the blood flow from the extra vessels and remove the mass. Dr. Stock will consult with the Thoracic Surgeon to confirm this. We will then meet with the Thoracic Surgeon to go over his recommendation, followed by a meeting with the Neo-Natal Dr. and a tour of the NICU. The hospital where the boys will be born is close to our home, but the hospital where the procedure will be done is Phoenix Children’s Hospital.

Unless or until this issue starts to cause other problems for Dean, we don’t yet have a date scheduled for the c-section. I’m monitored at my weekly ultrasound appointments to see if the mass is getting bigger, more blood is flowing to the mass or his heart is becoming enlarged. If any of those 3 things occur, they will schedule the c-section right away. As long as those don’t happen, the boys get to remain wombmates a little longer. I’m hoping to make it as close to the end of September as possible. We’ll see if that actually happens or not! At 34 weeks I’m not experiencing contractions and I’m not dilated at all. That seems like a good sign to me that the boys will stay put a while longer, which is good news. We still don’t have everything ready! We hope to have new carpet installed by the end of next week. We have to hang a couple things on the wall to make the nursery actually look like a baby room and I still have to wash and put away all their clothes! I hope they realize this and are going to cooperate with our schedule! The only way to find out is to check back here and see if the next post has newborn photos or nursery room photos.

Are We There Yet?

The bigger I get, the more comments I get from strangers just passing by. Things like “Wow! You must be close to delivery!” and “How much longer do you have?” When I respond that it’ll be sometime in September they just can’t believe it…until they find out I’m carrying twins. Then the comments change to “What?! You’re not big enough to be carrying twins!” or “Oh honey! You’re gonna have your hands full!” I reassure them that there are in fact two babies in my belly and that we are going to have plenty of help from family and friends. It’s not necessary to reassure perfect strangers but it’s hard not to respond. Based on those comments I guess I look big if I’m carrying one child but small if I’m carrying two! Right? Go ahead, lie to me. I’ll take all the comments you want to give about how skinny I am at 32 weeks pregnant with twins!

We are grateful the boys seem to be comfortable where they are for now and aren’t planning an early escape yet. The longer they cook, the more time we have to get everything ready for their arrival. Since I just returned from my last work trip for the year, I should have no excuse from now on for not finishing the nursery. For some reason, napping on Saturday afternoon (okay…& Saturday morning!) seems like the thing to do instead. It’s a good thing they won’t care what their room looks like when they’re born!

Here is the most recent picture of Baby A from my ultrasound on Monday morning. Do you notice anything different about him? The first thing that came to mind when I saw him up on the big screen at my appointment was, “those are some big lips!” You all know my lips don’t look like that and Scott’s lips don’t look like that. Then I remembered my mom had made that same comment at my last ultrasound at the Stork Vision. The more I show this picture to people the more I hear the comment that he looks like a little black baby! Look at the picture and tell me what you think.

I showed the picture to Scott Monday evening when he got home and he thought the same thing as me. Then we joked about having one black baby and one white baby. Not long ago (last summer, I think) there was a couple that was in the news because they had done IVF and found out they were carrying another couple’s child! The fertility clinic had mislabeled the vials and informed the expecting couple of this mistake when the woman was about 7 months along I believe. Now, this doesn’t happen often but it got us thinking…has this happened to us? The clinic found out which couple the baby actually belonged to and the woman decided to carry out the pregnancy as a surrogate and give the baby to its real parents. I cannot imagine going through something like that but I don’t think I could live with myself knowing that someone who wanted to have a baby as badly as us didn’t get the chance because it was given to us by mistake!

This certainly isn’t something we’re dwelling on at all. Just a funny thought based on an ultrasound picture. If one of our boys ends up with big lips I’ll be so jealous! Mine are so thin! Boys end up with the long eyelashes and I just don’t think that’s fair. It’s us girls who want those lashes and lips!

As of Monday, I’m now getting ultrasounds and Dr. appointments every week. I feel spoiled that I get to see the boys so often when others have to wait weeks in between ultrasound appointments. It really is amazing to see how big they get with each appointment. During my work trip to San Diego last week they really began moving around so much more. Since then, it seems like one of them is constantly moving around. I have no idea what it will be like in a few more weeks. Their living quarters will be super tight. At least there won’t be room for Baby A to kick Baby B in the face at that point! For all the moving they’ve been doing you would think they would finally flip themselves into the head-down position. Nope. Apparently they prefer to stand up. They’ve pretty much lost their chance to flip at this point. There just isn’t enough room to do that now. C-section here we come! And maybe a little nip/tuck while we’re in there? Of course we don’t have a delivery date right now but as soon as we do we’ll let everyone know.

Here’s hoping the boys let me sleep a little more this week than they did last week!