"My Two Angles"

By Tracy

My name is Tracy, and I had never even heard of the term "incompetent cervix". I found out the hard way, like most woman, with my first pregnancy.

My husband and I only tried for a few months when we decided to get pregnant, and like any other couple we were absolutely thrilled when we had a positive test in March of 1998. The first few months were hard, throwing up 24 hours a day for about 6 weeks takes a lot out of a person. But I couldn't help thinking of the old wives tale, that morning sickness means a healthy pregnancy. At 14 weeks, when I was finally feeling better, I had a routine check up. The doctor felt around my belly, then measured with the tape measure. The only thing he could say was "Wow". I was measuring somewhere around what a 6 month pregnant woman would. Being that it was my first pregnancy, and that I had lost 15 pounds from all the morning sickness, I hadn't noticed how high my uterus was already. He scheduled me for an ultrasound right away. The doctor doing the ultrasound was pretty quiet at first, then he turned to me and said "You know you're having twins, don't you"?

Things were going great. I was finally feeling really good and restarted buying two of everything. My husband and I kept saying to each other "Oh my God, TWO babies "!!!. On June 29th, at 20 weeks, while out for my daily walk, I felt some wetness in my underwear. I thought, since I'm carrying twins, I guess I'm leaking urine from the extra weight. The next morning I woke up in a puddle in my bed the size of a dinner plate, and thought something might be wrong. I went to the bathroom, and when I wiped myself, I could feel something bulging out of me. I woke up my husband, and we went to the hospital without any idea of what was to come.

At the hospital, they discovered what I had been leaking was amniotic fluid, and what was bulging was one of the amniotic sacs. Both babies seemed all right at the time but that hospital wasn't equipped to handle something like this. I was put in the back of an ambulance and brought to a larger hospital 1 1/2 hours away. Once my husband arrived, the doctors explained things to us. I had what was called an incompetent cervix. My cervix painlessly dilated without any contractions to about 4-5 cms. The chance of saving the babies were slim, they needed at least 4-6 more weeks inside me if they were to have any chance at living. There was also the chance of prettier labor, and of infection. I was put on complete bed rest, and my bed was placed in Trendelenburg. That is with the bed tilted so my feet were higher than my head. They hoped this might help the amniotic sac slide back into my uterus. If this happened, there was a chance they could place a cerclage to close my cervix. I was also put on several intravenous antibiotics. I had daily ultrasounds to check the level of fluid around the baby with the leaking sac. This went on for four days. On my fourth night, I felt a gush of fluid, now the sac that was leaking had completely broke open. An ultrasound showed very little fluid left around that baby, we were told there was nothing left they could do. The babies would have to be delivered since the risk of infection was so high then. I was let out of bed the next morning and encouraged to walk around to see if labor would start. When it didn't I was induced the next night around 11:00 pm.

After six hours of labor, on July 5th, Taylor was born. She lived about 10 minutes and died in our arms. Fifteen minutes after Taylor was born, Kaitlyn came into the world. She only lived about five minutes since she was in the sac that had broken, and an infection had sent in there. She too, died in our arms. They were both perfect little babies, just too small to live.

Since I had gotten an infection, the placentas would not come out. I needed an emergency D&C because I had lost a lot of blood. While I was in the operating room, my daughters were baptized by my husband and the hospital minister.

I was sent home a few days later. A few days after that my daughters were buried in a small cemetery close to our home after a short memorial service. We also planted two trees in our backyard for them.

Four months later, on November 1st, I found out I was pregnant again.  It was decided right away that I would have a cerclage placed around 3 months. This was done without any problems. I was already 2 cm. dilated when they did this. My second pregnancy was pretty uneventful, that's a good thing since I was a pack of nerves. I was never on bedrest, in fact I worked full time up until my cerclage was removed at 37 weeks. This was on June 22nd. And on July 1st 1999, I delivered a healthy baby boy at 38 weeks. His name is Chase Joseph. I like to believe that everything went so well because I had my two angles looking over me and my baby.