In May of 1993, I discovered I was pregnant.  The pregnancy was far from planned (we'd only married a few months before) but we were both pleased about it.  The military (my husband is in the Navy) does not do any sort of prenatal check until 12 weeks.  I was glad for that, since I wanted to go low-intervention anyway.  I was delighted to find out that the hospital where I would receive my prenatal care used midwives as their standard providers.  "You only see the doctors if you're high-risk" they told me.  At my 16 week check, there was some concern that I was measuring several weeks "off" from where I ought to be.  The midwife wasn't sure why that was, and thought the difference was significant enough to require a quick ultrasound to check my dates.  We scheduled one for a few weeks later.  On the Ultrasound, it was clear why I was measuring large -- we were expecting twins.  We rejoiced only momentarily, however.  "This isn't good" I heard the sonographer murmur, as he turned the screen so we couldn't see and went to get the doc "on call".  The doctor would be the one to tell us that our twins (identical girls, they thought) would not survive.  They both appeared to have major heart anomalies, and Baby B (the smaller twin) appeared to be anencephalic as well (which meant that the brain had failed to develop).  One of them (it was difficult to determine who) was also missing a hand, and possibly a foot.  We were sent home, not knowing what to think, or what to do.  Numb, we told no one about the twins.  At our next appointment (25 weeks) the doctor (we'd been officially declared high-risk) failed to find a heartbeat with the external doppler.  He tried to tell us that the babies were gone, but I was sure I still felt some movement.  Shaking his head and muttering, the doc did a quick US scan -- sure enough, one of our babies (baby A) appeared to be alive and well.  But baby B had not made it.  The doc outline our options for us:  We could remove Baby B by section, and try to maintain baby A a while longer, we could induce, and hope for the best, we could induce, and try to maintain baby A in utero (not likely, and especially unlikely with identicals), or we could wait and do nothing.  Since the odds appeared to be that we would lose our babies no matter what we chose, we decided to wait it out.  I spent the next 12 weeks mostly in the hospital, as my body tried to deliver Baby B, fighting preterm labor and uterine infections.  They gave me medications to stop the labor, antibiotics to fight the infections, and steroids to boost the baby's development in preparation for a premature birth. Finally, at 33 weeks, they stopped all the meds, and sent me home to wait for labor to start.  Against our better judgment, we went to visit a friend who was hospitalized at a Navy hospital an hour away.  The weather was dreadful, and the roads were slick with the ice storm.  During the visit, it occurred to me that the contractions I'd been having most of the day were becoming too regular for comfort.  They weren't painful, but they were coming every 45 seconds like clockwork.  At my DH's insistence, we went up to the labor and delivery ward to find out what I was supposed to do. The decided that I was, indeed, in early labor.  They didn't want to keep me, but the roads were so slick we knew we'd never make it back to "my" hospital that night, so I was admitted.  The babies needed to be turned manually, and before I could protest, I was hooked up to an IV and internal monitors -- essentially strapped to the bed.  When my labor progressed "too quickly" (fully dilated in a matter of 2 hours) and the baby's heart rate kept dropping, they insisted on an epidural.  "We'll let you attempt a vaginal birth, but if it doesn't go quickly, we'll have to section" they told me.  In the delivery room, a stark, white, antiseptic looking place, a crowd had gathered to watch (this was a teaching hospital).  I was placed flat on my back and told to push to the chorus of everyone counting "1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9..10".  Numb from the level of my arm-pits down, my "pushing" was pitifully ineffective.  I do not remember what happened next, but my husband describes the doctor reaching for the forceps, saying "I guess I'll have to do this for her" and slicing my perineum to make room for the instruments.  I do remember that at 5:22 am, Baby A came screaming into the world-- a 4 lb 12 oz BOY who immediately urinated on the OB who had "delivered" him.  10 minutes later, in a rather unceremonious motion, Baby B was "removed", along with the placentas and other "leftovers".  I never saw or held my 13 oz daughter, whom we named Ari.  It was several hours before I got to hold my son, Keith.  What a journey we had to take to get to that point!

~ Phan