Читать книгу Twin to Twin - Crystal Duffy - Страница 12

Chapter 2

The Wait

The April sun glared hotly as I stormed out of the doctor‘s office into the parking lot. My mind felt like it had fractured into a million pieces. I could feel the surge of emotion coming. No, not yet, I thought. Just hold it together until I get home. But I felt the outpour would begin at any second—the hot, thick tears of fear, panic and utter horror. I was short of breath. I had to put Abby down next to me. I felt like I’d been punched in the chest and it had knocked the wind out of me. I continued to hold back the tears, suppressing them, waiting for the right moment to let go. It definitely wasn’t here.

My parents caught up to me and Abby. My mom‘s face was splotchy, as if she’d been crying. She handed me a piece of paper with a name and number scribbled on it.

“The nurse stopped us on our way out,” she said, using a tissue to wipe her nose. “They want you to go and see a specialist first thing in the morning, I’m…” her voice broke.

“I’m so sorry honey,” she reached over and put her arms around me.

My dad reached into his pocket and handed me a small packet of tissues.

“A nurse from their office should be calling you,” my dad said, now holding Abby by the hand.

I let go of my mom and took a step back. I opened my purse and pulled out my cell phone. My eyes widened as I looked at the screen.

“Seven missed calls,” I screeched.

I had seven missed calls from Dr. Cooper, not the main office line, but his personal cell phone that he had given to me in case of an emergency. Bad news travels fast. I wondered if, at the moment I’d stormed out of the office, Dr. Bill had speed-dialed his colleague Dr. Cooper and relayed the upsetting news about his patient—the one he had referred to him months ago for additional screening. Dr. Cooper had been in the field for thirty years, he was confident with his decisions. After my second miscarriage, he had reassured me countless times, putting to bed my worries. He had a calm, cool and collected personality and spoke to me with such politeness and tact. His bedside manner was warm and soothing. Even when he didn’t have the answers—especially the ones I wanted to hear—confiding in him had always made me feel better. He made me feel like a smart, well-researched and concerned mother-to-be rather than a paranoid pregzilla who was constantly on Web MD trying to self-diagnose. Things had been turned upside down, and my calm Dr. Cooper was now the one freaking out and calling me. Yup, I replied to Dr. Cooper in my head. I’m aware that this-is-some-serious shit.

The car ride home seemed longer than usual. I stared out of the window taking notice of the Houston Rodeo billboards. I looked forward to this time of year almost as much as I did Christmas. But eating barbeque and watching bull riders was the furthest thing on my mind. I picked up my cell phone, scrolled through my favorites list and dialed Ed‘s office line. I hated sharing awful news over the phone. He answered on the first ring and I blurted out, “We have Twin to Twin disease, the girls are sick.”

“What?!” he cried in terror. I was sobbing into the phone, wiping my snot into my cheeks. I wasn’t ready to repeat the details of the appointment. I told him we could talk about it more in person when he came home from work. I did not feel like talking and my parents definitely understood. No one wanted to talk. There was utter silence the entire twenty-five-minute car ride home.

As we pulled onto our street, I noticed another car in the driveway. It was parked in the spot right next to where I usually parked my minivan. It was Ed‘s gray Kia Forte. It was about 3:30 pm in the afternoon. Ed never left the office during the day unless it was for a deposition or client meeting. A habit instilled in him like most attorneys at big firms. Perhaps he had forgotten something at home that he needed? Perhaps he had spilled something at lunch and was coming home for a different shirt? Or a file for a really important case? Whatever the reason, I would soon find out. He stood there waiting for me in the driveway as we pulled in. He set his briefcase down against the door step and walked towards me. His ash brown hair with sprinkles of gray gelled neatly to the right side. He was wearing the navy-blue pinstripe suit that we had picked out together for his interview last fall with his current firm. It was perfectly fitted around his muscular, athletic build.

When I looked at him I noticed his sea-blue eyes were watery. In the decade I’d known him, I’d seen him cry twice—once at his great Aunt Kitty‘s funeral—she had passed away from lung cancer and he had been close with her growing up—and the second was after college when I’d threatened to break up with him once in the heat of an argument. I’d lost my temper and thrown my keys across the room in our apartment, and then, we spent the next couple of hours trying to find them. We didn’t find them until the next morning as I hurried to get out the door for work—they were in a bookshelf behind a thick stack of law books. We laughed so hard we cried. We were such polar opposites, but while he may not be as obvious with his emotions to the entire world like I am, he feels just as much. There were no spoken words between us, only widened eyes that quickly filled up with tears. That was when I let it all go. Once those first few tears broke free, the rest followed in an unbroken stream. I sobbed convulsively into his chest—uncontrollably—having to remind myself to breathe. My dad picked up Abby and went inside along with my mom. I was thankful for that; no parent ever wants to break down in front of their child. This day, however, I gave myself a pass. This day, my fears and worst-case scenarios had unfolded right in front of me.

Ed put his hand on the back of my neck and massaged it slightly and whispered, “Crys, we’ll get through this.”

I wanted to believe him, but I wasn’t so sure.

There was nothing that could be done now to undo the diagnosis, nothing except wait for the consultation the next morning.

Ed tucked me into our bed and lay with me for a few minutes, rubbing my back while I tried to fall asleep. He knew me so well. There were times I would talk his ear off over mindless nothings, and then there were times when my heart was aching and I just needed a quiet, loving and supportive partner. In his arms, and with his presence, at least I knew we would tackle this together. Just as we had in years past when we had lost our babies.

This would be possibly one of the worst night‘s sleeps of my life. Nothing helped me settle down—not fluffy pillows, down comforters or warm milk. I lay awake tossing and turning, replaying the day‘s events. Had I heard the doctor correctly? Maybe I misconstrued his words. Yes, that was it. That was clearly what had happened. Ugh, such baby brain. Double baby brain. I was unable to process all the information he’d thrown at me. In the morning, I’d realize it was all a misunderstanding, and I was still growing two healthy babies inside me. Unsurprisingly, the night was full of restless dreams. I fell asleep feeling the pain of that first miscarriage all over again.

We walked along the Hawaiian shore, hand in hand. We were twenty-six and it was the summer after our wedding. We giggled as the warm summer breeze sprayed a mist of saltwater on our faces. The water was sparkling blue; families were constructing sandcastles and gazing at the sea turtles napping mid-beach belly sunken into the sand. The catamarans were filled with tourists hoping to catch a glimpse of a whale. With each breath I took, I was mesmerized by the beauty of the coastline. Then, I turned and looked off into the distance and spotted a humpback whale about five-hundred feet back, breaching in midair as if to get our attention. And that she did.

“Wow, that is incredible, Ed—did you see that?” I exclaimed.

“Yeah, pretty cool, huh? That was always my favorite thing to do here as a kid, go on the whale watching tours…but funny, it‘s June, that‘s not typically whale season here.” He raised his sunglasses to his forehead to get a better look.

“Oh really?” I said. “I kind of assumed they hung around here all year long.”

“Nope, winter and spring you can see a ton of them. They travel in big pods.” He paused and smiled sweetly. “You know, they come here all the way from Alaska to give birth to their calves, since it‘s warm and safe here from any predators.”

“That is quite the hike for the pregnant mama whales.” I paused and took a deep breath. “You know, I wouldn’t mind giving birth here and then hanging out with the whales for a few months. We could become beach bums, get a place in Hana and have a little beach baby.” I pulled down the bright pink polka dot rash guard that had started to rise up and expose my stomach.

“Ha, right!” he said shaking his head the way he usually did at my far-fetched ideas.

I turned back to sneer at him and stuck my tongue out playfully. He pulled his Ray Ban sunglasses back down over his eyes, and I could see bits of sunscreen on his freckled cheek that he hadn’t rubbed in all the way.

“Hey, come here, you.” I pulled him close to me and we plopped down on the beach, scattering sand all over us. I reached for his face and gently rubbed in the sunscreen. The mid-day sun was beating down with force. I reached into my beach bag, grabbed my tube of sunscreen and reapplied some more to his pale back.

“You know, you are going to be an amazing mother,” he said, leaning in to kiss me. His radiant smile was a mile wide. “I can’t wait. I’m going to be a daddy!” he said, reaching back over to me.

“I know, me too—I’m so excited—just eight months to go, little one!” I said rubbing my still completely flat tummy.

I’d spent the last six months or so leading up to this trip in full anticipation. I’d imagined the lush vegetation, expansive beaches and rolling white-capped waves. I was ready for sun, sand, surf and deep relaxation—time to tan on the beach and dream about our life together—and our new baby! What would he or she look like? Would she look like her daddy? Would he be a spitting image of me? Would she be sweet and smart like her father or extroverted and feisty like me?

We had the whole week mapped out—hiking in Hana to hidden waterfalls, surfing lessons on Kaannapali beach, snorkeling over coral reefs and sunset dinner cruises—toasting our happiness with grape juice. We took long walks on the beach, hand in hand, planning out the rest of our lives. This pregnancy had been a bit of an unexpected surprise, but we had wholeheartedly welcomed it. We both immediately fell in love with the thought of being parents. Even though we were young, we weren’t overwhelmed or anxious by the change. This was our time—we had thought—to grow our family and grow in our love for one another.

We walked over to the little rental hut near our hotel—the one with all the brochures of life-changing adventures that the islands had to offer.

“Aloha, how can I help you?” asked the beautifully tanned and toned mid-twenties surfer working behind the bar.

“Aloha,” Ed said proudly, as if he’d been to Hawaii a million times. That was almost true: Ed‘s family had visited every year, sometimes twice, since he was three. “We would like to rent some snorkel gear for the day.”

“Of course, here are two masks and two pairs of fins,” he said, handing Ed the gear. “They’re yours for the day.”

“Oh great!” I replied, thinking there was plenty of time for swimming, maybe even taking a nap on the beach and perhaps going back around sunset.

“Be sure to check out the reefs near Black Rock,” said the surfer.

“Mahalo,” I said as I grabbed my gear. I turned and look back at Ed; we were still standing in front of the equipment hut. “I can’t believe I’ve never done this before. I can’t wait to see schools of fish swimming around us.”

“The reefs around Black Rock are incredible,” Ed replied.

“How far of a swim is it?” I started to ask, but then a sudden, sharp pain in my abdomen stopped my words.

“Ouch!” I screamed.

Ed instinctively dropped the snorkel gear on the beach and put his arm behind my back. “Babe, what‘s wrong?”

“Ow!” I yelled again.

“Crystal, what‘s wrong!?” Ed said again.

“Really painful stomach cramps.” I hunched over trying to breathe. “Just give me a sec,” I said, trying to inhale and exhale deeply.

“Here, let’s get you up to the room fast,” Ed said as he scooped me up into his arms.

The scene back at our hotel room was a chaotic mess. I was hunched over on the couch screaming in pain. Ed sat beside me, frantically googling things on his laptop. He was repeating the words, “It‘s okay, don’t worry, everything is going to be fine.”

“I hope so,” I choked out the words.

Heavy cramps were pounding inside me like an earthquake, burning like an inferno. I curled up in a ball on the foldout couch to ease the pain. I began to feel incredibly sick to my stomach. Could this be morning sickness? I thought to myself.

Then I felt it.

Blood started to trickle down slowly between my legs. I thought that was normal. Everyone said I might have some implantation bleeding. But it kept flowing and flowing. After several minutes, I knew something was definitely not right. I had already soaked through my board shorts and onto the palm tree printed pillow I’d been sitting in front of. I jumped up and dashed to the bathroom. I locked the door, still trying to convince myself everything was fine, and sat down, my toes curled up against the cold hard tile floor. With one hand on my stomach and the other gripping onto the wall, I let go and it all came flushing out. And then I looked down into the toilet bowl. I will never be able to get the horrifying image I saw there out of my head. I screamed in panic. I kept screaming until my throat was raw. Ed, who had been pounding on the door, demanding I let him in, finally kicked it open. He looked down and saw what I saw and gasped.

He reached for me and I collapsed into his arms.

When I opened my eyes, it was still dark outside; mist covered our bedroom windows. I sat up in the bed breathing deeply as I thought about the haunting memory of the painful nightmare I had already lived once. Each time the dream was a bit different; sometimes we would be snorkeling when it happened, other times we would be in the middle of a candlelight dinner on the beach. Each story ended in the same way. I lost our first baby in Hawaii that first summer after we were married, and then two years later, lost our second baby on a trip to Las Vegas. The memory of losing our two babies still haunted me and the fear was now projecting itself onto our twin pregnancy.

How I wished the Twin to Twin diagnosis had been just a nightmare. Nightmares ended when you woke up, and everything returned to normal. I turned to look at Ed, who had fallen asleep with a laptop on our comforter. He’d been awake most of the night researching TTTS, carrying the panic and fear for both of us.

I nudged his arm gently.

“Did that really happen?” I softly whisper. “Wait. Before you answer, just tell me it didn’t. Tell me I dreamt it.”

He sighed. He couldn’t tell me what I so badly wanted to hear.

“Are we actually going to talk to a specialist today about some bizarre blood transfusion disease?” I asked.

“I’m afraid so,” he replied groggily.

“I’m scared,” I confessed.

“Me too,” he said as he hugged me tightly. He held me in bed for a long time. As we got dressed, he went over some of his findings of TTTS with me, the parts he left out were too terrifying for me to even imagine. I had decided that, in a desperate attempt to avoid complete distress, I was going to stay off the internet. I did not want to terrorize myself with unknowns or potential scenarios of TTTS. In order to survive this, to beat this, the babies—our girls—needed to be calm and soothed, which meant I needed to be that way as well. If I was a nervous wreck, they would feel that and feed off of it. It was far easier to hear what I needed to know about this disease from Ed. It was hard to keep all the details straight, but I wanted to walk into the Maternal-Fetal Medicine (MFM) office and feel a little familiar with some of the terms they would use.

Ed explained to me what Dr. Bill had tried to the day before—that because our girls were identical and shared a placenta, they had many abnormal blood vessels that connected their umbilical cords and circulatory systems. Depending on a number of factors—blood type and direction of the flow—blood could be transfused disproportionately from one twin (known as the donor) to the other twin (known as the recipient). The transfusion caused the donor twin to have decreased blood volume, and in turn, a slower growth than the co-twin. If the donor twin had poor urinary output, that could cause low amniotic fluid—another big potential problem. The recipient baby, on the other hand, could become overloaded with blood. This superfluous amount of blood would strain this baby‘s heart to the point that it might actually develop heart failure. I took a deep breath. I knew we had a long day ahead of us.