And so life continued.
I began to have less and less long cries but there were no days without
tears. I was still so full of
confliction and felt bipolar at times.
As more and more people learned what had happened it became just
slightly easier to leave the house each day.
My first experience telling people face to face what had happened was
brutal though. It was two couples from
‘back home’ that I had not seen since the weekend I found out I was expecting
twins. It was a moment that caught me
off guard as I assumed these people knew about our situation but a minute into
the conversation it became apparent they hadn’t heard. I did my best to explain but basically I ran
from the table with tears in my eyes and then spent a miserable evening trying
to keep it together (unsuccessfully) for my boys.
It just hurt me so much to tell them. It really was the
first time I'd had to tell anyone in person I guess. ....it's a lot different to do it over email
or facebook. I said to Geoff after that I wondered if it would always be this
hard and that I just felt so jipped for the rest of time. I hated the looks on people’s faces because I
knew it was the look on mine that put it there.
I didn’t know how to tell them and yet I knew I couldn’t just not say
anything. I was so tired of trying to
keep it all together and so tired of letting it out too! But, I knew I couldn’t
shelter myself forever and also knew
that I was going to have to tell people over the next few months and for the
next....well rest of my life.... as a way to honour my wonderful little angel.
I plugged along, taking small steps one at a time, wondering
how I would make it another 10-12 weeks without losing my mind. I figured all that could go wrong had gone
wrong so I should be good to go. How wrong I was…
Early in the morning of January 3rd I rolled over
in bed and felt a popping sensation and felt, well, wet. I got up to check it out and went back to bed
thinking it was nothing….til it happened again.
Eventually I could ignore the reality no longer, something was wrong and
I needed to go the hospital.
After many hours, being sent back home because they couldn’t
find anything wrong and my symptoms not subsiding I ended up being admitted to
labour and delivery and prepared for a transfer to a hospital with a level 3
NICU. Unfortunately or fortunately there
were no open beds at the closest hospital to us and so I was placed in a system
to be ‘accepted for transfer’ to whichever hospital had openings. The doctor who was looking after me was awesome
but was not optimistic on how far from home I’d be as the only hospital with
openings so far was Ottawa. I begged her
to call Mt. Sinai and see if they’d take me.
She agreed but told me it was doubtful as they were reporting no
openings either.
God was obviously taking control of this situation too as
not only did they call Mt. Sinai but Dr. Ryan was the high risk doctor on call
and actually requested I be transferred there.
And so, after a very fast ambulance ride (that scared the crap out of
me) I was back at Mt Sinai on 7 South under Dr. Ryan’s care again.
The relief we felt at this news was almost impossible to
describe. Knowing that we would be back
in the care of the man we considered our hero filled us with confidence. Knowing we would be delivering our very tiny
and very premature Cameron, in the place where his life had been saved not once
but twice filled us with a reassurance that he would be okay. Knowing that we would be returning to the
place where Cole had gone to meet Jesus, and where, surely, some of his spirit
would remain always was comforting somehow.
Dr. Ryan scanned me later and said Cameron looked amazing....that
he was recovering from the TTTS and surgery well. He weighed 1 lb 8 ounces now
and had no issues with any of his
organs. Dr. Ryan concern was the reason for the fluid as there was still lots
around Cameron and also Cameron’s size as he was still 10 days behind where he
should have been.. He said the most important thing right then was that Cameron
stayed in at least one more week as 28 weeks was a much safer time to
deliver. I was told that I would be on
full bed rest, they would be doing a round of antibiotics to prevent infection
and 2 steroid shots to help develop the lungs before Cameron arrived. No one seemed to think it would be an ‘if’
but rather a ‘how soon’ on the arrival time.
It was strange for me to back at Mt Sinai again. I thought it would be so hard, I mean it was
the place where my son lost his life.
But strangely I wasn’t as emotional about our loss as I had been just
days before. I think that was what being
in crisis mode did to me.
So many times in my life I had heard that when faced with a
crisis, when in fear for your life of the lives of someone close to you, that you develop super human strength, that
you seem to be able to endure so much more than anyone thinks is possible, is
normal. I know for certain that people
around us think thought this of me then and still do to this day. But inside, where no one could see, I did not
feel this way and to this day I do not really see myself as strong.
Somewhere along the way I read a quote that said “It is in
the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our
strength to live and our reason for living.”
And perhaps that is what it is for me... my life is what it is, I cannot
change that and I’ve needed, at least
outwardly, to draw my strength form that, from the knowledge that it could be
so much worse maybe, and find my reasons for continuing with an outward
strength that might surprise people.
But I will say that in the hours and days that had passed
since TTTS came into our lives, and to
be honest, in the weeks, months and years to come, it was very difficult to
remember this when I was alone. And so I
would take the fetal heart monitor and hook it up when the nurses weren’t around
just to hear Cameron’s heartbeat, just to know that he had not joined Cole in
Heaven. I feared losing him with such
intensity. I feared his certain premature
birth with a fear that shook me to the core.
And yet at the same time I was sure they are wrong. He wouldn’t be
coming, it wasn’t his time, and it wasn’t time for the pregnancy to end....I
was not ready for it to end. And so it
is from this belief that I drew my strength, this belief that carried me
forward.
Eventually it was determined that my water, indeed, had
broken and that I would need to remain in hospital until my body or Cameron
decided this pregnancy was over. At
any time I could get an infection or spontaneously go into labour and most do
within 2 weeks. If I made it past that
2 week mark then they would still monitor for infection. I would continue to leak fluid off and on but as long
as I remained infection free and Cameron showed no signs of distress then I
would remain pregnant as long as possible.
Some moments in those first few days were good. I loved being at Mt Sinai and I had a great
roommate to distract me. But then the
reality of it would rock me to the core.
We needed to be prepared for the arrival of our twin sons, sometime in
the next few days. It couldn’t really be
happening, it couldn’t be almost over?
How would very tiny Cameron survive this? How could I handle meeting
Cole? I was not ready for this and it was very hard for me to be so out of
control of my life. I began to have a lot of stress and anxiety regarding the
delivery of both of our boys and how we would deal with that. Every moment
seemed intense and emotional. I thought
that we would have so much more time to deal with this but the reality is that
the journey of Cameron and Cole Tummers seemed likely to soon take another path
and move another step forward.
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