The two weeks I have been pregnant so far has been great. I haven’t experienced one bout of morning sickness. On the other hand, I have felt extremely exhausted all the time. I have had to take daily afternoon naps, which has taken away my productivity on my machine. And I’m hungry ALL THE TIME…every couple of hours.
On the morning of Sunday, October 26th, 2008, my 7th week, Doug and I get up as normal to get ready for church. I’m feeling fine until we get in the car. I start cramping really bad. I try to fight through it but about ten minutes into our pastor’s sermon, I tell Doug that we have to leave. We rush home, and I lay in bed, grimacing in pain. Doug goes back to church to help in the nursery. I finally am able to fall asleep.
When I wake up a couple of hours later, I think the cramping is gone. However, when I stand up to walk around, it comes back immediately. I go onto the computer to research what it might be. I knew I wasn’t miscarrying because I was not bleeding. Then I started reading about ectopic pregnancies, and I started to freak out. Symptoms of ectopic pregnancies were severe cramping that started around the 7th week. We decided around 1:30pm to go to the ER.
Once we arrived at the ER, the cramping would come and go every 30 minutes or so. In the 3 1/2 hours we were there, they took a urine test, a pelvic exam, and an ultrasound. Since it was our first ultrasound, I wanted Doug to be there. Unfortunately, the ultrasound tech told us that there was no room for Doug. Two different kinds of ultrasounds were done in the span of about 30 minutes.
I was cramping pretty bad during the ultrasound, and all I could do was close my eyes and pray that everything would be okay. The ultrasound tech didn’t utter a single word the whole time. By the time she was done, she said “Okay. I’d like to show you an image before I send you back.” I sat up, looked at the screen, and watched her point at what looked like two little beans while saying “one, two.” It was all very surreal, but I think the words that came out of my mouth were “Are you serious?!?!?!”
I couldn’t wait to go back and tell Doug. I walked in the room, smiled, and put up two fingers. He immediately knew what I meant. We immediately hugged and tried to soak in this crazy news. Doug was thrilled…more thrilled about finding out we were having twins than actually finding out we were pregnant to begin with. He couldn’t help himself and quickly got on his phone to call his brother.
The doctor came in and told us that the results of my ultrasound showed that I have one gestational sac with two fetal poles, a retroflexed uterus (tilted…not a big deal), and free fluid in my cul-de-sac, which is probably what was causing my cramps. Free fluid can be produced by ruptured cysts on the ovaries. He told me to take Tylenol and drink lots of water. Another reason I could have been cramping was because my uterus was stretching.
I knew that my belly was protruding at 7 weeks. But when I told my friends about it, everyone told me that it was in my head. Uh, no…it was twins. It was an emotional rollercoaster of a day. We went from thinking we could possibly lose our baby to finding out that God had blessed us with two. When I start to worry or stress about the reality of having twins especially financially (two of everything), I remind myself that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle. He blessed us with these two lives, He’ll take care of us. Everything always works itself out somehow. Thankfully, we have a great support team of friends and family. What an amazing adventure this will be!
Double the blessings 