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In June of 2004 we found out we were expecting twins!! This was after doing an IVF cycle in May using the rest of our frozen embryos. We were so excited as our family was going to finally be complete! I was to be induced January 21st. In my heart though I felt they were coming in November or December as I had Hope 11 weeks early. My pregnancy was going very well. I was going to the doctors weekly due to having PROM with Hope for unknown reasons. I was having a US at every visit and being cultured every other visit. At 14 weeks we found out we were having a boy and a girl. How much more perfect could this be????? Troy was getting the brother he wanted and Hope was going to grow up with a sister like I had always wanted. Gary and I agreed on names rather quickly. He had always wanted a boy named Bret and I had been liking the name Tess. So no arguments both ways, it was decided. My only issues I was having with this pregnancy was a painful right leg and some uterine irritability which was being calmed down by weekly progesterone injections. On Friday, September 24 I was at work and having tons of contractions. After having about 16 of them in a 4 hour period of time, I called my doctor. He sent me upstairs to LDRP and sure enough I was contracting away. I was given a shot of Terb which seemed to calm my uterus down a bit. Over the next few days I had some more contractions but nothing big. On Wed September 29th I started with the irritability again pretty bad. I decided against calling my doc and just took the oral terb that he had given me a script for. It seemed to do the trick and I woke up the next morning feeling GREAT!!! On the morning of September 30th we were up early as it was Troys 5th birthday. The plan was that we were going to wait until dinner to open presents. We were going to Happy times with friends to celebrate Troys big day. Troy though begged to open his gifts in the morning so I gave in and let him open them. What I didn't know was this was a great decision considering what happened later that morning. So we went about our morning as usual. Hope was having Speech that morning at 11am and Gary came home around 10am for his break. Gary left around 10:45 and Hope's Therapist got there at 11. At around 11:05 I started having horrible cramps almost like I was getting a stomach bug. As time went on the pain kept getting worse and worse. I waited until the Therapist left and called my doc they said to get over to the hospital so I called a few friends to see if they could take the kids. NO ONE was home, NO ONE was answering their cell phones. I also tried calling Gary at work. No answer on his cell phone and no one was picking up the phone at the office. One of my friends called me back and said she would be right over. She was about 20 minutes away. The plan was she was going to take Troy to school and take Hope with her and I was going to drive myself to the hospital. Well, there was no way I would be able to drive myself. I got up to get the kids shoes on and I just about passed out. I had to crawl down the hall to get to where the shoes were. Somehow I got myself back on the couch and had Troy get our blood pressure machine. I just knew something was really wrong. My pressure was 68/36!!!!!! I called 911 as I thought I was going to go into shock. The ambulance got there just as my friend did. That's when I started vomiting. The pain was so intense I have NEVER had pain to this degree before and I have done 2 natural childbirth's. I really felt like I was going to die. On the way to the hospital I felt like I had to the urge to push, what I didn't know was that this was because I was internally bleeding and was feeling the pressure from my uterus getting so big so fast. When I got to the hospital Gary was waiting for me, they took me upstairs and tried to get an IV line in me. I was in so much pain I couldn't lay still. The pain was so bad in my right side that all I wanted to do was lay on my left side. My Doctor did an internal exam on me and till this day I will never forget his words. "Jen we are not having these babies today, you are not dilated." He thought what I had was a kidney stone. On the contraction monitor the contractions were not calming down even after numerous doses of Mag sulfate to calm my uterus down. All of a sudden I felt a "pop" and it felt like my water broke. When they lifted the covers, what they found was an enormous amount of blood. At this point they got the US tech in and what they found was that I was having a placental abruption and there was nothing they could do to stop it. They said the abruption was coming from Bret's placenta. I BEGGED for them to take Bret and figure out a way to save Tess. I couldn't believe this was happening to me. The US also showed I had clots larger than 11cm which is about the size of a grapefruit. They then took me to the OR where my doctor performed an emergency c section under general anesthesia. The following is from what I was told. Tess was born first she was breathing but gasping. Bret was born next and was stillborn. The lack of O2 from the abruption killed him. The hospital Chaplain came and baptized them both and then they were brought to the NICU and kept under a warmer for comfort measures. Tess was born way to early to survive. If she had been born a week later she might have had a chance.
I woke in the recovery room in still a lot of pain. Most of what happened to me is very foggy. I remember one of the nurses sounding very frantic about my Blood pressure and Pulse OX. Every time she said what they were the worry in her voice got worse. They were transfusing blood and giving me fluids but it wasn't enough. It was then one of the doctors put an IV line in my femoral vein to get blood in me faster. I basically crashed in the recovery room and was moments from dying. They did a US on me due to my Abdomen becoming very distended and found that I was bleeding again internally and was in a condition called DIC. Most DIC patients die but lucky for me I was a healthy 35 year old. They took me back to the OR and it took 3 surgeons and over 3 hours to save my life. During this time my daughter Tess passed away. She passed away in a room all by herself except for her twin brother being right beside her. I really feel she was waiting for me but couldn't hold on any longer. I have enormous guilt for not being with her when she was alive.
The next thing I remember is waking up and feeling like I couldn't breathe. I soon realized I was intubated and at first I thought I woke up in the middle of the operation. I was in ICU and was kept intubated to protect my airway in case I got into trouble again. I begged everyone to take it out, I was told I even tried to pull it out myself they had to put me in restraints because of this. I also started to vomit and they had to put a NG tube down my nose. I can't even describe how it felt to have a tube down both your throat and your nose. It wasn't fun let me tell you. They ended up drugging me in sort of a drug induced coma to keep me calm. I don't remember much about my time in ICU. Just bits and pieces. From what my family has told me they took great care of me. I don't remember the following but I am told Gary and I got to have Bret and Tess with us the second night in ICU. Gary said we had them for a pretty long time.
On Saturday I was doing well enough that they transferred me to a regular medical bed. I was doing better but still had a very low blood count. All in all I had 35 units of blood products transfused. Someone was looking out for me that day. I know in my heart it was my grandmom Betty and Dot and I know they are taking care of Bret and Tess for me in that beautiful place called heaven.
After a week of being in the hospital I was discharged but still very sick and was sent home to bed. We had the funeral on October 9th and they were buried together in the same casket. The kindness we got from others was enormous. We even got sympathy cards from people we didn't even know. They had seen the obituary in the newspaper. We set up a fund in Bret and Tess's memory to be donated to the NICU and I couldn't believe the response we got.
The pain from the loss of a child is so great that you cant even imagine it unless you have gone through it. There isn't even a word for a person who looses a child that is how awful it is. Bret and Tess were the pot of gold at the end of our rainbow. They were the end of a 10+ years battle with infertility. Not a day goes by that I don't think of what they would, should or could have been.
Thank you so much for reading the story of Bret and Tess. I am destined to make their death into some sort of purpose. One I haven't figured out yet but I know there is one.
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