This is a response to the dad who wrote that he and his wife
were angry that they are expecting twins. You can read his
ARTICLE and then
come back if you want. No big.
I don’t know you. And I imagine right now you’re questioning
whether writing the article was the best idea, even though you elected to
remain anonymous. But, like it or not, writing that article and publishing it
gave me and everyone else who wrote it a glimpse into your life. I liken this
glimpse to peeking in your living room window on a random evening—it doesn’t
give a full picture of who and what you are. I’m sure you and your wife are
lovely people who are, right now, struggling with something huge. I respect you
greatly for having the courage to say something “out loud” that is essentially
unpopular. That’s never easy, and I appreciate your struggle.
And, fair’s fair, so I’m going to give you a look into my
living room window at a certain point in time. It’s Christmas 1998 and my
husband and I just found out that we were expecting not one, but TWO sons. Our
oldest boy would be three months shy of his 2nd birthday when the
blessed moment would occur. We were in the process of adjusting my husband’s
visitation and support for his daughter (the process began sometime that fall
and ended in March 1999, just so you know) to better enable us to accommodate
our growing family. Incidentally, my stepdaughter was present at our
“discovery” ultrasound and went home and cried that she would not be getting a
baby sister after all. What’s more opposite than a baby sister than two baby
brothers? I can tell you that she felt pretty dang screwed by the whole system
at that point.
No, we never struggled with fertility. The twins happened
naturally.
About 30 weeks into my pregnancy, my body decided that it
really wanted to be done and started practicing pre-term labor processes. I was
closely monitored, including several weekly 30-mile-both-way hospital visits
for non-stress tests. My bed rest was increased to 50%. By 32 weeks’ gestation
I was at a full 100% bed rest, had been given steroid shots to increase fetal
lung development, and was popping pills to prevent me from going into labor. At
this same time my husband’s court date, which had been postponed by his ex’s
lawyer a month, loomed on our calendar. Though he’d already purchased the plane
fare to AZ and back and taken the time off work, my husband didn’t feel he
could leave my side and so trusted his lawyer to handle things for him. I’d
already been in the hospital twice that week (I was admitted both Mon and Tues
and he was to fly out Wed kind of deal) but I still wanted him to go. I felt it
was imperative that he be present at the hearing, and apparently the judge felt
the same. Though my husband participated via phone, it was only to hear the judge
call him all sorts of worthless names and barely let his lawyer say a word.
Nothing was decided in our favor and we ended up probably in worse shape
legally and financially than we would have been had we never filed. To
demonstrate this, when our twins were born the court ordered child support
decreased by $20/month. His overtime, though never steady and not reliable, was
considered regular income and we were left paying more than we could reasonably
afford. But once bitten, we never refilled with the AZ courts to adjust or
change anything after that.
Meanwhile I spent my days on a mattress on my living room
floor. Friends took my firstborn for a few hours every morning until his nap
time and my sister in law moved into our garage apartment so she could be there
if I needed help in the afternoons and evenings.
My twins were born at 36 ½ weeks, April 21, 1999. It was a
Wednesday, and I went home Sunday. For their privacy, I’ll simply call them J
and D. I elected to breast feed my sons since that had gone so well with my
first child, but J would projectile vomit green sludge in the middle of every
other feeding. D was gassy and had a hard time. The medical professionals in
our service all said it was because they were preemies and that most digestive
issues sort themselves out. Still, we had J back to the ER with his pea soup
colored vomit within a day of being home. During those first weeks doctors told
me many things. I was even told to stop breast feeding because that was the
problem.
I never went back to that doctor.
D had some issues with colic and gas and spitting up. J
never seemed to complain much but then he would projectile vomit several times
a day. Knowing his stomach was empty I would wait for it to settle and then
feed him again. I was literally nursing a baby every hour on the hour. It got
wearing, I’ll admit, and by their six week check up I had to admit defeat and
switched them to formula. In some ways that was easier because anyone could
feed them—my sister in law, myself, my husband when he was home. But I still
struggled with J’s vomiting. Soon, though, I detected a pattern with his vomit
and it got to the point where I could schedule doctor visits and grocery
shopping without worrying that he would throw up in the car or in public. Because
he was still growing and “thriving” and only a little smaller than his brother,
his doctor seemed to think whatever he was experiencing would pass as he got
older.
When the twins were about 3 months old my husband took a job
with the Special Services section of the company he worked for. This meant he
would be away (for us it was Wyoming)
from home for 3 weeks of every month, and home for 6 days including travel
time. So he wasn’t really home for 6 days. It was more like 5. Even with my
network of support and help, I was really the primary person responsible for
all 3 boys 24/7. I can’t give you a whole lot of details about that time
because it’s really a blur for me. I was in survival mode, eeking by day to day
without thought or plan of tomorrow or even the next week. I was doing the best
I could, dealing with vomiting, waking at night, teething, and a toddler all on
my own.
Finally, when the twins were at their 9 month check up I got
the doctor to admit that J should not be vomiting like he did. And finally he
was beginning to lose ground on their stupid age/height chart so he couldn’t be
considered “thriving” anymore. She scheduled an Upper GI where they have him
drink a barium solution and then track that solution through his body via a
type of X-ray technology.
The barium was the only thing he never threw up. I have no
idea why.
The procedure revealed a blockage in J’s duodenal area, just
beyond his stomach. Because it couldn’t give us any specifics, we were referred
up to the OKC Children’s Hospital for further testing. Their department
couldn’t get us in for 4 weeks.
The Monday before J’s appointment in OKC, he and D woke up
with the stomach flu. By 6pm that evening J’s diaper was still dry—he hadn’t
wet a diaper in almost 24 hours. I took him to the hospital for dehydration for
the second time in his life (he was ten and a half months old) and had them
look over D too, since he was fevered and fussy. They confirmed the stomach flu
diagnosis and released D, but wanted to get J on an IV and rehydrate him.
Except they couldn’t. He was so tiny and his little veins so
dehydrated that they finally had to go into the marrow of his shinbone to get
fluid into him. My poor baby screamed for almost an hour while they used him as
a pincushion trying to hydrate him.
At first, they didn’t know if they would admit him to the
hospital or just treat him as an ER patient and release him. Then they wanted
to admit him but weren’t sure if they should do it there or just transfer him
up to the Children’s Hospital. I lobbied for the Children’s Hospital. His
doctor did the same. And with friends watching my other two boys, J and I rode
on stretcher in the back of an ambulance the hour and a half up to the
Children’s Hospital in OKC sometime around midnight.
We spent ten of the longest days of my life in that
hospital. My husband had to be called back from Wyoming and met us up there. That week was
supposed to be my big vacation away from the kids week so he’d planned to have
the week of but not quite that soon. Meanwhile, D was still very sick at home
and had to be treated and helped by friends because I couldn’t be in two places
at once. I still haven’t mastered that.
At the hospital they ran more tests on J and then scheduled
an exploratory surgery to go in and see what was wrong and (hopefully, if they
could) fix it. The morning before his surgery he pulled out his IV. We were at
a children’s hospital, mind you. Their patients are all little and all sick in
some way. No one could get an IV in my child. They even asked the nurse who
puts IV’s in kids while in a helicopter in mid-air and she couldn’t even do it
in a hospital bed inside the building.
If you ever want to know fear, then I dare you to hand your
child over to the doctor at the doors of the operating room. I didn’t know if
they could fix him. I didn’t know if he’d survive. But I did know that if we
did nothing he would definitely die. He was dying already, starving to death no
matter how many times I fed him. There was no other option.
His procedure lasted forever. Really it didn’t, but it felt
like forever. When the surgeon finally came out to tell us he was in recovery I
felt like I couldn’t even stand up. Basically, when my two little boys were
tiny little embryos some of the cells that were supposed to go to another part
of J’s development ended up in his intestine causing the walls at that part to
be much thicker than any other part, and much thicker than they should be. The
surgeon was amazed he’d lived that long without being diagnosed and fixed. His
food was trying to slide through an opening the size of a pinhole. When it
backed up, he’d vomit. They bypassed the damaged section so food would process
normally.
They also took out J’s appendix. Because of the location of
the blockage they had to cut at the tethers holding down his appendix, which
left if “free floating.” The surgeon didn’t want to risk J having appendicitis
at any point in his life but the pain being nowhere near where his appendix
should be and thus being misdiagnosed.
We remained in the hospital another several days. His
feeding tube down his throat rubbed at the end causing blood to come up. He did
vomit once after his surgery. But they did finally let us take him home.
About a month after his surgery, I was feeding J some applesauce
and he threw up. I panicked. After everything we’d gone through I was afraid it
hadn’t fixed the problem and we still might lose him. It turned out to be an
isolated incident. At his post-op check up the surgeon told me he should grow
up to live a whole and normal life.
I’m sure about now you’re asking yourself why I would share
my horror story. How is this supposed to make you feel better about what you’re
facing?
I’m glad you asked. Life’s hard, and sometimes we all get
thrown curve balls (or even get beaned in the head by a fastball) when we least
expect it. And it’s hard. And it can really, really stink. I can’t tell you how
many times I cleaned up sick green vomit. I can’t tell you how many nights I
didn’t sleep. I can’t even tell you how many diapers I changed.
But I can tell you this: if you expect it to be a living
hell it will be. If you expect to be burdened and miserable by your twins then
you will be. You can’t expect them to come and somehow magically bring about a
change in your heart. And I can promise you that children know when someone doesn’t want or love them as much as they should.
They sense it. And there’s nothing more horrible than a child growing up
feeling unloved or unwanted.
But what about you? What about your plans, your wants, your
dreams? This is going to screw it all up. If you let it, sure. But if you make
your boys part of your new dreams, your new plans, then your life will be
fuller than you can even imagine.
My twins are 14 now. And I wouldn’t trade them for anything.
I don’t regret one second. My experiences made me who I am, and I kind of like
me. My boys know their worth. They know they are loved. They don’t even have to
question it. They are amazing and I wouldn’t trade them for a rewrite of my
life on any terms.
Now I wish to plead with you. If you and your wife truly
don’t feel you can give your children the love and nurturing that ALL children
need then don’t short change them. Give them to someone who will. I’d happily
take them. Or, as an alternative, I have some friends who have struggled with
infertility who would love to bring them into their home.
But, really, for your sake, I hope you choose to keep them.
I also hope for your sake that you choose to want them. Because they can be the
greatest thing that’s ever happened to you.
Krystal’s peaceful life as queen of
Fayterra is shattered when a stranger arrives with a connection to Jareth that
threatens to change everything. Soon her loved ones are threatened, her people
are under attack, and Krystal must face a devastating loss. 
