Waiting and Deciding

Still 2 heartbeats at normal, healthy rates.  How is that possible?  The fluid has been gone at least 30 minutes, how can Christina be alive?  Is she going to hold on until we actively force her to stop?  I'm never going to do that.  I'm never going to actively shorten the time her heart beats so why won't she please go on her own?  And how can I possibly be wishing that???  I just despise myself for even having that thought.  And that's the cycle I was in all night.  Please be gone already and I despise myself for thinking that.


The water broke around 4am.  My doctor would be coming in at 7am.  And everyone insisted nothing could be done but wait.  I just can't comprehend that.  Can't we go in, remove Christina in an attempt to save Charlotte?  How can I be willing to sacrifice one for the other?  As minutes tick by, are we losing that opportunity?  No.  No one is checking on her so how can you so definitively tell me no?

And my logical brain is telling me that if there was something they could do, they would be doing it.  They weren't saying no to be lazy, they were telling the truth.  And my emotional brain was just screaming in denial of that knowledge.

At some point, I even said "I'm not leaving this hospital still pregnant am I?"  "No, you're not."

But for those hours, I was still pregnant, with twins who had strong heartbeats.  Her sack and fluid were gone, but Christina still wouldn't go.

And I was becoming terrified of what was coming next.  We were waiting to see if my body would start to go into labor again.  And I knew that I was going to have to go through the process of giving birth with the babies dieing as they left my body.  And no matter how untrue anyone tries to tell it is, emotional me still equated that with living through my body betraying us and forcing me to feel myself kill our babies.

And as I had been doing all night, I was begging to be put under.  I don't care if it kills me, I cannot survive the tactile memory of killing my babies by birthing them.

We called my parents to come around 5:30am.  I didn't particularly want them there, but I knew I probably would at some point during the next day and I decided to get them there before Dad had to go to work.  They live about 5 minutes from the hospital.  And while my Dad has no medical training, he's a judge who presides over disability cases and I figured that he could better understand and interpret for me what doctors were saying than either K or I could.  And if he could believe what they were saying, it would eventually help me believe it.  Unfortunately, there's obviously no way for Dad to be there without Mom so I mostly tried to ignore them both really.

And time still passed.  And someone suggested turning on the tv to help me wait.  No, no distraction is going to help.  If these are the last moments of my girls existence, I can't be distracted from it no matter how much I want to be.

My doctor, Dr. C came in around 6:30 though he wasn't expected until 7am.  Even though logic tells me that was the beginning of his day, he still looked like a man who hadn't slept all night.

I don't remember every exchange.  But they all focused around how I understand that Christina is gone, please try SOMETHING to save Charlotte.  I honestly understand that Christina can't be saved and might have to actively be sacrificed, but I can't comprehend why we can't try to save Charlotte.  Just so when I leave here, I can know that I did everything possible.  Even the acceptance of losing Christina to save Charlotte would be worth the horribleness of that acceptance if it would at least mean we tried.  I kind of knew that Charlotte couldn't be saved, but I didn't understand why we couldn't surgically hold her in place until she naturally lost the battle for her life.  If she has to go, at least let it be in spite of all efforts.  At least let me walk out of here with that.

And here is where Dr. C told me things that actually had some impact.  Up until these exchanges, no comprehension could be made.

He told me that Dr. David Fucking Spade was one of only 5 doctors who had ever even attempted a procedure like what I was asking for.  And that the woman returned to the ER two days later and almost died right there on the floor when her second baby died.  And if Dr. DFS said it couldn't be attempted, then there was no one in the world who could attempt it.

Option 1)  If we induced labor, I could birth the girls and it would be over.  There was some chance of being sedated to a degree and I might not remember every detail, but really, I probably would.

Option 2)  We could surgically remove the girls and all pregnancy tissue and I could walk away without infection and with every chance of another pregnancy.

Option 3)  If we continued to wait for my body to go into labor again on it's own, it couldn't be stopped and I would have to go through the birth fully awake and aware.  And by then, the infection will likely have spread to me.  At a minimum, I would have to have a hysterectomy and no chance of another pregnancy or just as likely, I would die during the birth.

Well this freaked K and my parents right the fuck out. 

It was very likely that I would die in the next 48 hours.  And I really don't care.  I can not stress that enough.  When it comes to the knowledge that I was about to die, I did not care one bit.  That information had zero impact on me.  It's something that has never had an impact on me.  I don't fear dieing one single bit and I never have.  I simply find no value to myself so my death just doesn't matter.  What I DO fear is going through a trauma that I can never forget.  I'd much prefer to die than to remember.

And because of that, option 1 terrified the fucking shit out of me.  No matter how much I might physically recover, mental recovery from that would be absolutely impossible.

As for option 3, I remember Mom trying to convince me that I was more important than my girls.  And I tried to explain that she felt about me the way I feel about them so shut the fuck up.  I somehow managed to leave out the shut the fuck up part. 

But K was really upset.  And desperately tried to convince me that he needed me to survive this.  And how important I am to him.  This has always been a sticking point in our relationship.  K is the man that every woman is trying to find.  He is the nice guy that all single women claim doesn't exist.  And though he does his best to convince me, I have never understood why on earth he ever settled for me, much less that I'm someone more than just average, or even annoying and difficult to be around.  And at this moment, he was doing everything possible to convince me that I'm valuable and that he needs me. 

I held out as long as I could.  My girls still had heartbeats.  They were still alive.  So in a moment that I will regret forever and will daily despise myself for, I resigned to option 2.  Everyone grabbed that moment of consent and the decision was made. 

I still don't care that I would have died.  Wish I had.  I don't want to be who I am now.  But there's nothing I wouldn't do for K so if he wants me here, ok, I'm here.  And I'll try to recover so he can have a wife again.  But being here is a sacrifice.

I don't even remember the next 5 hours until my surgery.  The next thing I remember is being on a rolling gurney looking at a different ceiling as I was moved.  I was expecting to hear someone tell me that they were going to put me under now, but I never heard that.

And then being awake in my hospital room, no longer pregnant.