oh baby!

When i found out i was pregnant Derek's aunt and my mother both teased that there were two of them in there! So, when i went to the doctor for an emergency untrasound at ten weeks, we found that the cause of the problem i was having was due to ONE of the baby's placentas. I about crapped my pants and thought that my mom must have called in and told them to joke around about having twins... No joke, there they were two little cinnamon bear babies. I thought for sure derek was going to have a heart attack on the way home. At first all we could think of was, "double everything". I was completely terrified, and so excited! My doctor had told me in september of 2006 that i might not be able to have children, that thought weighed heavily on my mind. I had surgery in january for my endometriosis for the second time and got pregnant that March. My miracle little girls. My pregnancy was horrible right from the beginning. I lost 15 lbs the first three months from vomitting constantly. I stopped losing weight and gradually gained it back plus about 15 lbs, but the vomitting never ceased. I would cry and cry and derek would attempt to comfort me and hold my hair back. The summer was long. and hot. Then, after i turned 22 in October, Derek had just gotten back from working out of town, he had a bad feeling and told them he could no longer work so far away... Early morning on October 21st, I woke up at 1:50 with horrible contractions. Two weeks before that i went to the hospital thinking i was having contractions just to find out, no i was just having pain from being preggo with two babies! Go figure eh? So that night I didn't want to go back and have them say the same thing...so i waited it out. I took a hot bath and nothing helped. Then at around 3:30 Derek convinced me to go to the hospital. When we arrived I found out I was dialated to a 5+ and having severe cramps. They quickly got an IV in me and a steroid shot for the girls' lungs. I received a pill every 6 hours to stop contractions and a shot in the arm between that. I gained 25 pounds in two days from toximia/preclampsia, a condition in which your blood pressure shoots up and kidneys go into over drive. It was becoming dangerous for me to keep those babies in and the doctor decided for my own safety he best take the girls out. On Novemebr 3rd at 9:13 and 9:14 in the morning Evelyn Masayo Dodgen 3lbs 13oz and Emery Jean Dodgen 2lbs 9oz were born 8+ weeks early. I didn't get to see them for but a moment, then they were rushed to the Newborn Intensive Care Unit. They were there for 6 weeks. And let me tell you, those 6 weeks were by far the hardest 6 weeks of my entire life. It's unexplainable the feeling you get having to see your babies hooked up to monitors and having to leave them there. While "living" at the hospital we met another NICU mother. She was the first mother to talk to us. She had had twin daughters as well a month bofore us, she was a week behing me in gestation so her girls were born at 28+ weeks. Both weighing less than 2lbs. Amazing what 4 weeks will do for a baby. I think she felt a connection with us. Her twins had "twin to twin" transfusion, which we had thought our girls had at one point. It is where the twins share a placenta and one of them takes all the nutrients and the other hardly gets any, resulting in one much larger baby. They had to take amniotic fluid from one sac and put it in the other...thus resulting in her early labor. Well 20 days after they were born, on October 22nd one of her girls died. Even typing this months later makes me cry. How grateful we must be for what we have, for someone always has it worse. We are so lucky to have both our girls healthy and strong, growing just as they should. Bringing the girls home was amazing and i felt like i could finally be a real mommy!!! The only hard thing then was, we had to keep people away only close family could visit and no children (even still). It is difficult telling people they can't come over and see our babies. And i think that still today some of family members don't quite understand why we have to be so careful. I've only left the girls with grandmas 3 times...they can't leave home and i feel like i can't leave them. I can't wait until i can go show them off! So for now this blog will do. I shall show them off on here! (Picture-evelyn on top emery on bottom, 2nd time I had ever seen my babies I had to wait to see them until i could get up for a long period of time)