Houston: We Have a Problem

Hello Everyone. This is Sarah, Cecily’s best friend, and she asked that I post for her today.

I accompanied her and her husband to an ultrasound appt. this morning–I’ve been wanting to go and finally arranged that I could–and we got some sad news, folks.

One of the boys has passed away.

The tech had trouble at first, and moved us into another room with ‘better equipment’, and we all got a bit nervous. Then when she had told us the heart rate of Twin A, and before answering Cec about Twin B said "I’m going to get the doctor now"–well, we all swallowed pretty hard.

The doctor was lovely, very sweet and concerned but blunt: I have to tell you, this one has no heartbeat, no good fluid around the sac. It looks like he passed over a week ago.

FUCK.
Cecily, for anyone who has been graced to know her, was typically stoic at first. Very matter of fact. In a way, I think all the horror stories you all share had part of her preparing for this from the beginning. Charlie’s mind raced with a million questions to ask, and he got some of them out right there.

Then they sent us over to see Cec’s regular Dr.—yes, Dr. Mama–who had agreed to see her as soon as he could fit her in. He was also very sweet and blunt, went over all the same things and Charlie managed to get the other half of his questions out, and Dr. was very patient and understanding. He then sent her over to another building for more testing…serial blood pressure checks because her pressure was extremely high (though could obviously be stress-related), a DIC test to see that her blood won’t get too thin, as well as a preclampsia panel, because of the high pressure, large weight gain in the past 3 weeks, and something in the urine that was postive…didn’t catch what that meant.

So after the testing, assuming it shows these other factors are ok, we WAIT. And oh how we all love that waiting game. She is 22 weeks tomorrow, so the Dr. said the next two weeks are crucial, to make it past the magical line of ‘viable’. After that it will be close checking on the live baby, and seeing that the one that passed is absorbed back in. They had seperate sacks and placentas, so the passing of the one theoretically should not harm the other, but of course there are all sorts of 1% chances of this, that, and the other thing.

This is very fucking scary, and I am so sad for the loss of that one little boy. Please send your love and prayers her way and to the little boy hanging in there, that he keeps growing and gets stronger. They need all the positive thoughts you can muster. Charlie and I are very worried not only about the baby who is left, but about Cecily’s health–about her life. We are scared.

I’m sure Cec will update herself in another day or two. How does one "process" something like this?? You just fucking can’t. That’s what Charlie said. You just fucking can’t.

Sarah