Day 3

Reece spent the day under UV lights... suntanning!!! Our little piglet also ate all the milk that I have made so far ...leaving nothing for his brother. The NICU staff moved the ventilator machine away from his bed because he had proven yesterday that he would not be needing it anymore. Way to go Reece!

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Matthew was given meds to close the valve and the heart murmur seem to be gone.

Day 2

Reece was taken off the ventilator today and put on CPAP, which is much less evasive, even though it looks more combersum. Reece kept grabbing and pulling at the machine.... he is just like his daddy that can't make it through the night with his sleep apnea machine.

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Matthew is still on his ventilator and has a slight heart murmer, the valve that is suppossed to close after delivery has not closed yet. He also has a small bleed in his brain but the doctors don't seem to be worried about it and said that is normal for babies born early.

Introducing Reece and Matthew - Day 1

Reece

Sunday, October 25th, 2009 @ 8:28am

1090grams ~ 2lbs 6oz

39cm ~ 15.4"

Reece was put on a ventilator soon after delivery for the transfer to the NICU hospital.

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Matthew

Sunday, October 25th, 2009 @ 9:08am

1209grams ~ 2lbs 10oz

39cm ~ 15.4"

Matthew was put on a ventilator immediately after birth and then stabalized before transfer to the NICU.

The Hogarth Boys have arrived

Well it was alot sooner than I had hoped, only 28 weeks and two days, but the boys were born in a frenzy on October 25th, 2009. Thankfully they are doing well in the NICU at Women's College Hospital/Sunnybrook were they will likely stay for the next 2 or so months.

The Labour: On Saturday night/Sunday morning I could not get to sleep. My back was hurting and I felt so constipated. At mount sinai, where I was being cared for over the previous two weeks, I was being given stool softeners because bed rest tends to cause some constipation. But now that I was at home, it was not part of my routine so that night I took one just to make sure things were still flowing. So all night I thought well it must be the stool softener doing its work and now I had to go to the washroom. At probably my 10th attempt to go to the washroom that night I felt a bulge coming out of the wrong hole (yes, same as last time!!!) I put my hand to stop anything from coming out, woke Dug up and asked him to hold me up, upside down, by my feet so that everything would go back inside. That worked for a bit but I was also having the urge to push still so we called the ambulance. We wanted them to take us to mount sinai or at least credit valley but they thought it would be best, because I already had the urge to push, that we go to the NEAREST hospital, that being Georgetown. Okay, so Georgetown is a small town, with a small hospital. In fact so small that they do not deliver twins there, and needless to say they have no staff or equipment for premies. Obviously, this was NOT were wanted to go and we almost had them convinced to drive us to Credit Valley but then as they had me on stretcher and tried to take me down the stairs (feet first even though I said NO TAKE ME HEAD FIRST) well one step and KABOOM! My water broke. I was soooooooo scared. I seriously thought a baby came flying out! I asked repeatedly "was that a baby?" but they kept saying "no just your mucus plug and water" but if you had seen the look on Dug's face you would have thought for sure a baby came flying out. Anyways, they turned me around, took me head down down the stairs and said that now that my water was broken they couldn't take the risk of driving to credit valley and would have to take me to Georgetown hospital. OH CRAP!!!!

The Delivery: As we arrived at Georgetown hospital we discovered that they were under staffed, under equiped and basically as scared to have there as I was to be there BUT thankfully they had called for a mobile team to come from sick kids hospital downtown. ETA... 2 HOURS!!! Are you friggen kidding me???? This baby's head was crowning, the urge to push was unbearable and they wanted me to wait 2 hours. With every contraction it became more and more difficult to not push and keep the baby inside. I had my legs up in the air with the help of Dug and a super amazing nurse that was making sure the baby wasn't coming out. They had both babies heart rates being monitored and they were fine. I knew if I could just hold out until the sick kids team arrived then at least the babies would have a fighting chance but without the team.... well lets not go there. It had been over 2 hours, I could tell Dug was getting frustrated as we kept asking 'how far is the team?' and nobody knew anything and I was in so much pain and couldn't fight my body any longer so I put my feet down on the table and baby A came out without a sound. They whisked him over to the warming table and I thought 'even Cole and Breanna made a sound when they first came out, a faint little cry' so I figured it was all over but a minute later the sick kids team came to the door and we were like GET THE HELL IN HERE!!! Within moments I could see his hands and arms moving as the team worked on him to get him stablized.

As a side note I call them baby A and B because until they left Georgetown we had not picked out names for them yet, despite Dug's constant nagging that I pick out or at least narrow down some names. Eventually we decided to name baby A, who was born first, Reece, and baby B, Matthew.

Anyhow, now that baby A was out the next task was to get baby B out. At our last ultrasound he was in the breech position and I had hoped that he might turn once he had more space. I wasn't having any contractions and talk of having a c-section was being discussed. Through a portable ultrasound they could see that Baby B started turning and got to tranverse (across) but then decided he liked the breech position better. But I could see that the delivery doctor was thinking that we could get him vaginally so with her pulling and me pushing we got baby B to a position that I started having contractions and the urge to push. With several more contractions we got baby B out, feet first... and a painfully huge head last! Again I did not hear a peep out of him. They wisked him over to the warming table where the NICU team from McMaster was already there and ready to take care of him. Within a few minutes they had him moving and on a ventelator. A few minutes later that placentas came out and I was moved to a maternity ward room while the NICU teams worked on stabalizing the boys.

Post Partum
** I'll finish this later because people are starting to get ansy to see pictures so I better get started on the next post***

Under the Tree - April

1) How long has it been since you lost your child/ren? Has your grief changed at all? Is your life becoming any easier or is it just harder as time passes?
Next weeked will mark the one year angelversary of my twins Cole and Breanna. Cole was born on May 3rd 2008 and passed away almost 3 hours later. Breanna was born on May 4th 2008 and passed away almost 30 minutes later. As their one year appraoches I certainly find myslef much more emotional but certainly leaps and bounds from where I was a year ago and even 6 months ago. This is most likely a result of the antidepressants I was put on after my melt-down at Halloween. As their 6 month anniversary approached I felt this overwhleming sense of hopelessness and I just could not and did not want to endure the agony of greif any longer. I worried that I would feel like this forever and that the pain would never go away. So I finally seeked medical help and have felt like I am dealing much better now. I hope that with time I will be able to come off the antidepressants and that the overwhelming pain and heart ache will subside. Part of me really feels that once I have another child that I get to take home, care for and raise, I will feel more at peace. No one will ever replace Cole and Breanna but I believe that having a child in the family will bring some joy into my life.

2) How do you feel when you see pregnant women when you are out and about?
Wow... that is quite the difficult question to answer since for me it changes as time passes and also changes based on my mood and even changes based on who the person is. I'll start off by saying that in most circumstances when I see pregnant women or babies, especially twins, it's like a train wreck that I cannot take my eyes off. I know I don't want to look and see but I'm just fascinated and can't stop starring. I used to get sad when I saw little babies but now I feel more like I did before my loss, a little bit of "oh so cute" joy and a little bit of jelousy (like when am I finally going to have a baby). Although, I still have not actually spent any length of time with or even held a baby since my loss. I have this incredible desire to hold a baby but I know that I will just break down and cry and I feel bad doing that with someone else's baby and having them feel uncomfortable.
As for pregnant women... they seem to be ALL around me right now. Just about every week I find out that someone else is preggers. For the ones that have also had a loss or have been supportive of my loss, I am so happy for them but also a bit nervous because I don't want them to suffer any more pain and loss. For random aquintances that naively flaunt their pregnancy and symptoms, I awe at them and wonder how people can be so oblivious of all the awful and terrible things that could happen and that there are NO gaurantees. I cringe when I hear them say things that assume a happy ending. I know, and hope, that nothing will go wrong because odds are everything will be fine, but I wonder how they can be so blind. After all the pain that I have gone through how can they be so confident that it can never happen to them. Towards strangers that I see around I worry for them that something could go wrong and they might lose the baby and I wonder if they will know what to do in those precious few hours that they have with their baby and whether they will know where to get support from.

3) What's your therapy in the aftermath of losing your child/ren? Do you go to counseling? Do you do artwork or some kind of exercise or do you simply just let yourself be? What helps you?
I would have to say that my saving grace has been other people that I have met that have also suffered a loss. In particular Jane, Nat, and Nicola have been my biggest form of therapy to just talk about the day to day ups and downs. I met them all early in my greiving and I really don't think I would be doing as well if I didn't have them. I also went to groups (where I met Nat and Jane) and found lots of websites/message boards full of supportive people that have had a loss. I also have been a psycologist, Dr. Donohoe, who is fabulous and keeps me sain about what people that have not have a loss are thinking. I'm so thankful to have been seeing him once or twice a month and especially when I had an emotional breakdown in October. I immediatly went to him and he directed me to the help I ultimately needed, antidepressants, my best therapy!!

To participate in Under the Tree go to http://scarletriver26.blogspot.com/2009/02/tree.html

Under the Tree - March

I am trying to catch up on my responses to Under the Tree so here we go for March.

1) Do you have a special place in your home for your baby/ies? What is it like? Do you have any rituals that you perform in memory of your baby/ies?
The first place of rememberenace where I think about and feel close to my babies is at the cemetary. We don't have a grave stone yet but a wonderful friend of mine, Jane, made two stones with Cole and Breanna's names and we have placed them there. During the months following their deaths my husband and I would go weekly to visit and sometimes bring a blanket and have a little family picnic there. But then winter came and we haven't done that in a while. I hope that we restart that again now that the weather is nicer.
Another special place of rememberance is a garden box my husband and I built and planted some beautiful flowers in last summer in our backyard. I just finished planting some new flowers today and look forward to seeing them grow. Purple and yellow flowers seem to be the most prominent colours which represent Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore.
As for rituals the one that comes to mind right now is my obsession with anything Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore. We had decorated their room with a Winnie the Pooh theme and then the day before their burial we went out and bought them some gifts to be buried with and we were drawn to these Winnie the pooh and Eeyore stuffed animals, and now it has become our symbol for them. Soon after their passing I discoverd Peek a Poohs, cute little Winnie the Pooh charms with interchangeable costumes, and now my collection is huge!

2) If you believe in an afterlife, do you receive signs from your baby/ies? Have you ever felt their pressence? Do you find them in nature? Do they visit you in your dreams?
I really wish they would visit me in my dreams but I have not gotten much sleep in the past year so it has not happened yet. One thing we did do a few months after they died was that we saw a psychic. I just needed to know that they were alright and the psychic put my mind at ease. Although nothing she said has come true (I was supposed to get pregnant really soon), it helped at the time and it was what I needed then and I'm very glad we did it.
As for finding them in nature.... I often think of Cole when I see butteflies. They flutter about all curious like and checking out the world much like how I feel about Cole. He was so eager to get out and see what the world had to offer. It brings a smile to my face whenever I see a butterfly but then I feel guilty because I feel like I'm only focussing on Cole and leaving Breanna out. (This has been a huge issue I have been struggling with for months and it warrants its own blog post some day.)

3) Do you have a special poem, song, prayer or quote in memory of your baby/ies?
I find music so powerful in guiding my emotions and have found several songs that I connect with and express how I feel. But I have two songs in particular that remind me of my babies.
Even before I was pregnant I remember listening to the song Childhood dreams by Nelly Furtado and could not wait to have a son, a "little boy made for me in the stars". Cole was that little boy made for me in the stars and whenever I here this song I think of him.
Breanna's song is completely different. When she was born I could not believe how absolutley adorable she was, like a little china doll. As I held her tight I sang to her quietly You are so beautiful to me, and that song will always be Breanna's song for me.


To participate in Under the Tree go to http://scarletriver26.blogspot.com/2009/02/tree.html

Under the Tree - February

Well, it has been a really long time since I have blogged and today I literally spent the entire day reading blogs (and crying) and thinking about Cole and Breanna and their first angelversary which is fast approaching. At one point I came across a blog http://scarletriver26.blogspot.com/2009/02/tree.html created by another greiving mommy where she is trying to get mommies of angels together to share their thoughts and feelings. At the end of every month she posts some questions that everyone answers on their blog and to create a network of support. I think I'm going to try and do this every month so that I am sharing my thoughts and feelings regularly instead of just bottling it all up. So I'm two months behind and will start from the beginning with the February questions.

1) How long have you been blogging for? Why did you start? What do you want from writing?
I started blogging in May 2008 just after my twins Cole and Breanna were born premature and subsequently did not survive. I spent the first few weeks in utter shock and disbelief and spent my days surfing the web looking for ..... I don't know what.... but something to help me with my grief and get through this emense pain. I found several message boards for people that have had a loss and found comfort and support there. Soon after I realized that I wanted to keep a record of my journey and discovered blogging. Unforunately, as soon as I started back to work I no longer had the time or energy to continue writing. I always wanted to because I found it so helpful and healing to write out my feelings but I just didn't, which I totally regret because SOOO much has happened. Anyhow, recently as Cole and Breanna's 1st angelversary approaches I have been feeling overwhelming saddness and thus spent the entire day reverting back to the first days after they died, staring blankly at my computer, surfing the internet and looking for something.... again I don't know what but I'm hoping I have found it.

2) Where is safest place for you to share your feelings? Is there anywhere you feel completely accepted just being however you are really feeling?
The best resource I found to share my feelings was the SHARE http://www.nationalshareoffice.com/ message board and chat room. But like my blog, once I was back at work I no longer had endless hours to surf and read people's messages. Instead I found some email lists for people that have suffered loss of mulitples called LAMBs. I read most of the emails but rarely respond. I also found several groups on Facebook that I have found helpful. But I have found the most comfort from meeting and getting to know actual people in my area that have also had a loss. Natasha, Jane, and Nicola have become my lifeline. They understand me and are willing to listen and I would do anything for them aswell.

3) Can you recommend any books that you have read that have given you a new insight, hope or courage in this new life you find yourself in?
The first books I read were Empty Cradle, Broken Heart which Natasha lent me and Loving and Letting Go which Jane lent me. They both really helped me deal with my loss and some major issues I was dealing with especially when I hit a huge regret spiral 6 weeks after the loss. Another book I read more recently which I really liked was Second Chance by Jane Green. It's about a group of friends that deal with the sudden death of a friend. It had nothing to do with baby loss but for some reason it really helped me to see how other people deal with greif and that I was not going crazy.

4) How would you describe yourself before you lost your baby? How have you changed, who are you today?
I certainly was naive about pregnancy. I knew that I could miscarry in the 1st trimester, but after that I figured everything would be fine and especially after I passed the half way mark I never imagined that life could take such a dramtic turn for the worse. I had such a tough and long road of fertility treatments to get pregnant that I figured that once we passed that obsitcale we would be fine. I also was quite outgoing and an extrovert.
Now I would say that I am much more nervous and anxious about what the future holds for me. I avoid new people and most social situtations. The one positive is that I am certainly more compasionate towards others. I listen more and I realize now how painful losing someone, anyone that you love is. I am now much more determined to give back and help others. I am trying to start a memory box program in my area to help other's who experience a loss by giving them items to help them create and save memories with their baby. http://www.memory-boxes.webs.com/

5) How do you think you are coping? Do you see any light in this road or is it all dark right now? Where do you imagine yourself to be in a years time?
I think I am coping okay.... although I had a major melt down at halloween and I had to be put on antidepressants. Since then was coping fairly well until this past week. As Cole and Breanna's 1st angelversary approaches I'm starting to feel more emotional and anxious of what the next few weeks have in store. I was hoping to be pregnant again by now but that is not the case. And to add insult to injury, several mommies of angels that I have met in person and through facebook and several other freinds and aquintances are pregnant and some have even had their babies. I am certainly happy for them but I really wish my time would come soon. I haven't reached the point of utter desperation and hopelessness that I experienced in October, but I certainly am starting to get frustrated. I feel like I have dealt with my loss and done my grieving and now I'm ready to move forward. Like my bog title says.... Life continues but we will never forget. So I'm ready for life to continue. Only time will tell.