I stopped writing because I couldn't make friends with what happened next with words. I wasn't ready to put out in the world for judgment or ridicule or gasping and pointing fingers. It was too much.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015, 11am. Taylor had a brain bleed.
When we first heard this news it was presented to us as not such a big deal, "We will just keep an eye on it". She was not my regular surgeon. I still left uneasy that day. Hollie had accompanied me to that particular appointment, which was 2 weeks after the surgery, and helped me calm down with some retail therapy. I bought matching outfits because I believed in my girls and I knew the fight that God had put in them because He put it in me too.
But, Taylor had a brain bleed.
Dr. Google. Not helpful.
Friday August 28, 2015, 6pm. Surgeon calls me.
"Hey Chastity this is Dr. S. I want to talk to you about Baby B's bleed and let you know what this might mean for her and what your options are. So, babies who experience this in utero typically end up with cerebral palsy which has different severities. She may never talk, walk, eat or be independent at all. I had only had this happen once before and it did not end well. " At this point I'm crying all over my phone. "Your only 19 weeks and the state of North Carolina allows selective reduction (that's what it's called when you terminate just one of your twins or multiples) up to 20 weeks. We will have to know by Monday what you choose to do." ---WHAT?!
I have the weekend to decide if I keep my baby or let her go?!
I always thought I knew where I stand on this issue. I thought I could never even think of or ever imagine killing my baby. But here we were with two days to decide. We were beside ourselves with emotion. We told a very select few people because this is not something you want to openly talk about. I called in my preacher, my neighbor, my friend who has faced so much loss (to no fault of her own) for guidance. We knew that no matter what none of our options were easy or wrong or right. It was the epitome of being between a rock and a hard place. Oh God, what do we do!
We thought we had made a decision.
God stepped in for us twice. Once through my husband and another through the doctor who first told us about the bleed.
My husband requested that we have another ultrasound first thing Monday morning to see all of this for ourselves. We wanted to view this "thing" that was taking over our daughter's brain. We wanted the doctors to explain it all to us whether they thought we could understand it or not. This was God on the move #1.
I contact my surgeon and she makes it happen and we were scheduled for the first sonogram that Monday morning. We see the bleed and we hear the words. They measure her, they measure the bleed, the measure her brain. They go over it all. Husband asks the doctor who was the first one who told us of the bleed what her experience has been with this happening and she had none. At that point we weren't willing to reduce the pregnancy based on very little experience the doctors had had. Dr. P had God moment #2. She then said "How about we see if we can get a neonatologist up here to look at her scans and give his thoughts on it. Preemies get bleeds and he/she sees them everyday and he/she may can give you better information than what we have". BEST THING we had heard all day so far.
We were ushered into a private family waiting area while they get in touch with someone. It took less than an hour and we met the head haunch-o of neonatology at Levine's, Dr. H. He sat and talked with us about what he saw. "If I were looking at this as a scan of an already born infant I would grade that as a grade 2 bleed. I don't see that the blood has reached any brain matter, your still early in the pregnancy and she her brain is constantly growing and changing and I can't guarantee she won't be affected but I would give her about a 80% chance things will be just fine." He might as well have came in the room riding a unicorn with butterflies and rainbows coming out of his mouth as that's how beautiful those words sounded. There was no way we were letting her go.
She had the fight God gave her and her Mama's blood running through her veins. She was going to be just fine.
Dr. H left us with these words, "I would like to not see you again, so keep those babies cooking". Little did we know what was still to come.
But you see I'm now almost a year out from having to have made this decision and I still wrestle with that thought that I was so close to letting her go. We had looked at it from all the angles. We knew at some point her Dad and I would be gone and it would be up to her sisters to care for her, and was that fair for that burden to be on them. We had seen through our own experience growing up that handicapped children are not treated well by their peers or society, is that something we could deal with? We knew that she may have felt like God didn't love her as much as her sisters and that's why she was given this burden, how do you keep people from feeling like that? Even though we kept on with both babies I still feel guilt every single day. I don't think I could have lived with myself if we would have went the other way.
