It is hard to put her story down on a page as it is a long one. It started with many years of infertility. We had tried everything including Mercer therapy before trying IUI and IVF. During these years, I followed many diets to naturally try to get myself to ovulate. When we had potlucks at work, one person made fun of me because I couldn’t eat the cake. She then began to chew with her mouth open. I sat in meetings where people would get married. They wouldn’t be in that meeting because they were on their honeymoon. My co-workers would state, “they are going to be the next to have a baby!” I learned very quickly how to create an unmovable face.
We finally went to a fertility clinic to try IUI and IVF. The doctor conducted all the tests. He believed that we needed to do IVF. However, he was okay with us trying IUI first. So we did. The week came when we were ready to “transfer.” We sat in the room for what felt like a long time. They returned with a clipboard. They also brought a vial to sign off that we were the correct people. Before the sign off, they told us the count was so low that we wouldn’t see success. They advised us to probably do IVF if it didn’t work. The doctor said we could still “transfer” if we wanted to. So we took the chance.
4 weeks later I decided to take a test it was positive! I walked into our room. My husband was sleeping. I woke him up and told him excitedly that we were pregnant. It wasn’t a faint line.
The weekend dragged on as we waited to call our doctor. We needed to get a Beta test to make sure we truly were pregnant. Once we did our Beta testing we found that our numbers weren’t just doubling, they were quadrupling!
We got set up for a 6 week appointment, where they warned us that we might not see anything. We see Sorins sack (Baby A). The doctor was doing a final sweep. Then, we saw a glimpse of Astrids sack (Baby B). “Is that twins?” I said. The doctor responded, “It is possible that it is twins. However, because of how small the sack is, it can be a vanishing twin. So don’t keep your hopes up.”
We went in each week to make sure the twins stayed. We made it to 10 weeks. Everything was great! The doctors were surprised how strong Astrids heartbeat was and were excited to get us transferred over to our OBGYN.
We had our first 2 appointments with the OBGYNs. Everything looked fine. Both girls were moving and spinning around. They had strong heartbeats. We reached the week when we could take a blood test to determine their gender. However, each test we tried came back inconclusive. This should have been our first warning sign. So we decided to go into Fetal Fotos in American Fork. We found that Sorin was a girl. Astrid, however, was no longer moving like she was. Her heartbeat was still fine. Looking back at the video today, the tech kept going over her head. They couldn’t see the same brain that you can see on Sorin’s scans. They told us to reach out to the doctor. They didn’t panic. I didn’t think anything of it because we had been to the doctor that past week. I didn’t call them.
The doctor called me, while I was at work, that Monday stating it was an emergency and I needed to go in. I was angry with them because they wouldn’t tell me why it was such an emergency. My employer at the time, also wasn’t very gracious when it came to leaving work early last minute.
I call my husband and tell him that there is an emergency and I need him with me in case something is actually wrong. His employer was very gracious and told him to go with me and not worry about work.
We meet there, they get me back almost instantly and start to scan me and during the scan they are very quiet. They walk us back to the very back room where you can hear the elevator on the other side of the wall but you can’t hear the rest of the office. The doctor walks in, his energy was low but he kept a smile on his face to keep us hopeful.
He told us that he didn’t know what the scans meant, that we had to go to Maternal Fetal Medicine to know more. However, he wanted to give us an idea of the news we were about to expect. Astrid could have down syndrome, could have a different triploidy, or could possibly die in the next few weeks or even after birth. For us to know more, we would have to see a specialist.
We scheduled an appointment on the way back to work for that week. We thought, okay if Astrid has down syndrome we will be okay! That doesn’t change anything for us and it must just be that. The appointment with Maternal Fetal medicine came and we had scans were they told us it was trisomy 13 and our daughter would most likely pass during pregnancy or after she was born, however, to get a perfect diagnosis we would need to have an amniocentesis and it could result in losing both or one of our girls. The pain of losing both of them shot through my arms and made me sick to my stomach. The doctor then explained, if it was something worse than trisomy 13 then we had the probability of losing both of the girls regardless. They would be ready to take our girls and put them in the nicu that day if they needed to but the likely hood of survival wasn’t great. They gave us some time to think. We told them to do the amniocentesis.
They don’t give you any numbing when they do the procedure and to make sure Sorin was okay we had to do 2 amniocentesis because they were in separate sacks. However, they accidentally poked Sorins twice so they had to do a 3rd needle to get Astrid.
I walked into work and thought I could keep a smile on my face until my co-worker asked, “how did it go? Is everything okay?” I almost dropped to the concrete ground. She caught my arm and walked me outside. After telling her what I experienced and the news I was just given, she told me regardless of what happens, everything will be okay because they are my girls whatever state they are given to me in and nothing will ever change that.
We walked back into the building when another co-worker (the head of HR) pulled me into a room because some employees saw the encounter when I first walked in. She asked if everything was okay I again told her what had happened, she asked if I needed to go home, and I told her no but I would keep everyone in the loop with all my upcoming doctors appointments I would be having.
The day came were the results came in from the amniocentesis. They told us that Astrid had Triploidy and Sorin was fine for now. Triploidy is rarer than a lightening strike. They have never seen it before in that office and it wasn’t caused by something hereditary for us, it just happened because we did an IUI and the cells didn’t split like they were supposed to. They then said that we should have had 2 identical twins that made up Astrid and 1 fraternal twin that was Sorin, triplets. The doctors said Astrid should not have survived past 4 weeks and would most likely not survive the womb and definitely not be breathing when she was born.
I would be required to take every other day blood work and come in twice per week for scans. It was another full time job. The pain wasn’t over. The day came where there was no longer a heart beat. That day we put away the second crib to store in the garage along with the twin stroller.
She made it to 26 weeks gestation. What a fight she had, our little Valkyrie. We were told that Astrid would be absorbed into Sorin and there would be nothing to bury or hold. That there could be multiple complications if Astrid stayed in my body for both me and Sorin, including me and Sorin not making it but also Sorin would not make it if we took Astrid out because then we would have to take Sorin out. Again, we chanced it. I carried Astrid and Sorin.
In the weeks up to their birth I would get gestational diabetes, cholestasis of pregnancy, hypertension, and gallstones. My body felt like it was shutting down. I was put on bedrest 3 months prior to their birth. The doctors set December 3rd as my induction date due to all the complications. The week prior to my induction date I had a feeling I needed to have them sooner, I called my doctor and asked them to move up the date to December 1st. Their due date was December 22nd.
The induction was flawless, my nurses were amazing, I was truly blessed. They even allowed in my mother-in-law when I was only allowed to have 2 visitors and that included my husband. Sorin came out first weighing 7lbs and 2 oz, she was healthy and breathing but not crying, almost upset that she had been woken up from her nap. Astrid came out with the placenta. Her body fit in the palm of my hand. I asked the nurses not to take her weight as I didn’t want to compare her body to anything in the future, I can still feel her weight in my hand to this day.
Astrid’s body was not supposed to survive, it was supposed to be absorbed and Sorin was supposed to have a hard time breathing. Their placentas had merged providing all the nutrients to Sorin and Astrid’s sack did not break and attached itself to the placenta allowing Astrids body to survive. There was a light in the room I cannot describe. I held both my girls, grateful for the time I had with Astrid and grateful that Sorin had no complications. Both beautiful in their own right.
Soon the mortuary came to take Astrid, too soon. We had spent hours holding Astrid and it still wasn’t enough. Handing Astrid to the mortuary in a white dress, bundled in her white silk quilt, handing someone my baby to be taken away forever, was harder than any needle poke or physical pain that I could ever experience.
In the weeks following their birth we went dress shopping because I did not have anything that would fit me in my postpartum body. A kind lady, no more than 17-18 years old, asked what the occasion was. My mom looked at me with pain in her eyes. I explained that I was shopping for my twin daughters graveside service and that she passed before she was born. That poor 18 year old had probably never heard that before and she stayed quiet not knowing what to say. She checked our items out and we were on our way.
December 10th was a very cold day. Probably the coldest day of the year that year. We did a graveside and it had snowed the night before. To keep Sorin warm, we used a battery pack that photographers use. We set a hot pad to its lowest setting. We bundled Sorin in 3 layers of clothing and wrapped her and the hot pad in a warm blanket.
Dylan carried the casket. A trail of loved ones walked behind him. We played You’ll Be in My Heart sung by Mat & Savanna Shaw. It was too cold for balloons and butterflies. So, we planned a 6 month picnic party to release them both when it was warm. We had our dads speak about the loss of our little girl. I don’t remember a lot of what happened that day. We had a luncheon afterward. When we got home, we had Sorin. It felt so empty without Astrid.
I now volunteer for Share Parents of Utah as a way to spend time with Astrid. I feel so much closer to her since volunteering.
Astrid is now an older sister to Reese who joined our family 4 months ago. In Reese’s nursery we added butterflies as a way for Astrid to be there in a way Sorin is. We also have swaddles with butterflies that we wrap her in to give her a hug from her sister.
Happy 3rd Birthday Astrid. We love you so much.
