The Purpose Parcel Story

My first pregnancy started out with so much excitement.  My husband and I could not believe the plus sign, we were nervous, shocked, dreaming of the future, and wondering if we could pull this parent thing off.  Then the surprises kept coming when we found out we were having identical twins.  What a blessing! I knew (from being told by my doctor) that twin pregnancies were high risk.  This, however, never registered with me.   I miss these early pregnancy days because I was truly fearless.   

At 17 weeks we were diagnosed with stage 4 TTTS. Long story short of TTTS the babies are sharing the placenta.  One baby is getting too much blood flow and nutrients while one is not getting enough.  Our twins, whom we also found out were boys, were in grave danger.  They needed surgery immediately.  If we stood back and did nothing they would only have a 10 percent chance of survival. The answer was obvious.   

Surgery went smoothly. Baby A, Jacob, was in the clear while our Baby B, Jordan, still had a lot of fighting to do. Jordan was the baby not getting enough blood flow.  Though the surgery corrected the flow he was behind his brother and the damage was unknown.  His chance of survival was 50/50.  Now the hell starts.  You would think it would have been at the diagnosis before surgery, but it was actually after it that the anxiety reared it’s ugly head for me.  The waiting game began and each day we had to pray that Jordan would pull though. 

And he did! For seven long weeks after surgery he beat the odds.  Then it was too much and he had to fly home.  I remember that ultrasound in every last detail.  Jordan had no heartbeat but was still moving because Jacob was hugging him so tight. I cried, screamed, and the only words I could utter were a simple “no”.  From there is darkness. I don’t remember everything.  How we got home? What the next few days were like?  The anxiety that came from Jordan’s passing was smothering.  No matter how many great doctor appointments I had showing that Jacob was in fact healthy would not compute within me.  The joy of pregnancy was gone.  This is just a sad fact that a loss to that magnitude takes.  

In a time of social media and being so far along my pregnancy was extremely public, so I knew it had to be addressed.  I knew I had to open up about my story.  From sharing my story the beauty started to come.  I found comfort and strength from others.  My inbox was flooded with messages of other women’s stories… “What happened to me is so different but I relate”…. “We have lost three babies” … “I can not carry past week 8”..  I was not alone.  There ARE so many of us!  We are in it together and lots of times we do not know how to share our heartache. All while the ones who love us most do not know what to say… and so the idea of Purpose Parcel was born.