I left an organ in Ogden (not San Francisco)

The last week of August my parents were planning a trip to Utah to attend baptisms of two of their grandchildren and at the last minute I decided I'd pack up myself and my three kiddos and go with them. Even though we were just there for our family reunion, I thought the boys would love another trip and I could spend some time with family and we could let Marc have a little quiet time to focus on getting work projects done. All in all it seemed like the perfect scenario for everyone.

Because of my parents' volunteering commitment on Wednesday mornings at the temple, Marc drove us down to meet them there and then drove their little car back home, while we continued on our trip in our van. We started the long drive across the desert at about 1pm.

Everything was going fairly well until a stop for gas in Elko, Nevada at around 10pm. As I was climbing back into the back seat of our van, I felt some pain in the middle of my back. It had been a long day of traveling and I figured I must have just twisted it funny when I got back in the car. But, then the pain seemed to spread around my rib cage to the front of my chest and tightened to the point where I was having a hard time breathing.

Not wanting to freak my parents out, I called Marc and asked him to look up symptoms of a heart attack. From what he read, it sounded like my symptoms were the same. Marc made me promise that if it got worse I'd make my parents stop and that even if the pain went away that I'd get checked out by someone within the next 24 hours.

As the pain got worse, I finally did tell my parents about the pain I was feeling and reassured them that when we stopped for the night I'd just take a warm bath and most likely feel much better. The warm bath did help, but when I was still awake and tossing and turning an hour later at 3am, I took another warm bath. I finally fell asleep sometime around 4am, only to wake up at 6am to feed Lucy again. Then back asleep for another hour before the boys were waking us up.

I felt tired, but the pain I'd been feeling was gone. The rest of the day I just felt a little off and slightly nauseous, but assumed it was from the traveling and lack of sleep. By evening I felt, more or less, back to normal and was enjoying time with my brother and his family in Ogden.

Then, in the middle of the night I found myself running to the bathroom with my body rejecting waste from both ends. Is there a nicer (less gross) way of saying that?? I was in a bedroom with my three little ones and in between my sprints to the bathroom I was up comforting and/or feeding each of my three kiddos at different points during the night. It was a pretty long night and I was feeling pretty miserable by the end of it.

After throwing up around 5am, I felt sharp pains in my chest and abdomen and knew that something wasn't right. Lucy was just waking up, so I fed her quick and then went into the bedroom where my parents were sleeping and told them I needed to go to the ER. Before leaving my brother's house, I was able to receive a blessing from my dad and brother, which seemed to ease the pain just enough to calm my fears just enough.

After a number of tests and an ultrasound, and few hours later, the ER doctor came in to let me know that I was having a gallbladder attack. In addition, there was a gall stone stuck in the duct that connects to the pancreas, and was causing inflammation in the pancreas as well. My condition was serious enough that I would need to go in for surgery right away.

Well, right away wasn't actually right away. But, shortly after noon I was knocked out while my gallbladder was being removed. As it turns out, the surgeon also found that I had an umbilical hernia and fixed that up while she was at it. I woke up to four small incisions in my abdomen, soreness all over my belly, pain in my right shoulder (from the air they filled my abdomen with), sores on the right corner of my mouth from the breathing tube, and lungs that burned as if I'd just run a marathon in Siberia. Plus, I was in a mental fog, struggling to come out of the anesthesia.

It was all very overwhelming and being separated from my babies, particularly my newborn babe, made me extra emotional. I had to "pump and dump" for about 24 hours after the surgery, but luckily Lucy adjusted fairly well to a bottle during that time and then adjusted back even easier to breastfeeding. Those 24 hours were awful. Even though I knew all three were in good hands - the best! - I slept terribly that night, feeling so alone without the breathing sounds and noises of my little ones to softly lull me to sleep. Instead, as fate would have it, there was a lightning storm all night that felt and sounded like it was attacking the hospital.

I survived my only night in the hospital and was released the next afternoon. I spent the next couple of days fighting feelings of discouragement. I had just fully recovered from Lucy's birth and felt like I'd just been knocked down again. I was pretty depressed to be back in recovery mode, which meant keeping the boys at an arm's length away, not being able to play with them, unable to do much rocking of my baby, since the doctor's one admonition was to not lift, pull or push anything over ten pounds for SIX weeks. I clearly haven't been good at following that, but I've tried to be careful.

Now that it has almost been two weeks since the surgery and we're back home, I'm feeling better. My wounds are still healing, both the physical and the emotional. I'm so grateful for the help I had from so many of my family members while we were in Utah, especially for my parents' help there and here.

I'm curious, though, if anyone else has had gallbladder problems. The ER doctor told me there is some connection to gallbladder attacks and pregnancy, but that they don't know why it happens exactly. I was also told that the attack could have been triggered by my sudden change in diet - by cutting out all dairy for Lucy's sake.

I guess whatever the cause, I won't have to worry about it happening again. So far I haven't noticed any change in the way my body functions without a gallbladder... and I'm down six pounds. Still, I definitely don't recommend it for a weight loss plan - there are much easier ways to lose six pounds!

Surgery Day

Our morning started extra early. Ben woke up at 5am. We hoped he'd go back to sleep, but ten minutes later Hugh was up and both were crying in unison. Not exactly how I was wanting the day to start. Hugh wasn't able to eat or drink after midnight, so I got him up at 11pm last night to feed him some yogurt and nurse him once more. Still, he was just a little confused (and possibly mad) this morning when I didn't nurse him or make him any pancakes. One of the hardest moments of the day.

We had to check in two hours before his scheduled time, just in case they finished with the other patient early and could get Hugh in early, too. Hanging out in a waiting room for nearly two hours on an empty stomach, Hugh was a champ! He played with his cars, "bbbrrrrmmming" the whole time... until he noticed the cats on the TV, which then had him meowing. He is my little ham, constantly bringing out smiles and laughter from everyone in his presence.

It was so perfect when they called us back to the pre-op room, to find on his bed a tiny hospital gown with little tigers on it. When I pointed it out, he went back and forth from a meow to a roar. And, then he kept trying to find a way out of his gown.

He put up a good fight with the blood pressure cuff, which dashed the nurses plans to try get the IV in with Hugh awake and aware. So, that came later, after they put the mask over his face and made him drift into some crazy deep sleep. But, I wasn't there for that part. I had to hand him off to a kind-faced nurse named Lisa. She had a warm blanket in her arms, ready to embrace him as I gave him to her at the door of the operating room. I walked away quickly, so he wouldn't look or reach for me. And so I wouldn't cry. And then I took a deep breath.

For the next hour, I filled a prescription for some pain medicine for Hugh, went to the bank and the grocery store, and checked off a couple of other quick errands. I made it back just in time to get settled and about to open up my new book, when I saw one of Hugh's nurses rushing toward me in the waiting room. I hurriedly gathered my things and followed her to Hugh's recovery room. Just as she opened the door, I heard his undeniable scream.

Music to my ears. He was waking up from that deep scary sleep and he was alive and well. In pain and a little confused, but that was remedied with some snuggling and his delayed morning feeding. Soon he was fast asleep in my arms. After they felt satisfied with their monitoring of him, he was discharged and we came back home to more snuggling and sleeping for the rest of the afternoon.

Hugh seemed to not be able to use his legs much, even by the end of the evening, but we're thinking that's probably normal and we're hoping all will be back to normal tomorrow. But, he can still meow. He sat comfortably with Marc while I made him some soup for dinner, laughing at Ben and "bbbrrrrmmming" while playing with his cars. And, he still remembers how to give kisses.

I'm realizing it was silly of me to hope for a boring day, but it definitely lacked drama and trauma, and that was more than what I could have hoped for. I'm breathing more calmly and deeply tonight, so grateful for my two boys sleeping peacefully down the hall, for their lives that continue to be preserved and for the joy and fullness they bring to my life.

And, a big thank you (again and again) to those of you who offered your prayers on our behalf!

Surgery Update

Just to update you all, Megan got out of surgery a few hours ago. The surgery went well; the surgeon called it a "95%" because of some very minor bleeding that obscured the view. But it sounds like he got most, if not all, of the transfusion vessels. In addition, they removed about 1 liter of fluid from Emmaline's sac (the recipient twin). Megan is in good spirits. She should even get to eat food soon, which is a nice alternative to ice chips. We should have a follow-up ultrasound tonight and tomorrow, which will help us know where we're at. One of the radiologists performing the ultrasound during the surgery observed that near the end of the surgery the donor twin (Elliana) already seemed to be more active, which is a very good sign. We still have a long road ahead; Megan has been having some contractions, and we don't know what sort of follow-up treatment might be necessary. We're feeling optimistic, though.

We are extremely grateful for all the prayers and kind emails and phone calls we've received.

Request for prayers

Yesterday was one of the longest days of our life. We had our appointments down at UCSF starting at 8am and leaving our last one after 4pm. We met with a number of different doctors, specialists, and surgeons. We went down there hoping they would send us away with a confusion of why we were even referred there in the first place. But, it turns out our situation is much more serious than we thought.

It was confirmed through an ultrasound and an echocardiogram that the Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome had progressed to a Stage 3, which probably doesn't hold a lot of meaning for most of you. But, basically it's the most serious the syndrome can get while still having good chances of the babies surviving it with laser surgery. Had we waited any longer, it probably would have been too late to do anything.

To give a few more specifics, our donor baby (the one with less fluid) is starting to show signs of stress in her kidneys, and her bladder isn't visible at all (meaning she isn't getting the nourishment she needs). Our recipient baby (the one with more fluid) is having to work over-time to process all the additional fluid, causing additional stress on her heart. She is the one that the doctors are more concerned about right now.

Fortunately there is a laser surgery that is now available to try to correct the problem in the babies' placenta. The surgery has only been in existence for about 20 years and is only performed at a handful of hospitals, UCSF being one of them. The surgery is pretty straight-forward, though with obvious risks involved, just like any surgery. They will go into my abdomen with a small laser instrument about the size of a drinking straw and with the help of an ultrasound they will identify the blood vessels in the shared placenta that are causing the discordance in blood flow between the two babies. Using the laser, they will cut off those blood vessels, leaving the babies with vessels that flow equally between them.

So, we will drive back down to UCSF tonight. They will check me in around 8pm and get me all prepped so that they can perform the surgery first thing Thursday morning. My actual time slot isn't until 1pm, but they are hoping to get to me much earlier than that. The surgery itself will be performed by Dr. Lee and should last an hour or so, after which they will monitor me and the babies really closely in the hospital. Friday morning they will do another ultrasound to see how things are going. Depending on what they learn from that, I'll either be discharged Friday afternoon or Saturday sometime.

While we have our concerns about going through with the surgery, we feel like the risks are much less scary than just sitting back and waiting to see what happens. Plus, the fact that our babies both continue to grow at the same rate, even with the present problem, is a really good sign. My placenta is also in a posterior position, which makes the surgery a little easier to perform. So, yes, we have our fears... BUT, we are also still very hopeful.

And, we are so grateful. We have been overwhelmed with so much love and support. We have felt strength in the midst of this storm that is not coming from our own reserve. We are being blessed with the strength and the courage that we lack, and know that comes as a result of the Savior's atonement. We are grateful to have each other, to have the perspective of the gospel, to have the most incredible family and friends who have stayed by our sides through all that we've faced.

Oh, and for the last few weeks we have been doing lots of talking about names for our little girls. We had initially planned on keeping that information to ourselves until they were born, but have decided now is a good time to share. Besides liking the names, we also found the meanings behind their names to be very fitting.

Baby A (our donor twin) is Elliana. It's a hebrew name, meaning "God has answered." She is one part of a double blessing in answer to years of pleading and prayer to start our family.

Baby B (our recipient twin) is Emmaline. I don't remember the origin, but it means "work." She is our little worker, doing double-time to keep them both alive.

We love our little girls so much! They are already teaching us so much about love, about courage, about the will to survive. They are our little fighters... and we are ready to fight with them. In the meantime, please know how deeply grateful we feel for the prayers being offered for us and our little girls.