Learning to break the news...

We are at week 13+1


So, as most of you know we have been pretty negative in the way we broach the subject that we are pregnant, have twins and they are _high risk_. Well part of our problem has been in our delivery (pun intended). We have been caught making this big build up followed by what most people seem to find as great news.

For example, Joy was getting her hair done last Thursday and told her beautician about how we found out we were expecting just one. Then we went in for the Down Syndrome screening and the nurse became very nervous etc. Well, Joy was rambling about this and the poor woman was building all of this stress that something terrible was going to come of this story. Then Joy gets to "multiple birth" and "twins". This is when people get so excited and relieved.


Our problem is that yes it is exciting to be expecting twins, but the gloomy news about their formation doesn't always click right away. Either that or at times the people we share this will are way more positive than the two of us. We are trying to learn to be more optimistic in the sharing of our news and have stopped going down the road of explaining all of the details about the plethora of risks that we face.


Many of which I believe I have ruled out to myself. However, there is still spontaneous miscarriage, cord tangling, strangulation, cord compression, and all of the many life long challenges that will most likely be present if we can't get to that 32-34 weeks area.


We are making an effort. We had a great time sharing the news with the Sullivan family. We prepared a nice meal and set the table with china and sparkling grape juice (we had a few under age and not enough adults for the real thing). I proposed a very very short toast..."To the Sullivan 5 and the Schneider 4". Well, Lucinda asks "Do you mean your 2 dogs?" Joy goes "The Schneider 4". There is still a bit of a pause. Then Challie goes "You're having _twins_?"


It was quite a blast to break the news and we even guessed who the first person to understand was. Challie picked up on it first. Well, we enjoyed the well wishes and shared just that these were high risk because of there cords. They offered their prayers and optimism that all would be well. We left it at that.


I have made it a point starting this past weekend to just share we are expecting twins and they are high risk because they could get tangled in the cords etc. I pretty mush leave it as that. I suppose we feel the need to share the risk because the risk is so high. I guess we are trying to convey to people early on that this just might not work. This way if something awful happens and these two don't make it that at least people were aware that it was high risk.


So, maybe we can stop "scaring the sugar" out of people and at least let them enjoy the news that we have twins on the way. It is just so hard to not share at least the one fact about the cords. This whole thing is just so scary....


I guess I'm still struggling. I feel confident that they are healthy at the moment and that they will not develop TTTS which is very very rare. I've now moved on to studying the facts about premature birth and the life long impacts of being an extreme preemie. We need to understand these facts so we can come up with a date we are comfortable with. I'm leaning away from a 24 week admission for 24/7 monitoring and leaning towards a 26-28 week admission. I can share the details of that when my research of medical studies is wrapped up. Then of course it also has to come down to the twins size and health as those weeks approach.


Keep your fingers crossed.