Ultrasounds and Hard Days

I used to get so nervous before my ultrasounds during pregnancy that the nurse would have to take my blood pressure before and after the ultrasounds because it would be so high, and then as soon as I saw the twins wiggle on the ultrasound it would immediately go back to normal. I had ultrasounds almost every visit and I'm so thankful for all that time I got to see Madelyn and Jackson together.

January 31, 2011 I had the "big" ultrasound/anatomy scan. They didn't tell us that it would take twice as long (which we should have figured since they were doing twice the measurements, and Jackson was always squirmy and difficult to measure) and Denton felt his own blood pressure rise because he saw a lot of women come in and out for their ultrasounds in the time that I was back there. I was so excited when they finally brought Denton back to go over everything with us, since I asked that they keep everything to themselves until Denton could be in the room. Everything was fine, of course. We found out then that we were having a healthy boy and girl. I easily count that as one of the happiest moments of my life. Baby A was a girl, and I screamed so loud squeezed Denton's hand so hard that I don't even think that I heard the radiologist when she told me that Baby B was a boy. We shared with our friends on Facebook and the blog that night that we were pregnant with twins (my post is here).

18 weeks, 3 days pregnant and about to leave for the "big" ultrasound

Pregnancy milestones have been very difficult for me. I just do not understand how we could fall from such a happy time to losing our daughter and having the bottom fall out from under us. I can remember every significant date of my pregnancy milestones off the top of my head, and for weeks I kind of anticipate them. I knew this would be a big week, and and this has proven a really rough, emotional day. I have thought a lot about Jackson, that this time last year he was with his sister, and that she's not here now. There are twins that occasionally come to our music class and this week the little girl came without the boy, and her mother kept talking about how much different her daughter was without her son in the class, and I just wonder if a piece of Jackson is different? It just makes me so sad. And yet Jackson is cheerful and sweet as ever. He's just the best.

Madelyn, Baby A, covering her sweet face - so shy!

Jackson, Baby B, and giving us his side profile

I have a CD full of the ultrasound pictures from the Anatomy Scan, and they are the only ones I have on disks, so my new project is to get all of the ultrasound pictures from my other appointments on disks as well. They are the only pictures I have of the twins together, and we have pictures of them from the time they were just little egg sacks up until a few weeks before I gave birth. I look at them a lot more often than I look at pictures from the NICU.

5 weeks

Madelyn on top, Jackson underneath - 8 weeks

This is just the kind of day where I get through the day and hope to feel better tomorrow.

Rereading this post I see it as scattered and all over the place, and this is just an example of how sometimes I just want to write something down and put it out into the world in case that offers me a release. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. The fact that people read this and give me additional support really means a lot. I appreciate you all more than you know.