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| Couldn't resist this picture. I am holding my grandson Leo about an hour after he was born. December 23, 2015 |
So I ended with the visit to my naturopath in the last part...
The words of my naturopath that January day left me stunned. I am still in a stun. As she was dealing with me, she dealt with a boatload of spiritual dynamics that I only half way
remember, but one thing I do clearly remember are the steps she
suggested and I followed. The chaplet she suggested I do daily for at least the next 4 weeks at least (I ended doing it for 6 weeks then switched over
to 2 different novenas). Also I needed to spend time in church
dealing with things I had held on to that needed to be let go of and
cleansed out. Finally I needed holy water to protect the two babies
that were still there from any darkness-- especially the darkness
trying to convince me they weren't there.
I stopped to get gas after leaving her office, but instead pulled into a parking lot and cried. In the office we had
talked about what Jo had believed... Joseph is my brother who died
when my biological mother was pregnant with both of us. We were
twins and he passed when my bio mother was about 16 weeks pregnant
with both of us. All my life I've had visions of heaven and my
brother... It doesn't make sense to most people, but it is a fact of
life for me. When we do NET I will go back to emotions or beliefs
that come from my brother. This time we talked about Jo. My brother
is never referred to as Jo, but as Joseph. But we talked about Jo
being afraid of being forgotten. As I cried I had a vision of a
little girl holding hands with my brother and grandmother (I lost my
grandmother when I was 13). These are the two people that really
define my life. I cried because I knew this was the child I had lost.
And suddenly I knew that the 'Jo' who was afraid of being forgotten
was my little daughter. I suddenly had another glimpse of her
praying for the protection that God had put around my womb, and being
there with her two siblings-- fighting for them, and somehow understood
what had been happening for the last several months. In that moment
I knew her name-- Jo-- Josephine Dorothy-- after my grandmother and
brother who seemed to be guiding her actions and helping her know
what to do, and the two people I love so dearly, but no longer can
touch. For a long while I cried. “Oh Jo, I will never never forget
you... Just like I will never forget my brother. You gave your life
to protect them, just like Joseph did so I could live...” It hit
me so hard and for days afterward. Everything I had experienced made
sense. My body kept anything that might harm away. Everything
inside of me was protecting these two little spiritual beings. My
two little miracles that God kept referring to, telling me to
“Believe His miracle.” Right then the thought of not believing
would have seemed more like forgetting Jo than anything. How could I
not believe? I wanted all three of them, but Jo was already beyond
where I could hold her. I would be damned if I let anything
happen to the two that were still there!
So Meg had researched a
healthy diet for twin pregnancy and had printed a daily check-off
sheet so that I could be sure I was eating right for their growth. I
began on that. I was taking iron here and there, but I was having
extreme exhaustion. So she convinced me to take iron daily. As I
did, I began feeling so much better. Each time there was a problem
we tweaked something, and it was amazing the difference it made along
with daily prayer, and faith that God had this in his hands.
The next Monday I had an
appointment with my chiropractor and again she did a doppler, and
again she got two heartbeats. This time she told me. “That was two
distinct heartbeats in two different locations, and last time the
same thing happened.” She didn't say it until I did...
“Twins?” I asked, and
she nodded quietly. I don't think she wanted to diagnose, but at the
same time I had realized as I watched her getting the heartbeats
there were two. It just confirmed what I had heard over a year plus
ago from the prophecy and what my nautropath had said when I was
there, and also the kicking pattern I was feeling, and the visions I
had had once I found out about Jo. Also made sense why the diet was
working to make me feel really good.
My chiropractor had a friend
who was a sonographer. She had agreed to do a ultrasound if I was
interested. I agreed. We scheduled the ultrasound on Monday when I
was almost 22 weeks. I was excited and scared. I really wasn't
sure how it would go. The more I found out the more that I doubted
an ultrasound would be able to see a pregnancy in me.
I do not have a large
intestine and so my uterus does not stay in the normal place. I,
because of surgery 8 and half years ago (48 stitches right down my
middle front from about 2 inches above my belly button to close to my
pubic bone.), have massive scar tissue. I am a big girl. I am 5
foot 10 or 11 inches and when they did surgery they had to cut
through a 7 inch layer over my organs. Then I was about the same
size I was before this pregnancy. I had at one point been 60 pounds
heavier, but my change in diet and everything had changed that. So
with that seven inch layer still there more than likely and also the
scar tissue and the fact that when I laid back so did my uterus, the
likelihood of seeing anything wasn't good, and after doing an immense
amount of research and talking to people that knew a lot more about
this than I do I knew it probably wasn't going to go well. I was
hopeful though. So we went in for the ultrasound.
My kidneys looked great. My
ovaries and spleen looked great. She checked all my organs. They
were perfect. She found my uterus... At least part of it. The top
didn't show. But she found the bottom and measured it at 10 cm. She
didn't see anything else as far as babies. Disappointment was
immense. Everyone left the room except Megan. I asked Megan to have
her come back while I was sitting up and try some of the places I was
feeling movement. She was very thorough, and she saw my small
intestines and how they were very high up. She found a small hernia
right below my stoma. She could not ultrasound the area where the
scar tissue was. She told me there was no way with ultrasound she
would be able to see anything, but that was where I was feeling
movement. She tried, and found what she said was my transverse colon
with air in it. I spoke up. “I don't have a transverse colon.”
She stopped and looked at me for a moment. “Then I don't know...
It looks like air in... So they took all your colon?”
“Yes, I don't even have a
rectum.”
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| This is a transverse colon with air in it that I googled. What did the sonographer see? |
“Oh.” She looked at a
few more things, then went back to the 'transverse colon with air in
it' and stopped there.
“I don't know what to tell
you... You are a puzzle.” For days I thought about that
ultrasound. There were no fibroids, no tumors, no problems. My
organs were in good shape. But she found a transverse colon that I
do not have, and a uterus that was enlarged but with uterine walls
that were smooth. And she had disproved that I was in menopause by
looking at my ovaries and finding they were normal. In menopause the
ovaries shrink up to nothing or close to that. She was impressed by
my ovaries and how perfect they were. But she could not prove I was
pregnant, and in the end, did not prove that I wasn't either. The
thoughts I was left with was the enlarged uterus and the phantom
transverse colon. For weeks that puzzled me.
A week later I was feeling
movement and had Meg put her hand on my stomach and she felt it too,
right where my scar tissue was. A couple weeks after that I went to
my masseuse and while she was doing a massage, she also felt
movement.
Around this time I had a new
symptom I could not make happen... My stoma had been changing shape,
which I had read about happening in pregnancy, but in some
pregnancies the stoma has so much pressure that more of the small
intestine poked through. As I was changing my appliance that covered
my stoma I noticed a small tear in the skin and a little bit of
intestine poking out near my stoma. This had never happened to me in
the 8 ½ years that I had a stoma even as I gained weight and then
lost it. But at this point as my stomach expanded my stoma was under
pressure. I talked to an ostomy nurse who referred me to talk to a
physicians assistant who basically told me that as long as it was not
causing me trouble, it was quite normal in the later half of
pregnancy. Except for figuring out appliance stuff, it wasn't too
much of a worry unless it was causing me trouble. It hadn't caused
too much problem, except for having to change my appliance sooner
than I was used to. So I decided not to pursue it any further.
Honestly, by that point I was pretty much feeling done with most of
the medical system.
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| This is me not pregnant. |
At 25 weeks I went into my
masseuse again, and she had bought a doppler fetal monitor, and she
took a heartbeat. It was in the 130s. As she was doing it, my
stomach was moving and once more she was amazed by movement. My
stomach was very stretched. I really didn't feel the movement, but
she did.
The next week I saw my
naturopath again, and she just stared at how much my body changed.
She has seen me for 5 ½ years, and worked with me at my highest
weight. This day she just stared at me and my very rounded stomach.
“I have never seen you
like this!” I laughed and shrugged at her comment. She has never
seen me pregnant. I looked very similar to how I looked when I was
pregnant with Hope.
“Are you at your highest
weight?” I wasn't and still am not. In fact, I am about ten
pounds from that weight, and my legs and arms are losing weight while
my middle keeps looking more and more like a butterball. She
continued not to know what to think as she NET'd two little people
inside of me and their fear of not surviving. She dealt with some
bacteria issues and helped me figure out what to do to heal that
without it impacting my twins.
I saw her again in April and
she laughed at how the impossible sure seems possible with me. From
doing NET again all seemed fine.
Right now, my body is doing
great. We check my blood pressure and doppler the heart rate of the
babies weekly. We also do urine checks for protein and about ten
other things. My liver started having a little extra throw off of
bilirubin so I added some Milk Thistle and a homeopathic and that
seemed to clear it up for the most part. I am on a very detailed
diet to keep me and the babies healthy. As long as I follow it I
feel pretty good. Each day I get exercise, but walking is a little
slower because I get short of breath pretty easy. Heartburn is my
new friend lately, so little meals almost constantly are the order of
the day. Each time I go to my chiropractor I weigh myself. Even
though this diet has me consuming between 3 & 4 thousand
calories a day my weight has been steady these last weeks. Before
September if I had consumed ¼ of what I eat now I would have been a
hell of a lot bigger than I am now in all my body parts! Instead my
belly is expanding but the rest of me is not. Before this I pretty
much did not eat grains. I stuck to a careful vegetarian diet and if
I veered even to eating a small amount of rice I swelled up horribly.
Now I have between 4-6 servings of some kind of bread/grain a day,
and if I do not eat everything I have issues with low blood sugar.
My protein is beyond belief! And I still eat a ton of veggies, but
now have to make sure I eat 3-4 servings of fruit-- Do not like fruit
for the most part. I would eat strawberries and that was about it.
Now I even drink orange juice and eat mangoes sometimes. Meg has me
eating a banana a day to keep away the leg cramps I started having a
month or so ago. As much as I hate bananas I do it because it has
worked. When I forget I get the leg cramps back along with restless
leg type stuff. Also if I forget my iron I am fatigued beyond
belief. So I stick with it, and it has been good.
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| Made an error earlier. This was me at 21 weeks at the end of January. |
The reality is that no
doctor will see me. No midwife will take me. So Meg and I are
working on our game plan. Officially I am not pregnant, but my
massage person, Megan, my chiropractor, my naturopath, and my family
all firmly believe I am pregnant with twins. My expanding belly
points to that, the movement points to that, my ever shortening belly
button points to that, the weekly sets of doppler heartbeats taken by
three different practitioners point to that. So I am going with it.
My belly sure has never moved this much on its own without a baby
being involved! And all the symptoms are really weird even if this
was a phantom pregnancy... Besides do you get heart beats with a
phantom pregnancy? That would be strange-- down right spooky.
I have three more weeks
today. My goal is to go for at least 10 more days because I want my
kiddos to have the best chance possible. I think they probably had a
pretty hard start, but I am trying to make up for that, so I am
working hard to do the best I can, but this has been a prayer and
research thing, because I do not have a medical team. I have said
that God is my physician and Meg is his assistant.
How will birth go? I don't
know.
Where will it happen? That
is a good question. At this point we are planning on birthing at
home. If something doesn't go right we will go to the emergency
room. But going there without a doctor is a little frightening. So
I have a birth plan for that. I am hopeful that nothing will go
wrong. That is in God's hands though. Meg in a few days is taking a class
about emergency birth situation in a home birth setting. This is one of the many ways we have been
preparing. My last birth class is this Sunday. Each day I take time to relax and pray. And of course there is the physical preparing (nesting) and oh boy has there been preparation there!
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| This is me at 29 weeks. |
Some have warned me that I
need to protect my family because CPS will accuse me of neglect
because of not having prenatal care. But how can I do that when a
doctor won't even see me? And I am working to make sure I am caring
for these two and me too. I am doing everything possible in the
circumstances I am in. How can that be construed as neglect? I have
chiropractic care. I have a massage person that is keeping all my
muscles in good order. I am taking birth classes. Daily I am
overcautious of my diet and exercise. We are keeping close tabs on
my blood pressure (which has been normal except when I got
bronchitis). I watch carefully for any swelling that would say there
is a problem. We are doing weekly dopplers ourselves to keep
tabs on how things are going for the twins. I don't always feel the
movements because my belly is very stretched, but sometimes I can
watch them even if I can't feel them, and I still do feel the smaller
movements several times a day. So we will see if anything can be
said against me. I am just walking this one day at a time and
praying my way through.
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| This is me today at 37 weeks. Not my best I admit, but with feeling so much lower pressure this was the best I could do today. |
I will tell you, though,
with the lack of doctor intervention this last several weeks has been
peaceful-- More peaceful than any other pregnancy. So there is something. I've talked with two nurses in the last couple weeks. Both
told me if I had been with a doctor they would have insisted at
inducing me a 36 weeks because of my age and twins. So maybe going
about things as we have had to is a good thing. I know even now my
babies are not quite ready to come. Now I'm counting down days
instead of weeks though! With my diet I feel better than I ever have
before while I have been pregnant. Since I have never had a problem
giving birth naturally I am not really scared even if this happens at
home. I have a history of fast births, so that could be what
happens, but we will see. I am really looking forward to holding my
twins. That is my biggest thought... Twins. This is what I look
forward to, just holding my two miracles.
After their birth I will post about their coming and more pictures. For right now I am trying to get ready for them! For right now this is Cat out hoping for another 10 days, but realizing that is in God's hands too.
