Savannah Rose

This post is a little earlier than I intended, but I have been thinking about it a lot lately.  June 10th  last year was the first time we saw Miller and his twin, Savannah.  I remember going in for my egg transfer and taking the full bladder requirement, perhaps too literally.  By the time I was shuttled into the room where the RE inserted the catheter to bring my babies home, I felt that perhaps I would burst and shoot them across the room.  In recovery I was told to lie flat on my back for 30 minutes, and then the nurse would come get me for the restroom.  I laid there, writhing in pain, thinking I can't pee...I can't ruin this.  But then, I thought that was ridiculous because they were up high enough that certainly that couldn't happen.

After I unloaded my bladder and, of course, looked in the toilet, for I don't know what, we were headed home for four days of best rest.  After 5 days I had some bleeding and assumed the worst.  Two days later I was staring at the Holy Grail, a positive pregnancy test!  The next day I went for beta #1, and it was very good.  Beta #2 was even better, and the question was raised, 'Could they both have stuck?'

I would have to wait nearly a month to find out the answer.  When I went for my ultrasound FINALLY, the nurse was able to zoom in on Miller immediately.  He was the perfect size for just over 7 weeks and had a strong heartbeat, which we watched, heard, and then cried tears of joy!  She then asked if we had put more than one in, to which I replied, "yes, there were two."  She did some looking and quickly found a tiny little baby with a slower heartbeat.  I want to say, and maybe I should look back to my old posts, that Miller's heartbeat was 150-something, and the other baby's was 54.  She didn't say too much about the discrepancy but noted "twins" on my chart.  In meeting with the RE shortly thereafter, we learned that the prognosis for Twin B was not good, but Twin A was doing great.  All I could think was how happy I should be to finally be pregnant, but I was sad.

A week later I met with my OB, and her ultrasound tech was unable to find a heartbeat for Twin B.  I expected it, but I was crushed.  I also knew that I needed to be strong for  our surviving baby and didn't really give myself the opportunity to grieve.  Pierce and I decided, both without hesitation, that we needed to name our lost baby.  We also realized that in naming the baby that we would have to assign gender.  My grandmother's first reaction when we told her about the twins was that the big, healthy one was a boy, and the little helpless one was a girl.  That has stuck in my head to this day.

We always thought we would have a girl.  We thought Miller was a girl until the amnio told us otherwise, so we named his twin Savannah Rose.  We will never know for sure if she was a girl, and IVF procedures by nature tend to produce more boys.  I don't know this for a fact, but I have to assume that IVF with ICSI produces even more boys that traditional IVF.  Regardless, she will always be our lost little girl.  We miss her and love her and are glad she never suffered any pain.  Although her life was short, she will always be remembered in our hearts.  We hope that anyone who reads this, on June 10th, will light a candle and say a little prayer for our little one whose life was cut too short, our sweet Savannah Rose.