A dilemna, an understatement

Did I lose two babies or one?

When I had my first ultrasound, I knew something was wrong. Nothing looked right. The tech. took a very long time measuring different white blobs and areas inside of me. Then she had the midwife give us the report: twins, one deceased, one measuring small with a weak, visible heartbeat.

For six days I carried around that thought and the images I saw. I researched vanishing twin syndrome, tried not to think too much of my lost twin, and prayed the remaining baby would somehow thrive.

At Thursday’s determining ultrasound, I had a different tech. Unfortunately. From the moment she began, I was struck how different everything looked, how deteriorated. There was now only one white area—the baby, smaller than before and no heartbeat of course. And there was an internal bleed along the edge of the sac on the right side. It wasn’t there before. The sac seemed flatter. A lot happened during those six days.

The tech said “I don’t see twins.” We told her that it looked very different. Uh-huh, she said.

My dilemna? Should I believe the first ultrasound tech and midwife? Did I lose two babies? Or is the second ultrasound more accurate? I don’t want to go around believing there were two babies if there weren’t…but what if there were, at one point, and I don’t acknowledge it?

So for the last several days not only have I had to cope with losing another pregnancy, but having two extremely different reports on what exactly happened inside me. It has greatly added to my confusion. I didn’t write about it before because I didn’t know what to think of it—the only people we mentioned this to were hubby’s parents. I wanted to get past the physical part of miscarrying before tackling all this emotional garbage.

How many babies do I have in heaven? Does it really matter? Lesson learned for anyone reading this: if you are ever in a similar position (and I pray you never will be) insist on having the same ultrasound technician do your scans.

It really bothers me, not knowing for sure.

We named the baby we lost in February (only hubby and I know). And we have a name for the baby that hung in there until this past week. I had a name in mind for the first twin, too. Should I name it, or not?

I really hate this. This has nothing to do with the misunderstanding/mixup at the hospital. That is a whole different issue. I am sorry I am so vague. I have zero faith in any kind of pathology report, considering they never did any type of testing for our first loss—just a “yep, those are products of conception!” phone-it-in kind of thing.

There just seems to be a lot more salt flowing around this time. I will be fine, once I sort this issue out. Part of me feels it doesn’t matter. Part of me feels terrible if I inadvertently deny my baby’s existance. Part of me feels dishonest if I believe I lost twins if I really didn’t.

Every ounce of me wonders why I couldn’t have been given the gift of a little consistency. For the record, the OBs are aware that two of their techs gave vastly different reports. It is unacceptable to have such glaringly different diagnoses. We are going to follow-up with this situation and emphasize that in cases like ours, there needs to be consistency of care. If the same tech told me a week later she made a mistake, that would be completely different. I could believe it because she would have had a point of reference—her own eyes.

It is unacceptable any way I look at it.