The second trimester was for me the best and worst.
While I was still dealing with pregnancy nausea for part of this trimester, it wasn’t nearly so bad as it had been. My intense fatigue had gone away, and I was able to start functioning like a normal human again! I also finally started to show, and I loved sporting my cute little twin bump. There were so many fun things that I enjoyed during that time; like being able to drink coffee, taste food, and go for long walks. I started to feel my babies kick around 20 weeks, and that was the most blissful thing in the world. I wasn’t uncomfortable yet, and felt beautiful and strong in my pregnancy body.
But we also had two trips to the ER during my second trimester with twins. The first trip was the day before my 14 week ultrasound. I woke up in the morning to extremely heavy vaginal bleeding. Bleeding can be normal during pregnancy, but this was heavier than I was comfortable with. I immediately called my obgyn, who told me to go to the emergency room if the bleeding continued at heavy levels for an hour. It did, so my husband and I rushed to the ER. I was shaking with sadness and fear and dread, sure I was loosing my darling babies. After sitting in the waiting room for five hours (5 hours!) thinking I was loosing my babies, the emergency doctor finally saw us. Both babies were still showing healthy heart beats, but I had developed a large subchorionic hematoma next to the placenta of baby A. The hematoma had hemorrhaged overnight and caused the heavy bleeding. We were told there was nothing further we could do, and that my babies were not in any danger. Our 14 week ultrasound the next day confirmed these results, and we were able to watch our two healthy babies bouncing and kicking around!
While I was assured my babies were not in any danger, the ER experience sent me into a realm of severe pregnancy anxiety. I dealt with nightmares about miscarriages almost every night for the following six weeks, and was plagued by a constant anxiety during the day. Honestly, it was tough to get through.
At 20 weeks, I went in for the long looked forward to anatomy scan! We decided to do a private gender reveal in the evening, just my husband and I. When we found out we were having two boys I was…not shocked, for I’d suspected it all along, but rather sad. Gender disappointment is such a real thing, and it was so hard for me to accept that I wasn’t going to have a little girl! Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely love having twin boys, now. But I was pretty upset at the time. I remember crying, telling Timothy that I didn’t want twin boys. Anything but twin boys.
The next morning, I woke up to more heavy bleeding. I remember thinking that I was being punished for not wanting to have twin boys. I remember realizing on the drive to the ER that I wanted both of my twin boys so, so much. That it didn’t matter that they were boys. They were my babies, and I loved them and wanted them. Maybe that ER trip was put in my path so that I would get over my gender disappointment that much sooner?
Because I was 20 weeks at the time, we were able to go to the L&D emergency room, rather than the general ER. This was so much of a better experience. We were seen right away, and the nurses confirmed that both babies still had strongly beating hearts, I wasn’t in labor, and I was just experiencing a bit of vaginal bleeding that I didn’t need to worry about.
I had one more case of bleeding during the second trimester, but since it wasn’t as heavy as the first two incidents, we didn’t go to the ER. My anxiety continued until around 26, when I entered the third trimester and my babies reached the point of viability!
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