Inconceivable: Somewhere over the rainbow

Sorry for being so quiet the past few weeks. It has been quite an adventure. I'll start at the beginning.

Following my second Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET), I promised myself that I wasn't going to take an early pregnancy test. I would wait until my blood test with the doctor two weeks later.

Then, six days after FET, something weird happened. I was sitting at my desk and my uterus starting bouncing - like little flutters. It reminded me of when I was pregnant with my son and he'd get the hiccups. I did some research online and discovered that it could be the embryo burrowing into the uterus and implanting itself further. The fluttering continued for seven hours.

It was a good sign, but I was not going to test. Nope. I was going to hang on - until at least a couple days before the blood test.

Eight days after FET, I couldn't sleep. I wanted to take a pregnancy test so badly. I just knew I was pregnant.

To take the test - or not

When there is a pregnancy test in the house, I can almost hear it calling my name. "Kathy, don't you want to pee on this stick. You might be pregnant!" We had one test left from our last FET. I had asked my husband to hide it from me. He did a great job of hiding it in plain sight on his desk in his home office.

So I snuck downstairs around 7 a.m. and grabbed the test. I decided that I would take it and no one had to know about it. If the results were negative, I'd just get rid of the evidence, cry a bit and hope it was too early to tell. And if it was positive ... well I'd still cry but they would at least be happy tears.

I took the test and within 10 seconds two lines showed up. I stood in the bathroom crying. I can still remember that feeling of shock, joy and fear washing over me. I woke up my husband the same way I had many times before - in tears holding a pregnancy test. Only this time, it was happy tears.

My happiness soon was overtaken by fear. What if this pregnancy is like the last two and I miscarry? What if something is wrong? We didn't do PGS testing on the embryos, there could be a chromosomal abnormality? What if my HCG levels aren't doubling?

That week we got two blood tests at my fertility doctor's office. Results showed that my HCG levels were doubling! I started to breathe, but only a little. Things won't be real until we get that first ultrasound. I need to see that the baby is OK. Plus, since we transferred two embryos, there was still a chance that there were twins in there!

I had so much dread going into that ultrasound. With our last pregnancy, we found out at our first pre-natal ultrasound that the pregnancy wasn't viable. We never got a heartbeat or a fetal pole. All we saw was what looked like a busted balloon - not a baby. That moment was so traumatic. And I carried that trauma into this ultrasound.

I was so nervous that I got to the ultrasound appointment 40 minutes early. My husband met me there, and we just sat, hoping things would be OK.

All kinds of emotions

Nothing prepared me for the wave of emotion I would experience. The doctor pointed out that one embryo had implanted. Then she pointed out a second sac. Both of our embryos implanted! She did measurements, and they were on track with normal sized yolk sacs (something we were concerned about since the last miscarriage had a large yolk sac). She pointed out the flickering on the screen as their heartbeats. Then, we got to hear both of the heartbeats! One had 118 bpm and the other 130 bpm.

I just started crying on the table. My doctor asked if we were prepared for twins. I told her that these were happy tears because we just want happy healthy babies - doesn't matter how many!

After the ultrasound, we were officially released from that office and to a regular OBGYN. I had finally gotten my rainbow baby, and this time it was going to be two. Double rainbow. It was like we were getting back to the two babies we had lost before.

After a year of appointments at Atlantic Reproductive, I was done. Dr. Copland had given us so much. The entire office staff had. They cried with us, hoped with us and now they celebrated with us.

The next steps

When we went to our first OBGYN scan, just a day shy of 9 weeks, we were hit with some bad news. One baby had stopped developing at 7 weeks and 6 days. The heartbeat wasn't there anymore. It was dead. I could see it sitting in its little sac, not moving.

The other baby, however, had a strong heartbeat (171 bpm) that we could see flickering on the monitor. The doctor said that this one was strong and measured right on track for nearly 9 weeks.

I went into a state of shock during the ultrasound. I immediately went into "reporter mode" asking questions, gathering information and remaining emotionally detached. I had to shut it off in order to survive the appointment. When the doctor left the room, I started to break down. The tears started to flow. My husband and I just looked at each other in disillusionment. He was focused on the child that was still there, and I was experiencing PTSD from our two previous losses.

We asked the doctor about our miscarriage chances with this remaining baby. He said that it was "robust" and that after hearing two strong heartbeats our chances had dropped from 15 percent prior to that day to 2 percent.

No matter how much he assured us that this baby was OK, all I could think of was the dead baby still inside me that I would be "absorbing" at some point. How could this baby be OK when that one just stopped growing?

Nothing felt safe anymore. Everything felt fragile, like it could just go away. Every cramp I had signaled the end to me. I didn't know how I was going to get through the next few days much less the rest of this pregnancy, fearing it would end any second. Every bathroom visit meant analyzing my toilet paper for signs of spotting or blood.

I struggled to find a foothold in a sea of emotions that conflicted. Grief, relief, joy, sadness, fear, anxiety, pain, loss, love - how could I feel so much at one time?

I'd have to find a way to get through it, if not for me, for the baby still growing inside me.

Finally breathing again

At 11 weeks, we went to see our OBGYN again. He knew we were anxious after the loss of the twin, so he offered to let us come back after only a couple weeks.

We were so nervous, but when we saw the ultrasound it was like a wave of joy. The baby was moving and dancing. With a heartbeat around 163 bpm, this kid was strong and measuring perfectly for 11 weeks.

The former twin had been absorbed by my body and all that remained were the remnants of the gestational sac. While it was hard to see that, knowing that this baby was fine was comfort.

We left that appointment feeling like a weight had been lifted. We had been holding our breath for so long and now we were finally exhaling. We went home and took an announcement photo with our son. We shared our happy news the next day.

While I'm finally starting to feel secure in this pregnancy, it is still hard sometimes not to be scared of another loss. For those who have lost, how did you cope when you were pregnant again?

Kathy is a mom of one and Out & About editor for WRAL.com. She writes for Go Ask Mom about her experience with secondary infertility.