I'm sure many of you have heard by now that Amy is pregnant four little ones and are wondering how this happened and what's going on.
Amy and I have struggled with infertility issues for quite some time now. Without going into to many details, infertility in women can take a lot of different shapes. For most women, it is an issue of being able to ovulate. If a woman is not able to release an egg, then she can't get pregnant. To help the ovulation process, there are only a few options. 1) A pill that helps the brain send a signal to ovulate. 2) A process of injections of the hormone needed to release the egg. 3) Invetro fertilization, where the sperm and egg are brought together then placed inside the uterus. With all three options, having more then one child is possible, particularly with the second and third. We tried the first option for many months and it didn't work. But the injection process did!
Three months ago, Amy took a home pregnancy test that was positive. We were overjoyed and thankful. The doctor took a blood test to verify she was pregnant and told us that she was. She also told us that the blood test also verified that she was definitely pregnant with more then one, but we wouldn't know how many until we could see the hearts beating at 8 weeks. When we went in at 8 weeks, the doctor told us there were four. It was extremely overwhelming and scary. Multiple birth pregnancies are very high risk, not to mention how difficult it is to take care of four kids at the same time. The doctor also told us that one of the babies was half the size of the others and would probably die in the next couple months. Finally, the doctor also said we should consider a reduction (aborting one or more of the babies) in order to increase the chances of a healthy pregnancy. Needless to say, we left the doctor's office with too much to handle.
By the time we got home, I realized the only option was to pray that the little baby who I nicknamed "little-man" would catch up. We prayed earnestly. A few weeks later, we went to see the doctor again and sure enough, "little-man" caught up! He grew twice his size in just over two weeks. The doctor even said that all four seemed to spread themselves out like they were giving each other room to grow. We went to the doctor's again last week, and the babies are still very healthy, and Amy is super-healthy. She looks incredible. She hasn't been sick and hasn't had any issues.
Now we are past three months, and the only important thing is that our little ones make it past 32 weeks. A normal pregnancy takes about 42 weeks, but a woman can only really carry about 12 pounds of baby weight before they have to come out. This means that our babies will be about 3 pounds each when they are born. They will be at the hospital for 2 weeks to a couple months before we can take them home. That's OK, we understand. But if they can make it past 32 weeks, their lungs will be fully developed and they'll be fine. Please pray for Amy and pray that our little ones stay inside as long as possible, and that they stay healthy. That's all that matters. There could still be a lot of complications in the next few months, but we are faithful. Faithful is all we CAN be. Once they are born, we will practically need someone living with us for the first year. As a result, there will definitely be a volunteer list to sign up for. Until then, thanks for all your calls, love and prayers.
For those of you who would like to keep track of what's going on inside Amy, the following website gives you week by week details of how the babies are forming. She's at week 13 right now.
http://www.childbirthsolutions.com/articles/pregnancy/weeklypregcalendar/index1.php
