2 Perinatal Attachment and Loss 53Option 3, end the pregnancy completely. This seemed, in some crazy way,
the fairest of all of the options. I remember waking up one morning and just
not getting out of bed. Rey went to work and I just did not. I stayed in bed
and just felt like I did not know how to move on. Eventually Rey called and
realized I was still in bed. He came home from work and we had a long con-
versation about our “options.” Rey was very clear that he wanted to reduce
to twins. He felt like it would be awful to not give at least two of them
a chance at living. I understood that, and logically I agreed. Emotionally,
my mind still screamed that this was not fair to the other five. There were
times that I thought I should just try to have all of them but the fear was
overwhelming and Rey was completely opposed to that idea. I really felt
that unless I made the decision to reduce to twins and give this pregnancy
the best shot, my marriage would suffer. I was not sure how we would ever
get past losing all of them if I chose to end the pregnancy or how we live
with seven children with disabilities, even if I survived. None of the options
seemed good to me. The reality we faced was unfair, scary, life altering, and
sad. At the end of that day in bed, I had made my decision to move through
the process of reduction and hope to get through to the other side with two
healthy babies and an intact marriage.
At that point we started the process of scheduling the selective reduction
procedures. When I first made the call to the doctors’ office, I spoke with a
genetic counselor. She was very understanding and sympathetic. There was
much more to this process than I had imagined. The first step was conducting
a chorionic villi sampling (CVS) to determine which babies had no genetic
abnormalities and were placed well in the uterus; they would be saved.
During this phone call, I was also told that the CVS would be conducted at
13 weeks and the reduction at 14.5 weeks. I was extremely upset when I real-
ized I would have to wait until the second trimester to have any of this done.
Once I had fully made the decision to reduce, I wanted the procedure to be
done as quickly as possible. Why let them grow when we knew we would
be reducing them? It was explained to me that there was a specific time win-
dow in which they do these procedures for the health of the remaining babies.
I accepted that because I had no other choice, but it was very difficult to know
that I would be carrying these babies for weeks with no intention of giving
birth to them. During that time I hoped that some would naturally reduce.
Rey and I continued to go to our weekly ultrasound appointments and at week
8, we learned that the set of identical twins stopped developing. Relief was my
initial feeling. I also remember feeling sad for their loss, but at the time it was
overcome by the feeling of relief that this had naturally happened. It wasn’t
until later that I would feel the true loss of those babies.
Somehow, week 13 finally came and it was time to go in for the CVS.
I had some idea of what the procedure entailed but I really was not concerned
for my own discomfort. As I walked into the hospital I remember thinking
I just needed to do what the doctor told me and that this time would pass.
I tried to tell myself I was doing all of this to have the healthiest outcome for
this pregnancy. I am not sure I ever bought that logic completely, but I did not
really have any other choices. At this appointment, they told us which babies
they were planning to save. I started to feel a connection to those babies and
relief for them. This was tempered with feelings of sadness and guilt for the