Imagine finding out your are pregnant 2 months before your big wedding that you've been planning for a year and a half.

Imagine getting one of the doctors you work with to do an ultrasound before your first OB visits so you can know how far along you are.

Imagine lying there while he does it and looking over to see two sacs with two heartbeats

Imagine your husband to be asking you, Whose ultrasound pictures are these really?? when you show him the evidence of twins.

Imagine going to Disney World on your honeymoon and not being able to ride anything because you want to be careful.

Imagine going in at 23 weeks for an ultrasound to find out your dream has come true...you're having a boy and a girl

Imagine looking over at your husband during this ultrasound and he has tears in his eyes because now you have the perfect family.

Imagine two days later waking up with what you think are the most god-awful gas pains, going to the bathroom only to have blood gush out of you.

Imagine trying to get dressed to go to the hospital while sobbing so uncontrollably that your husband has to hold you up.

Imagine the five-minute drive to the hospital that seemed like 5 hours.

Imagine getting there and your OB telling you you are fully dilated and completely effaced and that delivery is imminent.

Imagine the pediatrician on call coming to tell you that he will do whatever he can, but that chances of survival are less than 1.

Imagine being transferred to a level 3 by ambulance only to look back and see your OB with tears in his eyes and hear him tell the nurse he isn't going along because your babies won't survive.

Imagine 12 hours later giving birth to the most beautiful boy and girl and having them die in your arms an hour later.

Imagine seeing your husband sob like nothing in the world will ever be right again.

Imagine going to the funeral home and being shown the smallest coffin you've ever seen.

Imagine going the next day to dress your first-born children and finding that the preemie clothes you bought to bury them in are 7 sizes too big.

Imagine having to settle for dressing them in robes and knitted caps the hospital volunteers donated.

Imagine following your babies' casket out to the hearse to the strains of Braham's Lullaby and your husband having to practically be carried out to the car.

Imagine having the funeral director to open the casket one last time at the gravesite so that you kiss your babies goodbye.

Imagine going out to the cemetery in a pouring rain because you can't stand the thought of your babies being out in the rain.

Imagine your mother going to the cemetery in a thunderstorm because her baby called sobbing uncontrollably worried about her babies.

Imagine 2 months later finding out you are expecting again and being absolutely terrified.

Imagine starting with premature labor at 23 weeks and feeling like it was starting all over again.

Imagine having to take a drug that makes your heart race so fast you feel like it will explode, just to buy your baby some time.

Imagine going in at 30 weeks and the doctor not being able to stop the labor this time and sending you back to the same level 3 hospital.

Imagine spending 4 days on mag sulfate and heavy sedating drugs and not knowing where you were.

Imagine the perinatologist coming in and telling you you have an infection and he is going to start inducing you at 31 weeks.

Imagine having the same resident who helped deliver your twins beg to come deliver this baby because you and your loss had such an impact on him.

Imagine hearing your baby scream after the NNP told you he wouldn't be able to breathe on his own.

Imagine the nurse saying he weighed 4lbs 9oz when you were told to expect a 2 pounder.

Imagine not being able to visit your son more than 15 minutes the first day he is alive because the baby next to him is crashing.

Imagine finding out the baby next to him is a family friend. Imagine taking your miracle home without any complications after 17 days of oxygen (2 days on vent, 3 days on CPAP, the rest on cannula).

Imagine having him smile at you when you talk to him.

Imagine hearing him laugh for the first time.

Imagine telling him about his angel brother and sister and have him smile knowingly in his sleep.

Christie McCombs
Mommy to Jonathan Matthew and Hannah Lynn, b/d 3-12-99 at 23 weeks, incompetent cervix
and Avrey Tyler b 12-2-99 at 31 weeks