Renée lost her 21-week-old twins on vacation: ‘The toughest thing I’ve ever experienced’

Renee (32): “I was just thirty when I became pregnant with identical twins. What a surprise! I already had two sons with my boyfriend and the twins were an extra gift. I soon found out that this pregnancy was much heavier than the boys’.

After I kept almost nothing down from the seventh week, we found out at almost 16 weeks that the babies, two girls, had twin transfusion syndrome (TTS). The blood circulation in the uterus is not in balance. One baby gives everything away (the donor) and the other gets way too much (the recipient). In our case, ‘the donor’ soon became stuck, meaning she was almost out of amniotic fluid. A necessary laser surgery in which all their joint blood vessels were lasered shut was their only chance of survival together (read: 64%).

unexpected

Terrified, I endured everything resignedly. Fortunately, both girls survived the operation. Everything seemed to be going well. So good, in fact, that a few weeks later one of our doctors said we could still go on holiday abroad. We were finally allowed to sit on that pink cloud and enjoy the fact that we would become parents again. And so we booked a week in Spain.

But on June 28, 2018, the day before we were to leave by plane, our daughter Joëlle passed away unexpectedly at twenty weeks of pregnancy. Live during the ultrasound. Apparently part of her membrane had come loose and twisted tightly around her umbilical cord; because of this, all her organs slowly fell out and she was as it were suffocated. I couldn’t believe it, it was so surreal. My child had died without my realizing it. She was still in my belly, but she was dead.

Meanwhile, our doctor had started talking about the other baby; everything was fine with her. Unfortunately, Joëlle’s death was a later complication of the laser surgery. A chance of less than 1%. Everything passed me by. Because they were identical twins, Joëlle could not be born yet. They got together, but not until the live baby was ready. Until then, it couldn’t hurt that Joëlle would stay in my belly.

The expectation was that her sister would soon catch up with her in terms of growth and that Joëlle would be born later with the placenta. And as crazy as it sounded, according to our doctor, our vacation could continue. There was no medical reason not to go because the other baby was doing really well.

Holidays

So there we went, that same night. Off to a campsite in Spain and completely in mourning. We tried to make something out of it for the boys. I really wanted to see and hold Joëlle, but I couldn’t. We couldn’t do anything.

In retrospect, it was of course crazy that we had gone on holiday. When I lost a lot of fluid on day three, I was afraid it was amniotic fluid. After a test at a local hospital, it turned out not to be the case. Because there was also mucus in it, the Spanish doctors assumed it was a fungal infection.

Stiff with fear, I called my gynecologist in the Netherlands the next morning for a consultation. I wanted to go home straight away, to my own hospital so that I could be admitted. But my doctor didn’t think that was necessary. Everything still sounded the same, so why didn’t I finish my vacation first and then go back to it? Hesitantly, I agreed. If both the doctors in Spain and my doctor in the Netherlands said it was still going well, who was I to say otherwise?

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childbirth

Unfortunately, my hunch turned out to be correct. When I woke up on Wednesday, July 4, 2018 with a bit of a stomachache, I convinced myself that it was intestinal cramps. Even when the pain persisted. While my friend was entertaining the kids, I lay in bed with mild waves of pain all day. Meanwhile, the voices of fear in my head were working overtime. What if it was contractions? That’s how the pain clearly felt.

Exhausted, I tried to go to the toilet around eight o’clock in the evening, my friend had just gone to the playground with the boys at that time. Maybe that relieved it. It did feel good when it worked, but suddenly I saw something that I was staring at in shock. It was a long, thin bone sticking out of me. In a panic, I quickly pulled up my underpants, but there was no stopping it. The moment I took a step forward, I felt something completely come out of me. It slipped my mind and I couldn’t hold it back anymore. In a panic I looked into my underpants and there she lay, half curled up: my baby still moving slightly. It was such an indescribable, raw feeling. I had just given birth at 21 weeks, all alone in a dead quiet, sweltering caravan.

In a panic, I called my friend. When he still didn’t answer after three tries, I called 112. I remember thinking for a moment: is this bad enough to call 112? Bizarre how numb you can be at such a moment.

Loss

After about twenty minutes, the ambulance finally arrived. My boyfriend and sons had already returned. Crying and with the baby still in my underwear, I told my friend what had happened. He collapsed completely. He gave himself twenty seconds, then he picked himself up and immediately started to arrange everything. As I called 911, he told the boys to stay outside and rushed to the front desk to say the ambulance was coming. It was one big drama. In front of my crying boys I was wheeled into an ambulance on a stretcher.

An hour later, I gave birth again on my own in a Spanish delivery room. My friend had to stay in the hallway with the boys. It turned out that the first baby had been the living baby in my womb; she lay slightly lower than Joelle. We called her Féliz. When I got to the hospital, she had already stopped moving. That was the worst thing for me, that I had let her die in my lap. Like Joëlle, I couldn’t comfort her or tell her how much I loved her.

Both girls were beautiful. Everything was on and on. I held them for about half an hour and then I had to hand them over. I left the hospital like a zombie the next morning. Losing them was terrible. But the fact that I had to leave them behind was terrible. Finally, after nine long days, they were repatriated to the Netherlands and we cremated them. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about them. Losing them was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through, but they’re in my heart. And they will never leave there.”

This article appears in Kek Mama 08-2021.

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