Diana and Bella

Diana Stone is a Mother. A really good mother. And she’s pregnant with her second. Only this time it’s twins. She found that out back in February and has been trying to wrap her head around all the excitement (and chaos) two babies would bring ever since. Just last week she found out the twins in her belly were boys. Two beautiful baby boys — Preston and Julian — to terrorize her daughter Bella, and turn she and her husband Sam prematurely gray. At least, she hoped they would, like any Mother hopes that the million billion things that have to work perfectly for a healthy little human to develop would go as planned.

And then on Friday plans changed.

At eighteen weeks and four days into her pregnancy, Diana’s water broke.  She rushed to University Medical Center in El Paso, TX, where she lives. Shortly thereafter, she turned to her online community for support – she’d learned horrible news:

I’m being induced. My water broke and there is nothing they can do. The boys are too small. We aren’t doing well w/ this. My heart is broken

— Diana (@lifeasaSAHM) April 27, 2012

When I saw her updates, my heart broke, too.  Diana.  Losing her beautiful boys.  I couldn’t digest what my friend was about to go through.  But when Diana and Sam decided that induction wasn’t an option they could go through with and they preferred instead to keep Diana monitored and on bed rest and let nature take it’s course — the only thing they could do to give their sons even a slim chance at survival — things actually somehow got worse for them.

Despite the fact that the boys were still thriving in Diana’s uterus, and the fact that as of yet there was no infection or imminent threat to Diana’s health, her doctors at UMC would spent the next several days taunting her, berating her decision, and eventually:

Omg. Shakin I’m so angry. Was woken up by an MD who told me basically I’m an idiot taking up an expensive hospital bed and need to go home.

— Diana (@lifeasaSAHM) April 30, 2012

And then this:

The MD just told DH, “I know how pregnant ladies are. I don’t know who told her those babies will make it.” I WANT TO KILL HIM.

— Diana (@lifeasaSAHM) April 30, 2012

And perhaps most offensive of all to the Hippocratic Oath, this:

I can’t believe they want to send me home like this. Or they can’t fathom why we want to try. And have to continually tell me.

— Diana (@lifeasaSAHM) April 30, 2012

She’s a Mother.  She’s doing the only thing she can to save her babies lives, and she’s being met with the disdain and mockery of the people who might be able to help her carry these boys to term if they could put their bruised egos aside.

Diana is a Christian and is being called “hysterical” by her doctors for wanting Faith to play a role in the fate of her sons. They’re making her decision to fight for her children’s life out to be solely a religious one, and regardless, they somehow feel that gives them to right to dismiss it. They’re trying to squash her spirit when her strength of spirit is all she and her boys have.

I am a Jew. I’m vehemently pro-choice. Neither of those qualifiers have a place in this conversation – and yet, as a pregnant mother wanting to do everything she could for her unborn children, Diana was almost not given a choice.  How many other women have been in her shoes only to trust in the medical advice they are given, and sacrifice their unborn children without a fight?

Diana and Sam now have a patient advocate working with them to ensure that they are given the best medical care available while they continue to fight for Preston and Julian’s lives. But the horror of what they’ve been through these past few days remains.

This should not happen to any patient with any belief system in any situation. I’m sick about the fact that it’s happened to my friend Diana.

Diana has written about the experience (and the unbelievable outpouring of internet support) in her own words HERE.

The brilliant Katherine Stone has also detailed the ordeal HERE.

Jill, Diana, and I on the streets of Nashville.

Update:

Julian and Preston were born this morning. We held them as they met Jesus. Please pray for us.

— Diana (@lifeasaSAHM) May 3, 2012