My Angel's story is still a painful one to tell. I can only go back to the pregnancy to explain how lucky we were to have her for the time that we did. My husband and I had been trying to fall pregnant for over 4 years - 3 of them were with IVF. After an early miscarriage in Jan 2006 (twins) I was almost ready to give up on ever having a baby. My husband supported me through one more try and we fell pregnant. We were so excited! Even more so at 5 weeks being told we were having twins. I thought finally - maybe having twins is the universe's way of balancing out the emotional turmoil of IVF and miscarriage. So I happily had morning sickness (actually all day sickness), called my very patient and understanding obstetrician every week and had scans every fortnight (more for peace of mind after the miscarriage). Every scan seemed normal, one baby a little smaller than the other but as I was told this was normal with twins. We had decided with twins that we wanted to know the sex - more for my shopping benefit! So when the day finally arrived I was so excited, with only a tinge of fear that I always carried with me. The first baby (Later known as Jacintha) was easy to scan as she always sat lower. I actually cried when the radiologist told me I was going to have a daughter. Then he went to look at the other twin. After a couple of seconds of not saying anything, he said there was a problem and he needed to make a call. We were ushered into another room and what seemed like hours he finally came back. He explained that the second twin was too small and there was not enough fluid around her. He had called Monash Hospital for and they agreed to see me in a week for further scans. He explained that there wasn't much hope for my baby. We were devastated, I spent the next week in agony, and I had just started to feel Jacintha kick, but was too scared to really enjoy it. When we had the second scan I was told the same thing. They believed my baby would die within the week. As I was passed a certain stage in the pregnancy, I had no choice but to carry both twins until Jacintha was ready to be born. I didn't understand how to be pregnant with one baby alive and one dead inside me. They then told me to come back next week to confirm the baby had passed away, we named the baby Lee as we still had no idea whether Lee was a boy or girl. When I came back next week, Lee surprised all the doctors by still having a heart beat! They were still very cautious and said not to get my hopes up and to come back again next week. This continued on for a few weeks until slowly Lee started growing - nowhere near to the size of Jacintha, but enough to make me think - as long as you fight I will never give up hope. As long as I can see your heart beat, or feel you kick me, I will believe you will be in my arms one day. So I continued through the pregnancy (with the support of my husband, family & friends) scared but trying not to give up hope. By 31 weeks I was having scans every 3 days to check Lee's growth and to make sure that Lee was still alive. I was warned that I may have to make the decision of choosing Jacintha's life over Lee's. Did I keep the pregnancy going for as long as possible to give Jacintha the best chance or did I have a caesarian to try and help Lee survive? Our only hope was that Lee would keep fighting long enough so that Jacintha wouldn't have to be born too early. By 33 weeks my OB and a pediatrician made the call to deliver the babies. We still had no idea what sex Lee was - even with all those scans! My beautiful Jacintha was born, strong and healthy at 2.3kg, followed closely by Miss Angelique Lee at 860gms. I got to hold Jacintha, and briefly touched Angelique before they were taken away. My pediatrician came up to me and said there was something wrong with Angelique - she was missing a finger. My only thought was at least she's alive.