Carson & Grayson Moua

Crisco and I cherish our family and decided we wanted to grow ours. We did a frozen single embryo transfer in February 2023 and that one had failed. We tried again and had another frozen single embryo transfer on March 28th 2023 and that one was successful.

Upon the second ultrasound following the transfer, we noticed there were two sacs! They were going to be identical twins!

We did a blood test to confirm gender and they were going to be boys!

We had a scare on June 17th 2023. I had a random heavy bleed and went to the ER. I was so scared that I was going to lose the boys then. They did an ultrasound and had confirmed the boys were fine. The bleeding had stopped after that heavy gush of bleeding.

On August 14th 2023, I was starting a new job and was at the orientation from 9am-3pm. It was running a little late, but close to 3pm I started to feel uncomfortable. I felt some light cramping on and off. I had no warning of what was to come. I texted my Crisco and let him know I wasn’t feeling right. I got home around 4pm. The “cramping” were coming on more frequent and painful. We got to the hospital around 4:30pm. They did a urine analysis and STD check. I forgot why but they went to do another check and couldn’t see my cervix so then they called the on call OB. She didn’t get there until around 6-6:30pm. She checked me and said I was in preterm labor and was 10cm dilated. When she told me that, I immediately was in denial and starting crying “no” over and over again. I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. That I was going to lose them. We had worked so hard to get them.

She had told me my options were to transfer to Oregon side and deliver there at the Children’s Hospital or I can deliver on Washington side and have the twins stabilized and then life flighted to Oregon. The contractions were so frequent and painful I felt like I didn’t have time to transfer to Oregon by ambulance and this was around 7:45pm. They called the Oregon Neonatologist to come talk to us about all the risks. And he didn’t get there until 8:30pm ish. When I was getting ready to push them out around 10pm, the Portland provider came and told me that it had been miscommunicated and they were actually not able to stabilize them there.

When our first son Carson came out, he made a little cry. It was so little and precious, yet so heartbreaking. We had our second son Grayson 20 minutes later. Carson passed away about 4 hours later and Grayson passed away at 5am. We were devastated and hurting so much, all we could do was cry. We weren’t able to comprehend that it was really happening to us or why.

They were laid to rest at a beautiful place at Evergreen Memorial Gardens on August 25th 2023. They are in front of a water fountain because their mom and brother love water.

We hope to one day find light in this dark time we are in.

Elisabeth