I'll start with Tuesday November 13th. I went for what I thought was a routine growth ultrasound and office visit. The growth ultrasound went great as far as Matt and I were concerned, the babies looked adorable, both were over 5lbs, and we thought everything was fine. Anna (baby A) was still head down, and Lucy (baby B) had flipped to breach. Matt left the appointment after the ultrasound to go pick up Ellen from nursery school, and I stayed to have my office visit and then hospital non stress test.
During the office visit, my doctor (Dr. Patel) told me that the babies were small, smaller than they would like, and it looked like their growth had slowed. She seemed concerned, and said she was going to talk to the other doctors and see what they thought. Anna in particular looked like her growth had slowed down the most. She said I should go ahead to my hospital non stress test (where they hook heart rate monitors to your belly and wait for the babies to move to make sure their heart rates increase along with their movement, I had been getting them twice a week for a few weeks)
At the hospital another doctor came to talk to me and said she had spoken with Dr. Patel and that the consensus was that the babies should come out tomorrow! (Wednesday the 14th) I immediately burst into tears. It wasn't that I was sad that they were coming, just so shocked. She also said Dr. Patel would be happy to let me attempt to have a vaginal delivery, but since Lucy (baby B) was breach, if she didn't flip, I would need a c-section. So there was a chance I could end up with one vaginal birth and one c-section birth. It was a risk that I decided I was OK with, it was worth it to me to attempt to have both girls vaginally. That is how I had Ellen and it was a good labor with an easy recovery, so it was worth a try! :)
Looking back on it now, I wish that I had asked for a second ultrasound to really confirm that their growth had slowed. I didn't realize just how early 36 weeks really is. I always thought that 36 weeks was fine and once you hit that magic number your babies could live outside perfectly with no help. Turns out I was wrong. 36 week babies, especially early 36 weeks which my babies were, still need A LOT of help once they are born. I was totally not prepared for this. Or maybe they would have let me keep them in an extra week, I don't know. I can't change any of this, I just wish I had questioned their decision more, or at least understood the gravity of it.
Anyway, back to the story! So, the rest of Tuesday was a blur, Matt and I ran errands and thankfully my Aunt was in town to help watch Ellen. I of course slept almost nothing Tuesday night, and Wednesday morning we got up super early to get to the hospital by 7:30.
As soon as we got to the hospital we were admitted to a room, they had plenty of room, in fact I think we were the only people in labor that day! The OB doctor that had been on call the night before came in and checked me around 8, and found that I was still only 1cm dilated and ~70% effaced. (at my doctors visits prior I had only been 1cm 50% effaced, basically there was no change, no surprise there!) He then inserted a cytotec pill to help start contractions and soften my cervix to make dilation easier. And then pretty much nothing happened for a few hours. We were allowed to get up and walk around, so we walked around and around the L&D hallway to try to help coax labor along. Eventually I started feeling really really minor contractions, but at least they were starting! Dr. Patel checked me a few hours in and said she wanted to start me on Pitocin. That meant back to the bed for me. I was hooked up to an IV, fluids, and the baby heart rate monitors. They started petocin and slowly I started to have more contractions. At the beginning I'd have Matt look at the computer screen I was hooked up to to see if I was actually having a contraction. Eventually they turned the petocin up to 5 (highest is 20) and they got a little stronger, but still nothing bad. Nothing as intense as when I was in labor with Ellen.
The worst pain actually, was from the stupid penicillin IV that they had me on in case I was group B strep positive. I had only had my test the day before, so the results weren't in yet. (turns out I was negative so I had to take those stupid antibiotics for nothing, hopefully they helped the babies in some way!) The penicillin burns your arm as it goes in the IV and I swear that burning was worse than any of the contractions!
I vaguely remember Matt reading magazines to me, I think he was reading something really boring from Wired, and something more interesting from Redbook that my mother had bought for me in the gift shop. We also watched a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother on DVDs. (thank you Mom for bringing us entertainment!) With Ellen's birth the labor was so quick once we got to the hospital that we didn't need any of the entertainment stuff that we brought. So, we didn't think to bring anything with us for Anna and Lucy's birth. Being induced has a bit more down time though, so we called my mom to bring us entertainment! It made a big difference! :)
In the early afternoon Dr. Patel came to check me and said that I had made it to 3cm dilated. She decided to break my water and that is when the contractions got much much more intense! Still not as bad as with Ellen, but they definitely hurt and I had to really concentrate and breathe through them. I have these sand stress balls that I made for Ellen's labor that I was using and they really helped. I pictured myself pushing the pain through these sand balls. Sounds silly but I think it made a real difference. Instead of resisting the pain I tried to push through it, I visualized that the pain was helping me to dilate more. I think it actually worked because 10 minutes after she broke my water I was checked again by a nurse (for practice or something) and I was already at 4cm. Dr. Patel strongly encouraged me to get an epidural at this point, since she said things were probably going to go fast and I needed to make sure I had an epidural in case a c-section (for Lucy) was needed.
Before I got the epidural I asked for an internal monitor to be put on Anna's head so I could get out of bed easier. Lying down is the WORST way to get through contractions, its so much better to be standing up. The only problem with this is that monitoring two babies is way harder if you are moving around. Anna was so far dropped that it was really hard to keep a monitor on her. They put an internal monitor on her head that was awesome. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to move around during labor - they were able to read her heart rate easily and she stopped dropping off of the monitors! This was important additionally because with twins there is a higher chance that one of them won't tolerate labor, and an emergency c-section would be needed. So everyone was pretty hyper about checking to make sure they were both doing OK.
Anyway, I got my epidural, and once that was done, my nurse told me to tell her if I felt any pressure (meaning that I needed to push). I looked at her and said, wait, I think I do feel pressure. It had only been maybe 45 minutes since Dr. Patel had broken my water so I could tell she didn't really believe me. But, she checked, and sure enough I was at 10cm and ready to go! :)
Then things got really crazy. I had been able to labor in a regular L&D room, but once I was ready to push, I needed to be transferred into the operating room in case a c-section was needed. (standard procedure for twin deliveries) No one was expecting it to be so fast, so everyone was running around like crazy. My doctor was yelling orders at everyone (she was kind of scary!) and poor Matt wasn't even allowed in the room until they got everything set up. I was rolled onto the operating table since I was pretty much completely numb from the waist down due to the epidural. My legs were propped up in to these stirrup things, I was totally exposed in front of at least 15 people (nurses, doctors, med students, who knows who else was there!) And then, because we needed to wait for there to be TWO OB doctors, and a pediatrician, I just lay there and waited for everyone to arrive. Thankfully with an epidural you don't really feel the immediate need to push, so I was able to just lie there in minimal discomfort and try not to think about all of the people looking at my business!!!
Finally everyone arrived and I was allowed to push. Anna's head popped out during the first push, and then the rest of her during the second push! Talk about an easy delivery! As soon as she was out the doctors put an ultrasound on my belly to figure out where Lucy was and try to flip her. They pushed and pushed at my belly, but that sweet stubborn child would not budge. Instead of going head down, she settled butt down and head up. :) So, it was time for a c-section! Thankfully I was pretty numb from the first epidural, and the anesthesiologist just had to administer some extra medication to make sure that I was 100% numb.
The weird thing about a c-section is that you can feel the pressure and movement of them cutting you open and taking the baby out. You don't feel any pain, but you definitely feel pressure and movement. Its very strange. I made the mistake of looking up at the operating light and realizing that there was a REFLECTION in the light, and I could see past the surgical cloth barrier. AHHH! I looked away immediately. Anyway, Lucy was born minutes later - "butt up" just like she wanted according to Dr. Patel. :)
I got to see Lucy as they were taking her out to the nursery, and then they worked to put me back together for the next 20-30 minutes. I was doing fine, just really really cold and shivering, probably partially because of the hormones, but also because the operating room was FREEZING. They wheeled me into the recovery room and put warm blankets all over me which was nice. Then I started to feel major pain. I was having to breathe through the abdominal pain as my epidural wore off, and it was horrible. Worse than any contraction! I kept asking the nurses to give me more and more pain medicine - they gave me both morphine and demerol, and only then did I start to feel better. Meanwhile Matt came in to check on me and let me know that Anna had been put on oxygen. I didn't realize at the time that this was the start of a week and a half of oxygen and worry for our babies! Lucy soon followed and needed oxygen about 20 minutes later. :/
They continued to be "stable" through the night and didn't thankfully need to be taken to a NICU, but it was a rough first night for both of them. Our pediatrician was awesome and stayed all night with them to make sure they were OK.
After I finally was feeling better after recovery, I told my night nurse that I hadn't even been able to SEE Anna since she was whisked away after her birth and they were so focused on trying to flip Lucy. So, she awesomely decided to wheel my ENTIRE BED into the level 2 intensive care nursery!! I was still on IVs and not able to move of course (this lasted for 24 hours) and the babies couldn't come to me since they were on oxygen. Being able to see them, even though it was scary to see them under oxygen hoods was still wonderful and I will be forever grateful to that nurse!
After Ellen was born, we were so spoiled and got to love her and feed her for about 2 hours before they took her to the nursery to get weighed and bathed. So by the time she was a few hours old she had already nursed at least once. I realized that I wasn't going to be able to do that with Anna and Lucy, so I was determined to pump. I told my nurse that I wasn't going to bed until she got me a pump, and that I was going to wake up every 2 hours to pump that night, just like Ellen did her first night. She looked at me like I was a little crazy, but kindly got me a pump and was very supportive all night by helping me work the pump and taking my milk to the nursery. Unfortunately the girls were having too much trouble breathing to even be allowed to try to eat the expressed milk that I was getting, but we started building a stash in the nursery refrigerator. I was determined that when a doctor started talking about how they needed supplementation, we would have plenty of milk to supplement with and not have to use formula. It turns out that all of that pumping just caused my milk to come in super fast (yay!) so by the time they were able to eat, I was able to start nursing them and no supplementation was needed because my milk was already in.
So that is Anna and Lucy's birth story! I can look back on it now and love that they are here and healthy. I wish I could do it again and wait at least a week to try to give them more time to grow and develop their lungs. The pediatricians assure me that there will be no long-term affects of being born so early and that they will be perfectly healthy and should have no issues breathing later on. I am very thankful for this, but I still wish I could have given them a few more weeks! They are lying here on a pillow next to me snoozing away as I type this, in fact Anna just started fussing and wants to eat so I will sign off now!
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