[Celry]

This took me over a week to write. I didn't want to type it one handed and I rarely have two hands free. It's a little jumbled because of the multiple writing sessions. I'm posting it now anyway or I doubt I'll ever get it done. We both believe our girls are truly little miracles and there is no way I can express through this how amazing their birth was. We say they were destined to be here as we ttc for 21 months. They were conceived on my birthday without MA, except for accupuncture. Their due date was my sister's birthday and they were born on my grandmother's birthday. What are the chances of that?

After being in terbutaline for almost 12 weeks, I was allowed to go off of it on Tuesday, August 11th. I woke up that morning at 5:00 am to use the bathroom and took the pump off right away. I had received a dose at 4:00 am so wasn’t getting contractions right away. By 8:00 am, my next scheduled dose time, I was starting to get more Braxton hicks than I usually had in the morning. By a few hours later, my BH’s were coming every 2 to 5 minutes. They didn’t hurt like contractions but they were obnoxious and were enough to keep me up that night. DH and I had been going for slow walks at night for a while. No more slow walks for me. I was determined to walk my normal speed, which is super fast. My slow pregnancy walk was still faster than a lot of people’s regular speed. We’d be out in public and I would get annoyed at how slow people were. Anyway, we went for a long walk and talked to a bunch of our neighbors. I didn’t sleep well that night because of the BH and my bowel was starting to clear itself out.

I woke up on Wednesday morning and could tell the girls had dropped. I didn’t take a picture and wish I had. I had a super busy day with work and was exhausted after. My BH were about every 2 to 4 minutes this day, closer to 3 and lasting about 90 seconds each. I was using an online timer since I was stuck to my computer for work. I didn’t feel sick, but I definitely felt off all day. I didn’t want to deal with people at work and pretty much stopped answering my phone. I joined all the telephone meetings I needed to, but avoided anything I thought was unnecessary. DH and I went for another walk this night and I was pretty convinced by 8:00 pm that I was not going to last much longer and real labor was not much further away. My BH’s were much more frequent by now and not painful but uncomfortable. I took a shower before going to bed because my back ached so bad. I’m sure it was back labor, but it wasn’t coming in the standard waves I’ve read about, so just chopped it up to the girls dropping and my fast walking. Right around 11:00 pm I noticed my first real contraction. I didn’t tell DH though and let him sleep. I spent the next 5 hours timing the contractions, sitting on my yoga ball, in the bathroom on the toilet and basically passing the night sleeplessly.

On Thursday, I called my OB at around 4:15 am and she told me she wanted me to go to L&D. DH showered while I packed up a few loose ends and we headed over there some time before 5:00 am. We left all of our bags in the car because we weren’t sure what they’d do. We got to the hospital and I was hooked up to a monitor right away to measure fetal heart rates and contractions. The contractions were about 5 minutes apart and lasting about a minute to 90 seconds. They called my doctor and she decided to try to stop my labor since I was only dilated 1 cm. I got 2 bags of IV and a shot of terbutaline. My contractions stopped showing on the monitor and DH and I were allowed to go home around 7:00. We stopped at McDonalds and I got an order of pancakes. I’d been craving good pancakes for weeks. I don’t know if I’d ever had McD’s pancakes before but knew they wouldn’t be good. After only sleeping a few hours I really didn’t care. We got home, ate and then I slept for an hour. I showered and started working. DH went to work because there was no sense in him sitting at home while I worked. My back was killing me, but I figured it was because of my exhaustion and the girls dropping. Of course I didn’t think to pay attention if the back pain was coming in waves or not. I laid low at work again and didn’t answer any calls or get on our instant messaging system. I felt horrible, was exhausted and nauseous, so wasn’t eating. Around noon I finally felt well enough to eat something. I got an apple out of the fridge and cut it into 4 pieces because I wasn’t sure I’d eat all of it. I ate one wedge while sitting on the couch and it took me about 20 minutes to get it down. Right after I finished the wedge I felt a pop and knew immediately that it was my water breaking. I didn’t know I could possibly move so fast any more. I rolled off the couch and ran across my family room, down the hall and into the bathroom without getting any fluid on my couch or rugs. I got to the bathroom and had fluid gushing out of me. I called my OB, DH, parents and sister all while on the toilet. DH got home from work and helped get me new clothes and towels for the car. We still had the bags packed from earlier, so didn’t need to do any last minute packing.

When I got to the hospital, the nurses put me in the same room I was in earlier and hooked me up to all the same monitors. They also put a new IV line in. My parents arrived not too much later. They’d had bags packed for weeks and took the bags with them whenever they traveled in case I called. My mom did not want to miss the birth since my OB had agreed she could be in the OR with DH and me. I had DH call his family, but told them to be in no hurry. By then we knew my OB was going to try to finish up her patients for the day before coming to check on me. I couldn’t get any pain meds since I had to wait for the spinal to be placed right before the csection. For a while, DH would say when he saw a contraction coming on the monitor. I finally asked him to stop because I knew they were coming and they were getting pretty intense. I didn’t want anyone touching me. I just wanted to be left alone so I could breathe through the contractions. I wasn’t allowed to get out of bed to walk, sit on a yoga ball or do anything because they were trying to slow down my labor. Being strapped to monitors, on my back, in a bed while having super long contractions that are very close together is no fun! I would have been much more comfortable if I could get up. One of the nurses got upset with me since I hadn’t had my water breaking confirmed at my OBs office and she didn’t understand that when I got there. I explained that I’d come straight from home. She kept insisting that I had probably lost control of my bladder and my water hadn’t broken. Since they’d checked me internally to see how dilated I was, she didn’t want to check for aminiotic fluid. I guess I was contaminated or something. I told her I’d felt a pop and had a huge gush of water. She insisted women do not feel a pop when their water breaks. Finally I convinced her to put a pad under me and when I moved she could see that fluid was still leaking. I was sort of short with her, but I think I would know if I lost control of my bladder versus my water breaking. There was no way my bladder would fit that much fluid in it anyway. Around 4:30 the nurses kept telling me that my doctor would be there any minute. It took her over an hour to get there from her office even though it’s close. There were a ton of local events going on that day including a Brewer’s baseball game and the WI state fair. My OB decided to take the highway instead of surface streets despite knowing the highway would be backed up because of them. Or at least she should have known.

My OB finally got to the hospital about 5:40. She came in packed into her scrubs that were a few sizes too small. Despite being in the middle of a contraction that wouldn’t let up, I had a really hard time not laughing at her. She really loves her tight clothes, but is someone who should never wear them. I was finally allowed to get up since she was there and felt instant relief. The contractions were so much more tolerable not laying on my back. I was amazed at how different the contractions felt while standing. My standing was brief though as I was wheeled into the operating room and I hopped right up onto the operating table. They were all expecting to help me get on it. I just wanted to get the spinal and be done with it. The anesthesiologist gave me something really bitter to drink that’s supposed to help with nausea or something. After not drinking anything all day, I think I could have drunk just about anything at that point. I downed the bitter stuff no problem. Probably could have drank a full cup of the stuff. I leaned over and the anesthesiologist started working on my back. He told me every thing he was going to do before doing it and was great at it. Things started to numb pretty quickly once he was done. My OB pricked my abdomen a few times to make sure I was numb. They tilted me so I was a little bit more head down to make it spread higher up my chest. Once I was numb, my OB made the incision before DH or my mom were in the room. They got their quickly afterwards and came by my head. The anesthesiologist continued to tell me everything that would happen before it happened. He told me I may feel a lot of pressure on my chest. I didn’t feel any of that. I did feel a ton of pressure release when Arya was pulled out. I could finally breath again and it was amazing. I didn’t get the same sensation when Eiley was pulled out, but there wasn’t any pressure left to really need relief from.

My mom was a surgical nurse for years and has seen many csections. She took a ton of great pictures of the girls being pulled out of me. You can’t really tell what’s what on me from her angle, so it’s great to have those. She was in total nurse mode as the girls were being born and then switched to mom mode as soon as they were out. Arya Bernice was born at 6:04 pm, 18” long, weighing 5 lbs 5 oz. Someone showed her to me right away and then took her off to get cleaned up and weighed. Eiley Samanna quickly followed at 6:05 pm, 18.5” long, weighing 5 lbs 12 oz. They didn’t show her to me right away, but I was sort of out of it and didn’t think anything of it. Arya was still screaming at this point. I found out later that Eiley was a bit lazy in breathing, so they took her to her area of the OR right away and rubbed her back and things to get her going. She was pink, so none of the medical people in the room were concerned. My mom and DH told me later that they were both worried and it seemed like an eternity, but was probably only about 15-20 seconds. My mom saw she was pink, but was still in mom mode and it made her nervous. Looking back, she knows she shouldn’t have been as concerned as she was. I’m just glad I didn’t know this was going on and that it only lasted those few seconds.

It wasn’t much after this point that my OB took off. I don’t think she said goodbye at all. I remember her talking through the csection and congratulating me, but that was the last I remember of her. I think she had some where to go. She and I had a discussion weeks earlier about how my incision would be closed because I very adamantly did not want staples. She forewarned me that she probably wouldn’t be closing me up as she usually used one of 2 people to do that. Neither of those people ever uses staples. I don’t know which of the two sewed me up, but she took her time about it, slowly stitching me back together layer by layer. My mom watched a little, but was enthralled by the girls and directed most of her attention to them. While I was being sewn back together, the nurses brought both girls up by my head and handed them to DH. We have some cute pictures of him holding the girls next to me.

I went to a recovery room right across the hall once I was sewn up. The girls were both handed to me before we left the operating room. DH and my mom also came with me. As soon as I was in recovery, the girls blood sugars were checked and I was told I should nurse. Both girls blood sugars were high enough that they didn’t need to be given formula right away. After about an hour in recovery I still couldn’t move anything and was moved into my room. It was just after 8:00 pm at that point. My parents, DH’s mom, step father, sister, dad, and step mom were all there. Looking back, I wish I had kicked them out of the room earlier. I was just so groggy that I wasn’t really paying attention. My parents took off because they could tell I needed time alone. DH’s parents are all a bit clueless and didn’t leave until pretty late. By the time they left and I nursed each girl, it was probably about 1:00 am. My hospital really encourages rooming in, but I was exhausted and requested that the girls go to the nursery until 6:00 am. I’m sure they were both fed and kept nice and comfy while they were there. My sleep was not so nice. I was woken up at least once an hour to get checked on. I was hooked up to a pulse oximeter that measured my oxygen levels. It was set so low that it would go off every time I feel asleep. So, every 5 to 7 minutes the dang thing was beeping. I paged the nurses station and asked that they come look at it. The nurse turned it down as it’s normal for oxygen levels to drop when a person is asleep and the thing was already set really low. About an hour later, another nurse came in to check my vitals. For some reason she turned off the machine and when she turned it back on, it had been reset to the original setting. I called the nurses station again and had to wait for another person to come back and reset it.

On Saturday morning, I was begging for food, but was only allowed liquids. I downed 2 things of jello, chicken broth, apple juice, and cranberry juice. I thought it was funny that I was on a liquid clear diet, but everything they gave me, except for the apple juice, was full of artificial colors, sugar and/or salt. Very nutritious. I was then begging to get my catheter out so I could stand up and do some stuff. I was sick of laying in the bed. They wouldn’t take the catheter out yet though. Some one did come in to weigh me and I’d lost 20 lbs since the csection. That afternoon, someone finally came in to remove the catheter. I was told I had to urinate a certain amount within a certain time frame. No problems there. The nurse put a thing in the toilet to catch my urine so they could measure it. I practically filled the thing the first time I used it. I was drinking water like crazy and had finally been allowed to have lunch (2 pancakes, oatmeal, toast, 2 things of juice, skim milk and I don’t remember what else). The nurse ordered my lunch for me because she wanted me to have something bland. She figured I’d eat a little bit of it. I started with a few bites to make sure it would sit well and then crammed it down quickly.

I didn’t have to ask for a stool softener as it was automatically given to me. I dreaded the first bowl movement after reading about so many painful ones here. Mine was no problem though. I was in and out of the bathroom in no time with no pain. It took me a lot longer to get to the bathroom and on the toilet than to actually go. I was taking ibuprofen every 6 hours I believe and a percocet periodically. I stopped the percocet on Sunday and the ibuprofen on Monday morning. I didn’t fill my prescriptions for either after leaving the hospital as I didn’t feel like I needed them. I wasn’t in much pain and knew I wouldn’t take things easy enough if I didn’t feel any pain. My incision looks great and my tummy is quickly deflating. I have a lot of dark discoloration on my belly (looks like a nice tan), but no stretch marks.

[KCMomma]

What an awesome story! TFS!!! I'm so glad things went good for you all things considered! I might have missed it, but were they not even going to let you try a vaginal birth? How has recovery been going for you? I thought it was funny about being on the all liquid diet too when it was filled with artificial flavoring!?!?! Funny! I can't wait to watch them grow!! Congrats on your beautiful baby girls!!

[stlgirl]

Thank you for sharing your story with us. So glad your DH and mom both got to be there to see the girls come out, and that you weren't in too much pain afterwards!

[~April04~]

Sounds like a really good experience TFS!

[BabyBird]

beautiful birth story! TFS!!!

[Jodi0804]

Glad that things went well and that you all are doing good!!

[courtneytcu98]

Thanks for sharing such an eventful day. I'm sorry that your doctor wasn't quite as attentive as you deserved. I am so thankful that Eiley and Arya got to be with you so quickly. I, too, am amazed at what some healthcare professionals think is 'healthy.' Someday when you have time to read again, I am reading a really interesting book--"Real Food for Mother and Baby" by Nina Planck. It'll be awhile before you actually have time to read again, I'll try to mention it then!

[fromustobaby]

Sounds like a wonderful birth...I really enjoyed reading the details of it all

[Etph007]

Truly 2 perfect little miracles TFS!

[Celry]

Thanks everyone. My doctor was only willing to let me try a vaginal birth if Eiley flipped. I had an ultrasound at the hospital the day of to check where she was. I didn't mean for it to sound like my doctor was inatentive. She did what she needed to do and left. She has these other two people sew up for her because they do such a great job. My incision looks amazing, so I can't complain. I'm inyterested in that book. I'll make note of it and hopefully get to it eventually.

[courtneytcu98]

I am glad that your doctor wasn't inattentive. . . I probably misinterpreted! I think it's fantastic that you are healing so well--I know you take very good care of yourself, so I think that must help a lot!