We are parents  Matt and I went from watching another episode of The Wire in bed Wednesday night, business as usual, to being the parents of twin boys early yesterday morning. Here’s the story of how they arrived. (I’ll try not to be too gory…if you WANT gory details, of course, just ask.)

 

Starting Wednesday, I was feeling as though the kiddos were low and heavy, just a little more pressure than usual, but nothing so different that it made me think anything was up. I put on my preggo support belt and whipped up some salisbury steaks for dinner. Easy day. Until the night…when I started to feel more pressure and just an uncomfortable amount of heaviness at the very bottom of my abdomen. By midnight or so, I could tell the pressure was isolated into contractions that started, then ended, maybe 45 minutes apart. Not knowing how to tell a Braxton Hicks contraction from a legit one, I figured we’d find out at the OB appointment we had scheduled the next morning anyway.

 

Thursday morning things felt a little more contractiony, like where I could feel the pain coming, count it out, and it would be gone in 30 seconds. So I called Dr. Apel to see if we could bump up our 11:00 appointment. She had an opening at 10:15, so we showed up then. I was starting to think it might be preterm contractions, but still just wasn’t sure. We were at the doctor’s for a few minutes before we found out I was 1.5 cm dilated. With contractions 2 minutes apart. Dr. Apel called Christiana Hospital to admit me, and we went straight there.

 

We got checked in, and they put me on an IV drip of magnesium sulfate, which is a muscle relaxant that slows contractions. The plan was that if they could slow the contractions and get them spaced out at least 15 minutes apart, then I likely wouldn’t dilate further and the kids could stay in longer. I was thinking I’d probably be in the hospital for several weeks. They also gave me a shot of steroids to help the babies’ lungs develop in case they did have to show up early. But once on the magnesium, things started slowing down, so all seemed good. Matt drove to PA for a job interview, and then from there headed on to his brothers’ place in Weehawken, New Jersey so he could get up and go to his final interview with FreshDirect in Long Island City on Friday morning.

I didn’t really sleep Thursday night; between IVs in my arm, heart-rate monitors strapped on my belly, inflating boots to prevent blood clots wrapped around my legs. and a blood pressure cuff around my left arm, it was hard to get comfy for very long. I wasn’t allowed to get up to use a toilet, which meant I had to call a nurse for a bedpan. Using a bedpan, I discovered, is a lot more difficult than peeing in the woods or in a field or any other non-toilet location I would have been much happier with. Friday morning was more of the same – blood pressure checks, keeping the IVs going, and so on. I wasn’t allowed any solid food, but they finally gave me something besides ice to drink, so I had ginger ale and chicken broth and continued to wait. At 2 on Friday I had the second dose of steroids, and because my contractions had spaced out, they took me off the magnesium. The plan was that if contractions picked up again or anything changed, they’d come and assess and maybe put me back on the magnesium. Matt got to the hospital by about 7 to spend the night with me there, we ate some hospital food (solid now! since I wasn’t on magnesium anymore) and we settled in for the night. Well, by 12:45 or so it was clear we weren’t going to stay settled. A couple killer contractions later, Dr. tells me I’m 8.5 cm dilated (10 cm is all the way…something I learned Saturday) and off we go!

 

They wheeled me into the operating room to deliver the babies. The OR was just in case they had to do an emergency c-section. I was probably in the OR breathing through contractions for maybe 30 minutes before I was told it was time to push. At first this did not hurt. It just felt like straining…let the contraction build, hold your breath, push for ten seconds. Matt was there with me and held my hand and told me I was doing great. I would have been doing much less great without him, is for sure. In between contractions I remember trying to be conversational with the nurses and doctors. Then it became clear that something was, in fact, emerging from my body. And then the pushing hurt. It took maybe 20 minutes of agonizing pain, pushing and wondering how on earth this would ever happen…but then it did. I heard “It’s a boy!” and looked up to see the doctor holding this tiny baby, mouth wide open and crying. They took him over to the neonatology people who were waiting off to the side, cleaned him up, got him wrapped in warm blankets and set up in an incubator, ready to wheel to the NICU. Matt told them his name was Jonah Fenton, they told us he was 2 pounds 11 ounces, and off they went with my son. I knew I wouldn’t get to hold them right away of course, coming this early. He looked to be in capable hands so I wasn’t worried.

 

And then it occurred to me I wasn’t finished yet. There was still one more baby inside me who needed to come out! Jonah had been ready to go, head in position for several weeks, clearly getting impatient. Baby B was lying sideways across the top my uterus, head pointing the right way, but not shoved down ready to pop out like Jonah had been. I looked at my weird belly, now kind of half-pregnant and deflated, and waited for something to happen. Nothing really did though. After Jonah was born, the killer contractions pretty much stopped. They gave me pitocin to try and get them going again. They broke the amniotic sac too and released a ton of fluid. And then the two doctors stood at the bottom of the bed, arms crossed, casually waiting for something to start moving. For about 15 minutes we waited as the pitocin gave me contractions that felt more like hunger pangs than anyway, and Baby B gradually started shifting downward. But it was clear nothing was going to happen immediately, so they told me I’d be moving to a labor and delivery room and could wait to deliver Baby B there. At this point, it was shortly after two in the morning, I was working off no sleep the night before, and I was tired. They wheeled me into the new room, which was much cozier than the OR, and told me just to relax and see if the contractions would get stronger. With baby on a heart rate monitor and another monitor measuring contractions, the team watched for progress from outside the room. They tried rolling me onto one side and then the other, to see if the baby would shift at all that way. Finally they told me just to try and get some rest and if the contractions were strong enough, I’d wake up for sure. Matt fell asleep in a chair, and I started dozing off in the bed, one twin in, one twin out. An hour passed. Then another hour. Then another. It was past 5:00 in the morning. I still wasn’t going into labor again.

 

Every time a contraction would come, I’d feel the tightness spread across the top of my belly, and baby inside would get squished a little, causing the heart rate monitor to show a little dip. This would pick right up again as the contraction passed, but as time went on it was clearly becoming more difficult for Baby B to recover from each contraction. In other words, if we just kept waiting and hoping one of these contractions would do something, baby might get overly worn out and distressed. So Dr. Chavez came in and she told us that they would have to do a c-section.

 

Not what I wanted to hear, but it was clear that I wasn’t going back into labor and that I couldn’t just hang out for days with one twin and no amniotic fluid chilling out inside me while big brother was outside breathing air. The doctors were willing to pull Baby B out by his feet if my contractions had gotten strong enough for me to actually be in labor again, but as much as we all wanted a second vaginal delivery, it just wasn’t in the cards. I felt confident that this was a surgery that was necessary, not one brought about by someone’s schedule or fear of liability.

 

So…back to the OR for what was probably the single most terrifying experience of my life. I have NEVER had surgery before any scarier than a wisdom tooth extraction. So as they’re describing a shot in the spine (not an epidural, since I didn’t have a line in place already), and how I’d be awake and feel pressure but just not pain, I started to get uncontrollably shaky. They gave me the spinal, and my legs began to get all warm. Only I had to lay back on this crucifix-shaped bed, arms stretched out, and head slightly lower than my waist, while the anesthesia went into effect. My arms would not stop shaking. Matt wasn’t allowed into the OR until they knew the spinal was working. It was awful. I must have asked them ten times to make sure I really couldn’t feel anything they were doing down there. They put up a sheet so I couldn’t see anything below my boobs and Matt came and sat next to my head. And they went to work.

You definitely feel what is going on during a c-section. It just doesn’t feel like pain. It does, however, feel like stretching and pressure and pushing and shoving and hands all up inside your abdominal cavity. It was horrifying to listen to, and horrifying to feel. The doctors sounded like they were struggling to find this kid and drag him out, which evidently is exactly what was happening. I don’t know how long they reached around in there, but I wasn’t immediately aware when they finally pulled out our second son! I don’t remember if they showed him to me first or just took him over to the neonatologists. I know he wasn’t crying like Jonah had been. Matt told them his name was Eli Jackson. As they started cleaning and sewing me up though, I was aware that there was a baby over on the other side of the room, another tiny baby, and that baby was a boy, and that baby was named Eli, and he was our son. We had two sons. That was when it hit me. After Jonah was born there wasn’t all the relief and happy tears you see on TV because we weren’t done yet, and our baby had just been wheeled off to some unknown place. I was still half-pregnant and we had another kid to get. But as they wrapped up this tiny little person on the edges on my peripheral vision, I knew that now, we had done it. We had our children. We have two sons, Jonah and Eli.

 

It’ll be probably 6 weeks, maybe 8 before our little boys are ready for life outside of the hospital. A few hours before our first son was born, his dad accepted a job in NYC, so we’ll be moving our new family to Queens or thereabouts pretty soon. Matt starts work in mid February, so he will be able to stay here in Wilmington until then, helping me heal up, and spending time with our sons in the NICU. I’ll be resting at my parents’ house and spending time with Matt and our babies. Once Matt starts working, he’ll split his time as best he can, while working to find us a place to live (we’re looking at Astoria…) and I’ll be doing what I can to get a home ready for our babies. Sewing curtains in between NICU visits, things like that. We’ve got a lot of baby stuff to acquire that we didn’t plan on needing quite yet, but since our boys will be in the hospital for some time, we can scurry around behind the scenes and get stuff ready for them. Stock up on teeny tiny diapers, get some car seats, buy some clothes that aren’t all baby blue.

 

We are so, so happy to have our sons born safely. They’ve got a ways to go before they’re ready to do things on their own, but so far they’re in good shape. I couldn’t begin to list all the things I have been thankful for in the last few days. Maybe as I process more these things will filter out better. More than anything though, we are thankful that God thought we’d be good parents for these two little babies. We can’t wait to watch them grow, to hold them (soon, we hope!) and to take them home.