The Birth Story

On the 14^th I’d had ‘Lil D at home with me not feeling well, so I’d made a doctor’s appointment for him to get checked out. The day was pretty much miserable having a sick toddler and myself just not feeling well. During naptime I’d also began contracting pretty bad to where I almost put Sean on standby while he was at work. However, some water and rest made things subside. I still didn’t feel great and the contractions picked up again that night. I didn’t sleep well at all and had some really bad cramping “down there” that felt a little more familiar to what active labor felt like the first time. Well, as it turns out, no one got rest that night as D was up coughing all night and Sean and I tended to him at various points, and we were both zombies by morning. Sean declared he’d stay home sick because I couldn’t take care of a toddler on my own. Good thing, because the contractions picked up again. This time they were over a minute in duration and every 2.5 minutes. We made the call to L&D who said to come in and be evaluate. I was very hesitant to do this given the fact that we had been seen and sent home twice prior, including once after a 2.5 day hospital stay. But alas, we showered, packed bags, called the mother-in-law to meet us “just in case”. On our way to the hospital, we were naturally pulled over by CHP one exit away, for speeding. The officer saw my face, I showed him my iPhone contraction counter, and he let us go, but not before a snide, “what, are we going to have these babies right now? Just slow it down.” Yes, officer, we were having those babies right away!

We arrived at the hospital around 10am and I was evaluated by the doctor around 10:30am. I was checked and declared 5cm dilated! We were not going home this time, we were getting admitted! Shortly we were situated in my room, which was oddly the same room we had during the 2.5 day stay, so we were in familiar surroundings. I had already decided that an epidural would be put in place, mostly due to the recommendations of several doctors in case there were any complications, which would end in me being put under. I was not willing to be put under for the birth of my children and miss anything. Already I knew we would deliver in an operating room because of any possible emergencies. Given that there was going to be an epidural and my pain level increasing, I asked for some drugs in my IV stat. The Fentanyl arrived at the same time as the anesthesiologist did, so I was able to get comfortable and not feel the epidural at all, other than a brief pinch. Wow, did I felt awesome after that! I no longer felt contractions, but I was glued to the monitors watching their progression and the heartbeats of the babies just like I get glued to watching bad reality TV. There were points where contractions started to fall behind and level off, other times they came steadily. The doctor came back from a delivery and suggested starting Pitocin to speed things up a bit. At this stage in the game, I was all for anything to hurry up the process. The dosage was started slow and turned up every 30 minutes. Around 1-2 hours later (things get fuzzy) I was dilated to 7cm. The doctor at this point decided it was a good idea to break my bag of waters so help along a little bit more. The waters were broken manually and I was again checked by the doctor roughly 1 hour later. At this point, Dr declared I was fully dilated +1 (I didn’t know there was an 11) and there was “no cervix” let’s get her to the OR, we’re pushing and having babies! Holy $*(&!

Sean was suited up, hats were given to us, and away we went to OR. I will admit, this is where things got pretty scary to me. The room is very sterile looking with a lot of bright lights and machines. We had a full team of my doctor, two of my nurses, a midwife, an anesthesiologist on standby, and a few other nurses and a backup doctor in the room. I was awkwardly lifted to the OR table as I could not move my legs at all. My legs were hoisted into the stirrups, instruments in place and I was asked to begin pushing. With minimal pushes, around 5, baby Keira was born at 7:20pm and placed directly on my chest. Dad cut the cord. The doc checked on baby B and he was doing okay but I needed to begin more pushes. Again, with minimal effort and number of pushes, but with more guidance from the doctor, Baby Liam was born 11 minutes later at 7:31 pm. He was also placed directly on my chest and dad cut the second cord.

Within minutes we were all transported back to our L&D room, the babies were cleaned, my IVs and epidural were removed, and we began trying to get the babies to latch.

All-in-all, the birth was a great experience aside from the little hiccups along the way. This time was 180 degrees from my last birth experience, however, the situations were completely different. I have to admit the epidural was not a horrible experience that I thought it would be. I didn’t fight the Pitocin or any other drugs this time because I needed to focus on getting the babies out healthy in the least complicated way possible. I am just ecstatic that I was able to deliver without a c-section, which I feared.

I must mention that everyone at the hospital was completely awesome! Every doctor we met was very pro-vaginal delivery of twins and would work with any complications that came up, including a breech second baby (read: why epidural is needed). While I had my hesitations about or delivery doctor, he was a rock star and really worked fast and furious to get these babies out. Each nurse was very helpful and attentive and loved twins!

Right now we’re going on day three of weigh-ins to the doctors and a second office visit to make sure everything is okay as the babies still are not gaining as much as they should have by now. True, every baby tends to drop some weight after birth, they dropped a wee bit more than they like to see and are not putting it on as fast as we’d hoped. We’ve begun supplementing with formula already, which really annoys me because my milk is in and I’ve also been pumping to keep up the supply, but the bottom line is that I need to get these babies to their optimal weights! Right now they’re napping peacefully so mommy could finish this story!