Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Birth Story

It's been three weeks since I last blogged, I've been a little busy :) Anyway I thought I would write down our birth story for anyone interested. If you read my last post you'll now a little bit about what we were dealing with. I went in for high blood pressure. It went down, but my platelet count was low. They sent me home Thursday night on strict bed rest. Well Friday morning I got a phone call from my doctor, not her office but actually her. She told me she was a little concerned that the low platelet count could be a sign for pre-eclampsia. I had to go in to triage again for monitoring. I was a little nervous as I waited for Morgan to pick me up. We went ahead and packed all our stuff for the hospital, just in case.

We got to triage and had to wait for what seemed like forever. We were able to go back. They hooked me up to the monitors and drew blood right away. Then it was just a waiting game. While we were waiting my Fetal Medicine doctor I'd been seeing came down to triage to do an ultrasound to check the babies and placentas. He told me that he suggested going ahead with delivery as soon as possible. In his opinion I'd made it to 36 weeks which is pretty good for a twin pregnancy. The babies were at a good weight and with my low placenta count their could potentially be problems with the placentas providing enough nutrients, especially Rose (Baby A) had a "older" placenta...whatever that meant. He gave his opinion to my OB.

The Doctor on call came and saw me and said she was moving me to the Antenatal Floor. This is where you go if you aren't ready to deliver, but have to stay in the hospital. At this point I knew it wouldn't be long til I saw my girls. We got settled in a room and my OB came by to talk to me. She said in her opinion she wanted to wait til I was 37 weeks to deliver which would have been in about 4 days from that point, and she would keep me at the hospital. But, she was waiting to see the lab results to make a final decision. We got settled in our room and tried to relax, but that's not easy to do in a hospital.

Sometime in the afternoon I got a call from my doctor that the lab results weren't abnormal but my platelet count was still low and that we would be delivering that Friday evening around 7:30 or 8:00. The nurse came in to give me my IV, which I hated. She also gave us some pretty hard news. She told us that because my platelet count was low that I would most likely be put under general anesthesia, and Morgan would not be able to be in the room with me. To hear that I would not be awake to see my babies be born and hear their first cries was devastating. And not to have Morgan by my side was too much to handle. I told her I understood, but as soon as she left I lost it. Morgan assured me that the staff knew what was best and he'd make sure I was the first one to hold our girls.

Around 5:30 or 6:00 the doctor on call came by our room. She told us that she had been so busy today. Their were 10 c-sections alone, and she performed about half of them. Because they had been so busy the NICU was full. Since I was delivering pre-term twins they needed to have space available for them if it was needed. We would be having our babies on Saturday morning instead. I was actually glad to hear that. We would be able to have one last solid night of sleep (yeah right). And that day just happened to be the anniversary of when Morgan proposed. April 30th would be an even sweeter day to us now.

So I slept alright that night, but I was up at 4 ready to go. The nurses came by at 5:30 a.m. to get me ready for surgery and we started our way down to the L&D floor. They put us in a room to wait until it was time. Morgan's parents were there to see us, and our pastor came by to pray with us. The emotions were starting already. The doctor came by to check on me and introduce me to the nurse anesthesiologist. He told me we would be doing a spinal block and I would be able to be awake through the surgery!! Yay!! I was so relieved when they handed Morgan a gown for him to wear in the OR. My doctor stopped in to say hello, and then we waited about 30 min. That time was some of the sweetest as Morgan and I spent the last moments just us. We laughed and cried and prayed God would make us the kind of parents He wanted us to be.

I was wheeled by myself back to the OR. I got up on the table to get my spinal block. Very similar to an epidural but it's just a shot. I found it funny when they asked me to hunch over, excuse me have you seen this twin momma belly. I did my best and they gave me the bee sting shot. They told me to tell them if I felt something similar to an electric shock in my back. Yeah, that settled me down! It took a few minutes but he got it in and I almost immediately started to feel heat and numbing sensation in my legs. It wasn't long and I was totally numb from the ribs down.Unfortunally I started gagging from the meds, but the fixed that fast. Morgan came in and it was time to go. The put the sheet up, and I just watched Morgan the whole time. About 10 minutes in I started to feel some tugging in my belly and heard the tinniest little cry I'd ever heard. Baby A was born at 8:01! Morgan went to look at her and I could see her kicking and screaming.While they cleaned her I heard the Doctors laughing. They were getting Baby B out who was breech and they noticed she was trying to climb back inside my uterus. She was comfy in there now that she had so much room. Baby B was born at 8:02! While they were cleaning her up, they brought Baby A over for me to kiss before she went to recovery with her daddy. Baby B had needed aCPAP for a little fluid. After a few minutes they were satisfied and brought her to me to kiss. My babies were born and with their daddy and I was being sewn up. The c-section went great and they wheeled me to the recovery room.

They bathed the girls and that's where I got to hold them and decided who was who. My littlest girl was Baby A. She weighed 5 lb 7 oz and was 17 1/2 in long. She was my Rose Adalie Oliff. Baby B was 6 lb 3 oz and 19 in long. She was my Katherine (KATE) Lela Oliff.

Kate was not quiet as pink as they wanted so they gave her a little oxygen and she got a better color. After about 45 min they decided to take Kate to NICU to monitor her and make sure she was perfect. I got to hold her for a little while then sent her with the doctor for NICU. I wasn't too upset because I knew she would be fine. I got my Rose and we made our way up to our room. The rest of that day is a blur. We made it through our first night and by the next afternoon we had both babies with us and were a family of 4!!

Sometimes I hold these babies and can't believe I have twins. I love them so much and can't imagine being happier then I am right now.