My Birth Story - Part 2

Onto part 2...

Ok, to recap a bit; So there I am in the bathroom of my hospital room having just pulled the red emergency lever after a long debate with myself. Remembering the nurses telling me "That's the one you pull if you really want service quickly", immediately I had two nurses rush into my bathroom asking me if I was OK and in an incredulous voice I told them "Um, I think my water broke". They told me to get up, and yes indeed, I still had the mighty Mississippi flowing out of me, so thankfully I didn't look like a big liar to them. The nurses were in full agreement and ushered me back to my bed so they could get a listen to the babies' heart rates on that dreaded monitor.

Knowing that this could be the last time I had to be on that thing, I was so thrilled. After being in the hospital for almost 3 weeks and having to have a non stress test (NST) everyday, sometimes more the once a day was the most excruciatingly annoying tedious process of my entire bed rest experience. Not only did I have to sit absolutely still on my back for 20 minutes (which is damn near impossible since the babies press on your vein and causes you to black-out) but it took the nurses at least 20-30 minutes just to find the babies on their heart rate monitors. And of course the boys would never stay on the monitors as long as was needed to read the NST correctly, so they would either make me go through it all over again, ugh, or bring in the ultrasound machine and conduct a biophysical profile (bpp). This was a lot more fun for me because not only did it take less that 5 minutes usually to get what they were looking for (practicing breathing, kicking and moving arms, heart rate) but I got to see my little boys up on the screen. I just didn't understand why they made me go through all the torture of NSTs when they could just do it quickly with a bpp, but who knows I don't make the rules. I was just glad of the prospect of never having to be on that machine again!

Thank God the boys were actually very cooperative and were located right away on the monitor. The resident that was assigned to my floor also had come in joking with me about not waiting for him to show up to have my water break. One thing I have to say is that the doctors & residents at Tufs were phenomenal. They were always so nice to me and kept me updated on my pre-eclampisa and always made me feel well cared for. If I am ever pregnant again, I will go there thanks to my wonderful experience with the staff.

So, here I am surrounded by this flurry of activity and I am in the process of calling my husband. Since it was around 7AM, I knew Matt would be on his way to work, so when I called and got his voicemail I was a little concerned. After trying to call him over 15 times I was started to get very pissed off! Here I was, with all these doctors and nurses around me discussion my imminent c-section and I can't get ahold of my damn husband. I called his parents, I called the school (in which no one answered at ten past seven in the morning which was very strange to me), I called my parents telling them all to hunt him down and let him know, oh by the way your wife is going to have babies today!!

Finally, Matt called me back after what seemed like a lifetime, but in reality was more like a half hour. Turns out that he thought it would be a good idea to go to the gym at his school before work and that not bringing a phone would be an even better idea. So after asking what the hell he was thinking, he rushed over to the hospital and was there in like 10 minutes flat. I don't care if he works in Malden or not, there is no way he drove at a safe speed to get from Malden to Boston in 10 minutes, no matter what he says :)

Turns out Baby A's (Joshua) water broke, so by 9AM they are starting to prep me for my surgery and I am wheeled into the OR. Now, I've had a few surgeries in my life (7 including the c-section) but I've never been wheeled into an OR completely awake and sober. I am usually on my way to being very drugged up on some nice pre-operation stuff which makes me nice and loopy. Needless to say, I couldn't get over how bright and cold the room was. And I was wearing a tissue-thin hospital gown that did nothing to warm me or cover my ginormous belly! So I am showing off my huge ass to the whole operating room which was now filled to the gills with "teams" of people. There was the anaesthesia team, the delivery team, the nurse team, the baby A team and the baby B team. I don't know how many people were in there, but Matt counted at least 14 in the room at one time! And here I am in all my fat, pregnant glory with water pouring out of me like I was a leaky dam or something. I mean really, how much water can be in that belly??

Then they make me walk from the stretcher over to the operating table all the while I am dripping away which for some reason was very embarrassing to me to do in front of all these people. I'm guessing I had the "peeing in front of people" complex, when in fact, there was nothing I could do nothing to control it! Once I hopped up (well, maybe not hopped, I did gain 60lbs for this pregnancy) on the table, they started getting my spinal block ready. For anyone who hasn't had a spinal block, it was very bizarre because from my chest down I couldn't feel a damn thing. It took all of 1 minute to start working and then they were off to deliver these babies!

If I had any shred of modesty remaining from my 3 week stay in the hospital, it was now gone. They took the tiny piece of fabric that was called a hospital gown and proceeded to use it as a curtain to shield me from "the show" which I couldn't have been more thankful for, but at the same time I was now completely and utterly naked in front of at least 14 people. And it would have been one thing if I was in my pre-wedding body, but nope, I was a full fledged beached whale.

After the initial shock of my entire naked body being on display faded, the time just seemed to fly by. Although I couldn't feel it, I could see my body thrashing about from the doctors trying to pull the babies from my body. What a creepy feeling that is...to not feel the tugging, but to see it...it still gives me the willies to think about it. And not even a half hour after arriving in the OR, Joshua Edward was born at 9:34AM. I could hear his little cries and it melted me. And as far as I know, he was whisked off to baby A team to get evaluated. Then three minutes later at 9:37AM little Broderick Christopher was born. He was a little more quiet at first, but then his cries too filled the room and I was filled with absolute elation. Before they were taken off to the NICU we were able to see the boys and spend a little "alone time" with them which was so nice. I couldn't get over how calm and quiet they both were, just looking around and taking it all in. It is a moment in time I will never forget!

Thank you for taking the time to read this, I am sure it wasn't the most exciting of stories, but I felt it needed to be recorded so that one day when I am older, I can tell the boys how they came into the world because I know that I sure won't remember it, thanks to a little thing called momnesia...it's this affliction that allows the human race to continue because if women truly remembered what they went through to have a child, they would most likely never do it again!