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!

My Birth Story - Part 1

Well, most girls that I have seen start off their new parent blogs with either a BFP (Big Fat Positive, as in pregnancy test) story or the Birth Story. And since that would make perfect sense, I of course did not do it that way :) I only actually started my blog once the boys were born and in the NICU and long after finding out I was pregnant. So, I have decided to post all these previous stories for posterity. So I will be starting with the day that Josh & Brody made their grand entrance over four months ago!! Hopefully I can remember as many details as possible since although, I no longer have pregnancy brain, it has now progressed to mommy brain which is a far worse affliction :) First a little back story, but I am warning you, it's not for the squeamish:

Tuesday March 11, 2008 - 34 Weeks

Well I woke up around the same time that I do everyday while being on bed rest at the hospital - between 6-7 in the morning. Usually, it is the Dr. that is assigned to the floor that wakes me up at the start of their shift which is about 7AM, but on other occasions it has been the crazy Dracula lady that takes my blood. I kid you not, she talks in a Romanian accent and says "I've come to collect your bluuuud" and then proceeds to turn on every bloody light in my room turning into the surface of the sun all at 6AM. This time I woke up on my own, my stupid bladder was calling to me, as it did every 2-3 hours and waddled to the bathroom. Since it was almost 7AM I knew I was in for the deluge of the beginning of the shift visitors - The doctor assigned to the floor, the nurse assigned to me to take my blood pressure, the cleaning lady, the Dracula people....so I decided to turn on the TV and not be scared awake like I usually am.


I actually feel rested thanks to the ambien the lovely 3rd shift nurse gave me at 11PM. Ambien is pretty hit or miss for me, well at least the pregnant me, because sometimes no matter how tired I was or how late I took the ambien, I still would get up at least twice a night to either use the bathroom facilities or to roll over. Yep, you heard that right...I woke myself up rolling over because it was such an absolute process, probably very similar to how a baby first rolls over - more in quarter turns than one fluid motion.


So I am awake and almost fully rested and very happy that I had made it to 34 weeks. Tuesdays were my week change day, so I always looked forward to them more so than I ever did when not pregnant. 34 weeks was such a great milestone for us since I had been sent to Tufts at 31 weeks and 5 days thanks to pre-term labor. I'll never forget being transferred in the Ambulance from Lowell General to Tufts since Lowell wasn't equipped to deliver babies before 32 weeks. I think I was in complete denial at first of the possibility of delivering my twins so early, but once we got to Labor & Delivery and received the first round of steroid shots to develop the boys' lungs and got "the talk" from the NICU doctor (anyone having pre-term babies can understand that conversation) about the consequences of delivering babies of my gestation, I realized this is a real and very scary possibility!! No, I was not ready to deliver yet! My boys were too small still and I needed to keep them inside me to continue to develop like they should!!


Thankfully, I did not deliver the babies on that day, but I was dialated to 3cm and needed to stay in the hospital for the duration of my pregnancy, however long that would be. It was a scary position to be in, but I knew it was best for me and the babies so I would do what had to be done. So, for the next few weeks I made the antipartum/postpartum floor my home. All of my wonderful friends and family visited me and for that I am forever grateful because I think I would have gone mad if my only interaction was with the nurses coming to check my blood pressure or the babies heart rates. I mean I think the poor cleaning lady was sick of hearing me talk!!


On top of my lovely pre-term labor symptoms, I was also lucky enough to get pre-eclampsia. For people who aren't familiar with pre-eclampsia, it is a condition that only pregnant woman get which causes high blood pressure and severe swelling. In my case my blood pressure was high, but not ever high enough to cause concern for seizures or needing to take the babies quickly. But my swelling was so vicious that you would think I weighed 450lbs from the ankles down. My poor feet were so swollen that I could barely fit into the XXL hospital socks they had for me. I mean I already felt fat enough as it is, let alone all the water I was retaining!

So for once, I felt pretty darn good...I had made it to 34 weeks which is pretty darn good with twins since on average twins are born at 36 weeks. So I only had 2 more weeks to go, I could do this, I really could. I made it this far, what was another 2 weeks...right??

Well, the babies had other ideas because as soon as I got back into bed after my bathroom break, turned on the TV, I rolled over to take sip 10,005 of water that I needed to drink. As soon as I did that ::GUSH:: And all this water just fell out of me!! It was really one of the most bizarre feelings I had ever had, just like I completely lost all control of my bladder and the boys' decided to practice their drop-kicks on it. I knew it was my water, because really, my bladder was barely the size of a pea by now and I just knew it. Women who have had babies always say "Oh, you'll know when your water breaks, trust me" and as long as it isn't a slow leak, you will most definitely know!!

Now I'm thinking "Oh shit my water just broke" and I'm sitting in my very soggy bed (which now I know why the mattresses are all plastic, it makes for hot sleeping but easy cleanup!) thinking what do I do now?? So, I waddle over to the bathroom, as quickly as a 8.5 month pregnant lady with twins can move, all the while I feel like I am peeing rivers from my pants and I am leaving puddles to prove it. And I'm sitting in the bathroom staring at the red emergency pull cord next to the toilet. "Do I pull the handle? Well, my water broke didn't it....what if it didn't and I look like an ass that pulled the emergency lever? Dammit, lake superior is coming out of me in gushes, I'm pulling that lever!"

I think that this post has been long enough...stay tuned for part 2 and the actual arrival of my boys!