Babies! Post One

We had two babies since I last posted!!

Not 5 minutes after I last posted, I was back on the phone with the on-call dr at my clinic. I was bleeding again, but was told to not worry about it unless it continued. It didn't, in an alarming amount anyways, so I stayed at home and tried to sleep again on the couch.

Sunday morning I was still contracting, and all day I was convinced that my water had broke and I had a slow leak. By late afternoon, I called the clinic again and talked to the same dr as the night before...Dr I...he was on-call all weekend, and when I was in triage on Saturday morning and was very helpful, but I'm seriously irked now that I know he was wrong. Not that drs can't be wrong, but he was wrong and his "worst case" was actually the worst case, so I found out today. He told me on Sunday that the worst case would be that my water actually had broken and an infection would throw me into labor, but he said what I had described to him didn't sound like it was enough to be a leak. Anyways, long story short about that...I was right, my water did break...and I found out today that an infection around Baby B (Dylan) had thrown me into labor. Ugh. I am suspicious that my water might have actually broken on Saturday...since the triage nurse was pretty sure it had when I went in that day, but the test they ran came back negative...another type of test was done on Monday morning that came back positive.

Anyways, I trusted my gut, and on Monday morning I was still leaking something and was still contracting and cramping like crazy, so I risked being the most annoying patient ever and called the clinic when they opened. They sent me in, my amniotic fluid test came back positive...and I birthed two boys via C-section later in the day!!

I had very helpful nurses while I was there during the day on Monday....they were very open about the pros and cons of vaginal and C-section deliveries. Now that I know about the infection, I'm not even sure if vaginal delivery would have been an option when it came down to it, but at the time, we had been leaning more towards C-section and I never heard anything about any infection. If we had gone the route of vaginal delivery I had a few options...waiting it out for active labor or speeding it along with Pitocin. I had actually dilated backwards from Saturday and was back down to a 1+ and wasn't contracting actively, but we probably wouldn't have elected to speed it along if we'd chosen vaginal...Regardless, I needed to be done with this pregnancy, and since my water had broken it was pretty much just a question of "today" versus "tomorrow" and we chose today.

Anyways, Andy left work early and got to the hospital around 4:30, Dr H arrived in my room at 4:45, we decided on a C-section at 4:55, the team was put together about 10 minutes later and Owen was born at 5:40. It went so fast, which was great because I never really got the chance to get nervous. My nurse told me on the way to surgery that if she'd had the chance to hand-pick my team she would have picked everybody in the OR...My anesthesiologist was kinda eccentric, but awesome and everyone was really reassuring and informative during the whole thing. The whole experience was surreal...not even sure how to describe it. Not being able to feel anything on your body is totally crazy...I couldn't even feel the pushing and pulling that most people describe feeling during the delivery. It was just, hey, there's Owen!! Hey, there's Dylan!! And off they went with Andy to the NICU. Andy, by the way, was totally awesome. He is so calm in these situations...he is so comforting and incredible and exactly what I need when I am spastic and freaked out.

Hopped up on this and that, my memory is kinda spotty for the rest of the night. Andy made lots of phone calls. I got lots of drugs and had a billion leads/IVs hooked up to me. I spent about an hour in the recovery area before being wheeled up to the post-partum floor where I had the best room ever...with two windows!!

I had some bleeding issues during the surgery that I got a shot of something for. I also had some heavy bleeding the first night post-surgery. Bleeding can be heavier after twins because the uterus grows so much larger and therefore has so much more to do when contracting back to a normal size. Also, two placentas were attached and then separated at birth, so those spots have a tendency to bleed more too. It was kinda scary, but I was really out of it so I stayed calm.

OK, given the magnitude and importance of this post, I must break to refresh myself with pain relief...

Look forward to topics such as:

How incredible showering can be
Walking and talking at the same time while on Oxycodone
Those damn contracting leg boots
The unfairness of nurses administering Ambien only to wake you up 2 hours later
How quickly one regrets commenting on low milk flow once they awaken with cement boobies
NICU 101 and our sons' ability to kick-ass at 34w 4d