Twins Birth Story! {part 1}

Hey all!! After a lovely 2 month summer hiatus, I'm back with another short series about the tumultuous birth of my twins. With fall just around the corner, I started thinking about my 3 children and their birthdays. Chatham, my sweetest surprise, turns 1 on September 18 and my crazy twins turn 2 on October 12! Ahhh- my babies aren't going to be babies anymore! I started this blog to give advice and help other moms going through similar situations as me, but this blog also turned into somewhat of a personal diary for me to hopefully share with my children later on down the road. I want the memories that are so clear to me now to never be forgotten as more of my life unfolds. So onto part 1 of My Twins Birth Story....

I left off here, where I finally was in the clear and finally able to announce my pregnancy to the world! After such a long difficult road of getting pregnant hearing from a fetal specialist that our babies were as healthy as could be and everything with me looked great was just the sweetest words I could ever hear. Adam and I were elated!

Until I started puking. Just kidding. Well actually I did puke, almost everyday, but I didn't care. To me, that meant the babies were growing and getting comfy in their new home in my belly. I would always wonder how anyone could throw up and then go to work. To me, if I was sick, that was it- in bed, no work, watching TV and eating crackers all day. Nope. Not when you're pregnant. It became part of my daily routine. Get up, take a shower, get out to throw up, get back in shower, do my hair and makeup, and leave for work. I kind of just got used to it and I like I said, it just meant so far, so good with my babies.

June 3- only about 3 months pregnant!

Weeks went by, I began to feel them flutter then move a little bit and that led into full body movements and kicks. It was so crazy to feel one baby kick up by my lungs and at the same time have a little foot kicking me down by my butt. I really felt pretty great for having twins. I was teaching preschool at the time- and the kids were just so cute about the babies.

As the school year came to a close and summer hours and camp began, I moved from my classroom out to the front office to help with office work. This ensured I was sitting during most of the day and not up running around with 20 3 year olds. Summer came and went and with it went my normal pregnancy. Towards the middle of September, I began having contractions. NO idea at the time! Such a naive first time pregnant lady, I'm thinking it was a full baby body roll that was making my stomach tighten up like a ball. And no one around me had experience with twins, so they all thought I knew what I was talking about.

At this time, Adam and I were near closing on a house we were buying by the beach in a small town in northern New Jersey. We were excited even though it was a small house- we thought it would be perfect for us. Looking back, I realize how God works in mysterious ways. We would have outgrown the house the first day we found out I was pregnant again! We were going back and forth with the owners on a few paperwork issues that were stressing me out. And stress is not good with any pregnancy, let alone someone who is soon to be in their third trimester carrying twins.

Shortly before revealing we were having a boy & girl at our gender reveal party

At work one morning I started thinking the baby was moving again, only the tightening was coming on in waves and pretty consistently. Which is when it finally dawned on me that these were contractions. So, to freak myself out confirm my suspicions, I timed the tightening waves. Hmm.. every 1-3 minutes for a good half hour. Seemed a little odd- so I told my principal and vice principal- they also thought it was odd. I called the doctor and of course, with twins, everything is come in, better to be safe then sorry. I called Adam, he left work and started making his way back towards home and off to Hackensack we went to meet with the doctor.

As I'm sitting in the waiting room, I get a call from our attorney who was working on the house purchase for us. She called with the worst news! The deal had completely fallen apart and we weren't going to be able to buy the house. I was so upset and couldn't even think of a plan b since we were supposed to be all moved out of our apartment within the next 2 weeks- we had nowhere to go now!

The doctor finally called me in and after examining me said, "the good news is your water didn't break." Ahhh sigh of relief... for about 2 seconds until he said, "bad news is you are 4 centimeters dilated and your water bag is hanging extremely low."

Whaaaa? I'm only 28 weeks pregnant... it's only September and I'm due mid- December!! I didn't even have my baby shower yet! The doctor looked worried and Adam and I were now on the verge of freaking out. Doctor's orders- no more working, no more anything basically. Complete bed rest until the babies arrive! If you have met me, you would know this task is nearly impossible. But even before all that, I needed to have an injection in my leg to strengthen the babies lungs on the chance that if they are born early, they're lungs were given a chance to develop more maturely.

The doctor sent Adam on a wild goose chase to different pharmacies trying to find this special medicine. All the while, I sat in the empty waiting room thinking about my very near future. The twins could arrive way too early, we haven't even begun packing and we had to be out by the end of the month and now, we had nowhere to live!!!!

...to be continued...