Twins Birth Story {part 2}

if you want to catch up- part 1

 With the doctor's warning that the twins could arrive soon and our house deal falling through, Adam and I immediately called our families. There were so many concerns that we basically had to figure them each out individually.

Our number 1 concern was the babies. For now, we felt with me on bed rest, they were safe. Number 2 was where are we going to live. Our only option was to move everything into storage and live with my parents until we had the babies and could even begin to think clearly about what our next step was in finding a house.

Our families dropped everything and came to our house to not only pack everything up but move it all into a storage unit. We all headed to my parents for pizza and drinks (not me!) and to celebrate the end of a very tough move being over. My parents had their next door neighbor/best friends over and everyone was just hanging out. It seemed like things were slipping a little bit back into place. I felt calm about having a roof over our heads. I felt more secure about the babies now that I was given their lung shot and I was happy for the move to just be over.

Until I began to feel the contractions again. I almost tried to ignore them because I was just so tired and everything was finally relaxing and having fun. I whispered to Adam and to follow me upstairs and I'm sure he could tell by the worried look on my face that this wasn't a good "follow me upstairs."

I told him what was going on and that I was just going to take a nice lukewarm bath and he was going to time the contractions. They were about 2-4 minutes apart for a good 20 minutes. Ughhhh... we quietly packed up a bag and headed downstairs to tell what was now a party of family and friends about our dilemma.

And- they were shocked. Our only option was to head to a hospital near my parent's house because at this point the hospital we planned on delivering at was now too far away and I was extremely concerned. Lucky for us, one of, if not the, best hospital in the country for premature births, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania were only 40 minutes from my parents house.

Adam and I were so shaken up that my mom insisted that my brother and his girlfriend drive us down there.

I honestly don't even remember that drive. I remembered fear and pain. The pain was bad but not terrible. The fear was all consuming. But looking back, my faith never faltered. For some reason, I just knew it was all going to be okay.

I went to the ER they took me up to labor & delivery and I went into the first office where you get checked. If you are in labor, from there, they will admit you into the labor & delivery rooms. On staff were 2 midwives who were going to check me.

It didn't go too well. Even with their sweet and positive demeanor, I already could tell they were worried. They paged a doctor to come and get a second opinion. After the doctor checked me, she calmly told me that I was in labor, was 5cm dilated, and that they were going to do everything they possibly could to stop the labor. I had no idea what they were talking about but as soon as she said that and Adam and I agreed, it was like a damn hurricane, tropical storm, and earthquake all rolled into one.

I had IV's inserted, was given a strongggg cocktail of drugs, but the most powerful, painful, burning one I got the most of was Magnesium Sulfate. That crap is the devil. It felt like my body was burning from the inside out. They were pouring ice on me and bringing in mini fans- apparently this is a common side effect- so they didn't seem concerned when I said I felt like I was going to catch on flames.

The plan was give me the strongest and most powerful drugs they could to tell my body to slow the hell down and that it wasn't time to deliver the babies.



It was only a short time between calling home to give them the news and my mom sitting on the chair next to me holding my hand and telling me everything was going to be okay.

So, time was it. Waiting, waiting, hours going by slowly, being checked every so often to ensure I wasn't continually dilating. Adam was in the pull out bed/chair on my left and my mom was in the pull out chair to the right of me. We all tried to sleep a bit but between 2 heart monitors and doctors and every other disruption it was more like we were just resting our eyes.

Finally, the NICU neuro specialist came in to see us. Her job is to meet with the parents of soon to be born premature babies and tell them the risks. It's 3am, I'm all drugged up with ice all over me and my mom and Adam are half asleep, and she is waiting for us to wake up enough for us to talk with her about the babies. The only words I remember coming out of her mouth in the 30 minutes we spoke were brain bleeds and cerebral palsy.

I literally didn't even know what cerebral palsy was. I just knew that her biggest concern was that if these babies come out now, there was a fear of them having cerebral palsy. And honestly, as scary as that sounds, we didn't freak out. I'm sure it was because of the massive amount of drugs I had consumed, but it also was absolutely based on my strong faith and belief that everything was going to be okay.

And I was right. Hours turned into days and each time I was checked I was still the same 5cm dilated. I wasn't considered in labor anymore. About 4 days after being admitted, I was checked and I had reverted back to 4cm dilated. Everyone, but mostly me, were elated! 

They were going to discharge me with the hope that things would stay the same. Bed rest? was my only concern. These world class doctors assured me that I could walk around all day long or I could hang upside down all day and neither would change the natural course my body was going to take. So, go back to relaxing and taking it easy but no bed rest and I had to have the babies heart rates checked every week to ensure they were okay. Sweeter words hadn't been spoken- now I could attend my baby shower in person and not through skype while laying in a hospital bed.

The last and most important thing they told me was- every day you stay pregnant, you are giving your babies 3 days less in the NICU. My ultimate goal was 34 weeks- good chance of no NICU time but my secondary goal was 30 weeks. I was 28.5 weeks pregnant at the time.

Home sweet parent's home I went!

...to be continued...

Baby Shower Day! (twins born 3 days later)