The Post You've All Been Waiting For - Part 4 - A (Very Long) Birth Story

30 Weeks Pregnant, at a hotel in Chicago.

April 28. It was 4am and I hadn't been to sleep yet. I'd tossed and turned, checked the clock, browsed my facebook... but not slept. I was up, trying to snack on granola while pulling my hair into tight french braids. I'd been wearing that hair style almost every day for 2 weeks while we tried every safe home-induction method we could think of to try to avoid pitocin, but they had all failed and we were one hour from checking in at our local hospital. Through the night I had had several decent contractions, but no pattern: same as the 14 days leading up to that morning.

We got in the car and the nervous nausea hit. "Don't forget, you have to stay with H, 'cause she will need you more than I will while I'm pushing A out."  It was a plan we had hashed through a dozen times.  The Dr was fine with H going straight to my chest, and me meeting her, but then she was going to be moved to an incubator until her brother showed up. And we were worried about her. She barely passed kick counts, and we had spent the first week of the month frantically worried about her after an ultrasound had been poorly read and we were told that she was a high risk baby.

Bed rest buddy! Preterm labor signs at 32 weeks meant 2 wks bedrest.

We had already been worried about her. She was hard to feel due to both placentas being on the front of my uterus, and she was fairly inactive. She never responded to our touch or voices like her brother did, and between our 20 week and 32 week ultrasounds she had gone from 20% bigger than her brother to 20% smaller. 

In March we had an ultrasound that showed a marginal placental previa, which meant that if H's placenta didn't move, we'd have to have a c-section. So we scheduled an ultrasound for April 1st.

Working on the nursery in March - almost there!

At a weekly movement monitoring sessions. At least it was a comfy seat!

Then the April 1st ultrasound showed potentially disastrous issues with her placenta. While it had moved far enough to not be a placental previa, we were told that she had a VCI that was very close to the cervix, creating the possibility (though only slight) of vasa previa, where the veins of the umbilical cord are attached to the cervix, meaning that going into labor can shred them and cause the baby to bleed to death. The VCI without the vasa previa meant potential malnourishment, a fragile umbilical cord and, due to position, increased the risk of umbilical prolapse. Our Dr B sent us to a specialist here in town for a more detailed ultrasound, scheduled a non-stress-test ultrasound to check the health of both babies and recommended we fully transfer care to our local hospital.

So we did.

And, over the course of the week it took to get from the very ugly diagnosis to our ultrasound with the specialist, we cried and prayed and cried and prayed and cried and prayed...

And had the stress test ultrasound, which H didn't do well at. She technically got her points, after a lot of being pushed and coaxed, but it took every second of her 30 minutes. A, on the other hand, got all of his points within about 8 minutes.

Then we had the ultrasound with the specialist and, guess what? The diagnosis had either been completely false, or God had just fixed it. There was slight separation of the veins in the cord, (instead of being one thick cord as it entered the placenta, it was divided into its 2 veins and 1 artery just outside the placenta) but it was in a safe location and only very slight.

To this day, we wonder if the bad ultrasound was just to get us to move care closer to home.

Anyway, the specialist cleared us for an attempt at a natural birth and assured us that H was within normal size ranges and referred us to a Dr L here that he knew was capable and willing to fight for a natural twin delivery. At that point, both babies were head-down, so we were prime candidates. He also scheduled us for a weekly AFI ultrasound and 30 minute monitoring session.

36 Weeks

At our first appointment with our new dr at 36 weeks pregnant, I was 2cm and 80% and she was convinced I wouldn't make it another week, but scheduled an induction for the 28th anyway.

On the 20th of April I had called my birth assistant/midwife and she spent the evening sitting with me, counting contractions, which weren't quitting, but didn't seem to be getting stronger after a very long day of off and on labor. I had been taking every safe "helpful" supplement I could get my hands on, walking, and other various things to induce, so it wasn't a strong labor pattern.

So E (my midwife) called a chiropractor friend because we felt like my hips were horrifically off, and they were. After a late night adjustment and with labor still piddling around, I decided to go ahead and go to the hospital and see if they could lightly encourage what I already had, as opposed to going in for a full jump start a week later.

Well, after walking halls at the hospital and labor completely fizzling out, we all went home at 2am. I spent the next day crying. All day. I was finally having to give up the last little bit of control I had felt like I had with my birth plan. Over 18 weeks it had gone from a home birth with a pool for labor and a fire in the fireplace to this: a pitocin induction and pushing babies out in a cold, sterile operating room. We had been told that we probably would have to have a c-section, then that our baby girl would probably die if we didn't have a section, then that we were fine to have a natural birth and she was perfectly safe. We had been from midwife care to OB care to specialist care and now to a new OB.

Easter Egg hunt, 37 weeks.

It was a lot. Going to the hospital that Sunday night had been a silly, impractical decision from a birth point of view, but it was essential for my emotional sanity. After that day I was able to let go. I was able to spend the next 6 days taking naps and trying to clean up the house. (That's  difficult when you have gained 65 pounds in 26 weeks and your hips, back and feet despise you with) I was able to look forward to laying in bed and letting pitocin bring on the contractions without my aching feet having to walk or my nauseated stomach having to swallow any more pills.

We had worked out a detailed plan with our new doctor.  Light pitocin to start things, then turn it off. Epidural port placed, but no meds, at 7 cm. Epidural started as I was pushing H out, so that if we had to do a version wouldn't be unbearable or a section wouldn't be under general if either were required.


It made sense. I figured it was a 12-14 hour plan. But nope. 

It was fast. 

It was all. So. Fast.

Weeks of carrying so much weight, of Helena being so low, of so much pressure and so much prep -- I don't think we made it over a 10 on the pitocin drip (that's a nothing, by the way) and I never actually made it to 10cm. We started pit at 8am, and had both babies before 2pm.

 

I'll never forget how angry I was when they started wheeling me to the OR. 20 minutes before they had said I was a 7. With Gavin, 7cm happened 5 hours before he was born. FIVE. HOURS. I had no idea I was in transition, I just thought it was the worst pre-transition labor that had ever happened. Ever. Anywhere in the history of the world. I was dying, and convinced I had 4 hours of labor left. I remember thinking "I'm soooo glad we're set up for an epidural, because I cannot do this flat on my back in a cold room for 4 hours!" and then I hissed (or yelled, or said... I felt like hissing...) between contractions that I wanted my epidural NOW. Quinn and Eva were laughing at me, but I had no idea why. I felt like I was being drug into a dungeon or torture and flames for the rest of eternity... 

And it was back labor. I felt completely gypped. I wasn't supposed to have back labor. Everybody says I was pushing involuntarily -- I guess I was, but truth is I was just focusing every bit of energy and strength I had on my low back and tailbone because of the horrific back labor pain. Turns out Helena was posterior. Go figure. 

They got me onto the table and propped my feet on the stirrups and the anaesthesioligist was there asking me all kinds of light hearted, weird questions. Thankfully, I knew he was making sure I was staying cognitive while dosing my port with a shot of something, or I would have been ticked off. Then they let me push her out.

She was so tiny. And skinny. And intense. Her huge eyes burned into mine as soon as they put her quiet little self on my chest. She was 5lb, 14 oz, but so long... and I felt my heart breaking. Isn't that terrible? But she needed to stay with me. She needed to be warm and close to me in that freezing, bright, noisy room, but ugly blue gloves had to carry her away. I kept trying to see her while they were monitoring Adoniram, and I was so glad to see Quinn hovering over her bed, holding her hand, just like we had said.

The drug in my epi port kicked in about then, and I'm so glad, because I wasn't paying attention, but I was later informed that they had held Adoniram in place internally after breaking his water. I didn't feel it. I didn't know. I was just looking for my girl. And then his cord prolapsed, which would have meant emergency section with a lot of doctors, but my doctor simply pushed him back up into the birth canal, moved his cord up behind him and let me push him down again. Also would have been horrifically painful without the epidural...  But less than 10 minutes after she was born, her brother followed her. He was 18 oz bigger, and his faces was all scrunched up into an unhappy pout, but he felt and sounded and smelled so sweet when I pulled him close to my face. I had to fight for him a bit -- I kept reaching for him, and caught hold of him and pulled him up to me, but there was a nurse I was fighting over him with. It didn't annoy me until later, then it made me mad. 

See, Adoniram was breathing to fast and too shallow. His respiration were high and he was fighting for each breath. He was a good color, and he was snuggling close to my chest and had strong movements, but it only took them a minute to pull him away from me too. They brought Helena back to me right away, but it took a while for them to bring him back. When they did, I held them both for a minute before Quinn leaned in and talked very softly in my ear. "He's not breathing well, girly, they want to take him to NICU for a few hours." 

I don't know if I said anything. I just remember thinking "but he's perfect." 

And he pretty much was. 

(quick shout out to sarahcarterphotos.com for being such a sweet, quiet presence while taking such beautiful pictures! Thank you! ) 

Quinn didn't get to hold Helena until after he had spent a couple hours with Adoniram at the NICU -- this is in my recovery room, holding her for the first time. 

Gavin and Helena

 4 hours later his respirations were down and they let me nurse him in the NICU, but since they had already started him on a glucose drip (grrrrrrr) he had to be fully admitted and they kept him 48 hours in that nasty, lonely little room on a forced 3 hr feeding schedule. (to be fair, the nurses were very sweet and loved on and talked to him a lot...but he wasn't with us.) 




I look back and I don't know how I did it. 2 days and 2 nights, feeding Helena in our room every chance I got, and working through stressful, frantic feedings in the NICU on the other end of our floor every 3 hours. Poor bubber was desperately hungry every time, and they were giving him a pacifier when I wasn't there (nurses thought it was odd, but around an hour before feeding time, every time, he would have a meltdown.) so he was confused and had a hard time nursing effectively. The first night I had to call a nurse to wheel me there, but the second morning my legs were so swollen that they were worried about blood clots and made me walk it every time, so I spent 36 hours walking back and forth by myself while Quinn kept Helena, who wasn't allowed out of the postpartum ward and couldn't go near the NICU. 

Visiting my newborn boy when he was 4 hours old. Right before they let me nurse him.

Telling Quinn that his respirations were down and that I was going to be allowed to feed him.

That was Monday night, all day Tuesday, Tuesday night and then on Wednesday the director of the NICU ordered them to let me nurse on demand so that they could wean him off the glucose faster. (They were taking it down one point every time he had a good blood sugar number before a feeding) 
 

Sweet, skinny little Helena. This was as close to uncovered as I could bear for her to be. It was so hard to keep her warm! 

We were discharged Wednesday afternoon, but he wasn't. He was off the glucose by 9pm, but had to be observed for 12 hours before he could go home, and we thanked God for a team of nurses that loved us and him, because they fought hard to get us a care-by-parent room, even though we technically weren't the kind of family that needed one.  

We left Helena with the nurses on Tuesday so we could both spend some time with Adoniram. This was the first time Quinn got to hold him.

Me and my Dommy-Boy.

It was an uncomfortable, long night in a dark, depressing room, but we were finally together. The next day they let us go home, and Mom brought Gavin home, and it finally started feeling like we were a family. 
 

Quinn waiting for me to call and say he could bring Helena to our family room...

And me waiting for Quinn and Helena after they let Adoniram leave NICU

Babies together for the first time. 

I feel like how I closed Gavin's birth story fits pretty well here. Like Gavin's birth story "It wasn't something amazingly beautiful, and it most definitely wasn't perfect, but every bit of it was God led, and it was miraculous, and it brought us the loves of our lives, and it taught us how to love each other more deeply. Our special somebodies have faces now, and names, and know our voices and looks into our eyes and melt our hearts every time we look into theirs."

our family.