Birth Story

I started this post several times several months ago, but each time I somehow managed to lose it before I got it published. It's such an emotionally draining post, that I just put it aside and decided to wait a while before I attempted it again. But now that I look at our two bottomless pits who are finally flourishing, I feel like I'm ready to try this post one more time.

This post is really just for my recollections, I don't expect anyone else to be too interested so feel free to just peruse the photos.

Our original due date was September 2, 2009 and our plan was to deliver on August 20 (38 weeks). We basically chose the date and thought the 20th would be neat because all three boys' birthdays would be a 20th. At around 30 weeks, the perinatologist started noticing that baby A was not keeping up with his brother in size. At our 32 week appt. as the peri was doing the scan, he asked the nurse how baby A was looking. It was one of those moments, that as a parent, you never forget. She said, "he's down to 8%" and with the ultrasound wand still in hand, the peri immediately walks over to her computer to look at the stats. At this point, they started preparing us for the idea that we probably needed to deliver at 36 weeks instead of 38. We went for one last appt. the day before our scheduled delivery just to make sure everything was still the same; thankfully he hadn't dropped any further otherwise we would have delivered immediately. The peri felt the babies would be around 5 pounds and 6 1/2 pounds respectively.

Besides the absolutely enormous stress of delivering early because there might be something wrong, we also had to deal with the fact that my o.b. was out of town for my new due date. I had a chance to choose a new o.b. in my practice and meet with her before the delivery, but it was just one more stress for the day.

They couldn't fit me into the OR until 1:30 PM, so we didn't even check into the hospital until 11:30 AM. And I looked like this...

Yeah, that's 4 feet around of baby in case you were wondering.

The hour before the delivery was probably my most uncomfortable because I had to lay on my back so they could keep heart monitors on both babies. I can't believe by 2009 we don't have a better way to do that.

Then we were off to the OR; I actually walked to the OR this time instead of being wheeled in like R's delivery. The delivery itself went very smooth and I was never so happy to take a full breath as I was after baby B was on the outside!

Pictures of the delivery - skip over if you don't like birth grossness.

Owen was born at 1:56 PM weighing just 4 lb. 14 oz. and 17.5 inches long.

Brooks was born one minute later at 1:57 weighing 6 lbs. 9 oz. and 19 inches long. This face should have been a warning for our next few months with this one.

Immediately following birth, Owen was actually doing pretty well but Brooks' blood sugars were low so the nurses wanted to give him some formula. In my surgical haze, I went with it. Now, I wish I would have asked them to just wait a bit as I'm pretty sure he would have been fine. But since he was early and a twin, I think they act a little more cautiously.

No idea which baby I'm holding in either of these pictures.

B (Thing 2) all cleaned up

O (Thing 1) with all his hook ups and his n/g tube. It still breaks my heart to see how tiny my baby was next to his Daddy's hand.

B with his hook ups but before he had to get the n/g tube.
The recovery room was a total haze to me. I had the shakes you get post anesthesia, and they were really bad this time; I couldn't control them. Then apparently I started bleeding much more than they wanted and the room started filling with doctors to assess the situation. They got it under control finally, but I think it was a little more serious than they let me know. The pediatric nurses decided while still in the recovery room that both boys needed to go to the Progressive Care Nursery. I am so glad they didn't need the full NICU, but it still meant they were away from us and deemed not strong enough to be in my room with us.

Because of this and my c-section, I didn't get to see O for almost 24 hours after he left the recovery room ( I had to be mobile first). I was still fairly drugged at this point which is probably good, because it makes me sick to think he was without his mommy for the first day of his life; that is not how it's supposed to happen. B was strong enough for the nurses to bring him to my room for a bit that first night; but I was still missing one of my boys. So the next morning I finally got to see O in the nursery. By this point he was in the isolette and had the n/g tube.

Me getting to hold O for the first time since the recovery room.

Now I realize, we were extremely blessed and our babies were very healthy overall. We weren't in the NICU, our boys didn't have alarms going off due to lack of breathing or heart stopping; so I know we were fortunate. But I don't think I will ever experience anything as gut wrenching as the process of putting my baby into a "box" and closing the door and walking away. To this day, I tear up every time I think about it or look at pictures. O was just so tiny, and his doghouse as the nurses called it, just made him look that much frailer.

The next 10 days are still a blur and I'm sure me not remembering all the details is probably best. The boys got n/g tubes their first night or second morning and O went in the isolette about the same time. B was allowed to come to our room during the day for the majority of the day. This meant he was unhooked from his monitors and made several nurses question why he was even in the nursery (we still question this also). We tried each feed to nurse then bottle and then usually finished with a tube feed. They were expending so many calories just to try eating, that we had a time limit and had to move to the tube feed if they couldn't get enough down in the allotted time.

Thing 2 with his n/g tube.

I'm not sure the nurses knew what to do with S and me because we were so hands on. There were 8 babies in this nursery, including our two, and some parents just weren't able/unwilling to be present much of the day. I know one of the babies had moved down from NICU and was already several months old, so mom and dad had already returned to work so they could take time off when he finally came home. A few others lived a long distance away and had other children, so they could only come sporadically. And one poor baby, we only saw his parents once. They flitted in reeking of smoke, dropped off some diapers and clean clothes and left without even holding him.

S and I, on the other hand, couldn't keep our hands off our babies. We stayed an extra night at the hospital, so we were there 24/7 for the first 4 days and either had B in our room and went to the nursery for feedings, or went to them both in the nursery for feedings. There was a specific routine we went through every time.

• Scrub down outside
• Push button to get into the nursery
• Sign into said nursery
• Decide which baby to rush over to first
• Usually divide and conquer with both babies (you take O and I'll take B)
• Take their temp - B had to maintain a specific temp to stay "on the outside" and we were working to get O's temp to stay up while dropping the doghouse temp
• Change diapers while working around all the wires
• Finally get those babies in our arms and start the stress of trying to get them to eat - When I look at my bottomless pits now, I laugh to think of all we went through to get them to eat in the hospital. We spent hours, moving O's jaw up and down because he was just too tired and small to do it himself. Now, I have to shove the Cheerio in and move my hand to make sure I keep all 10 digits!

Anyway, the nurses were not used to such hands on parents, but we spoiled them. Us being there gave them two less babies to feed and change each time. We even got to the point of doing the tube feeds ourselves. They'd bring us the supplies, we'd hook it into the baby's tube, attach it to something high, and start the syringe. On the day of our discharge, Elizabeth, our favorite nurse, told me we weren't allowed to go home. I panicked for a minute, but then she told me she wasn't going to allow it because she almost had me trained enough to work in there full time : ).

Here's big brother with B. He was such a trooper through all of this. Two new brothers, mommy in the hospital an extra day, babies still in the hospital, and starting Kindergarten 9 days after they were born.

This is our first picture as a family of five! O is in his box.

So much easier to hold two at this point! They stayed where I put them. Check out all my awesome bracelets! I was so happy to cut a few off when we got home; but we had to keep our main ones on to get back in each day. My favorite one was the bright yellow one - FALL RISK.

O with no tube. Both boys pulled their tubes out on two consecutive nights. Thankfully, they continued to eat well, so we didn't have to put them back in.

O pulled his tube out on day 8, I think, and the nurse we had that day decided to try to wean him off his box the same day. My gut said this probably wouldn't work, but I still struggled to speak my opinion to the professionals. Needless to say, when we came back that night, he was back in his box. But we tried again the next day at a slower rate, and he graduated that time. He had to be out of the box for 24 hours before we could discharge and at that point we were just waiting on him; B was ready.

O in his open bed again.

Finally, ten looooong days after our babies were born, we got sprung. Again, I realize how blessed we were, and 10 days really isn't anything in the range of problems we could have had, but it's still not your picture perfect beginning to life.

B on the left, O on the right. I still can't believe how tiny they were when we brought them home. O's head was about the size of a grapefruit, if not smaller.

Determined to get our family of five off to a good start, we went for a stroll around the neighborhood the day after they got home.

I thank God everyday, for our three miracles and now truly believe that everything does happen in the time it's meant to. These boys were a long wait, and a long road filled with despair and disappointment, but our lives would not be the same without R, O, and B in them. I love you sweet boys.