The Babies Are Here!

The goal was to make it to 38 weeks, and when I developed preeclampsia that goal got downgraded to 37 weeks and 1 day, and then when a weekend in my 36th week arrived where no one could watch Zachary and the on-call doctor was described as "not warm and fuzzy," my personal goal was to make it to 36 weeks and 4 days.

I made it to my goal! On Monday, June 18th at around 6 pm, I started feeling crampy and odd, so I asked to be placed on the monitor to view my contractions.  They were around 7 minutes apart -- not too unusual that late in a twin pregnancy and they do not necessarily indicate labor.  In fact, the week before, I had contractions about 6 minutes apart, and I could just tell that despite the consistency, I was not in labor.  This was a little different, but I still can't verbalize how.

The nurse called my warm-fuzzy OB, who just happened to be on his way into the hospital for another patient.  By the time I saw him, I was dilated to 2 cm.  He also told me that my ultrasound that day showed that my baby girl had an abdomen in the 10th percentile, which was the first time ever that we had an indication that either of my babies might not be tolerating my blood pressures well.  So he let me know that we were going to have babies that night by c-section.

I cried.  I cried at the thought that one of my biggest fears -- that my newborn would be taken away to the NICU before I could hold her -- had just become much more likely of a prospect than I had let myself believe.  And I cried because I had to break the news to The Husband that something might be wrong with one or both of his children (and because I would have to wait for him for an hour to get to the hospital).  And I cried because I was just not prepared mentally to suddenly have two babies.  Hell, the nursery still was not done.

I was wheeled down to triage in a stretcher and The Husband arrived shortly thereafter.  He wasn't scared.  He was joking about my blood pressures, and about sitting in the same uncomfortable chair in triage room seven many times before (including when I was admitted to the hospital a few weeks prior, and twice during the hospital stays during the Zachary pregnancy).

My OB told us that we were 6th in line.  He also said not to be scared, but there would be a lot of people in the room; because my children would be born pre-term, NICU staff would be there to evaluate them.

I was taken into the operating room at around 9 pm.  Just viewing the two baby warmers and all of the people in the room caused my blood pressure to reach 200/120.

At 9:11 pm, "Baby A", Samantha Mary Jane, was delivered kicking and screaming.  About 3 minutes later, "Baby B", aka Conor James, made his arrival, also screaming (my OB told me Conor had not been so intent on joining the party).  They were both taken to their separate warmers where I heard apgar scores of 8 and 9, Samantha's weight of 5 lbs, 10 oz, and Conor's weight of 5 lbs, 1 oz.  I also heard that news that my babies were perfectly healthy and would not need to go to the NICU.  I cried.

I was finally able to hold them in recovery (despite the fact that some thoughtless nurse tried to inform me that I would not be able to do more than look at them until I could move my feet).  My babies were unbelievably tiny and cute in that old-man sort of way that all newborns look.  I love them dearly.

Welcome to the world, Samantha and Conor.

And because this is the post about their birth, I'll leave this one with that.  :)