July 18, 2010

My due date.

Georgia & Miles are already here, laying in their bassinets, and not sleeping, I might add.

I feel like I need to start at the beginning.  The very beginning, when Ian and I decided, “Hey, lets have another baby.”  That was Fall of 2008.  Henry had just turned 2, and we felt like we had left behind all of the “baby” work with him, and we were eager to do it all again, and most importantly, give Henry a sibling.  I got pregnant very easily with Henry, and the thought never crossed our minds that it wouldn’t happen that way again.  Well, Fall turned to Winter, which turned into Spring, and I wasn’t pregnant.  Summer was when I started to get worried. I had a chemical pregnancy in August, which basically means I was pregnant for a few days.   At that point we decided to get a fertility work up to make sure everything was okay with both of us.  Everything was okay, and by Fall, we got the “unexplained secondary infertility” diagnosis.  So where does one go from there?  They say good things come to those who wait.  I say good things come to those who take fertility drugs.  I took the drug Clomid, just 5 little pills you take at the beginning of your cycle.  My dr explained that a woman normally has a 1.5-3% chance of naturally conceiving twins.  This drug would raise my chance to 7%.  Ian and I thought about it for a month, and decided that there was still a really good chance, like 93%, that if I got pregnant, it would be with 1 baby.  And besides, twins just mean you have two babies to love.

You can see where this is going.  Of course I got pregnant the first month, on a very low dose, and at 6 weeks, 3 days, we saw two beautiful heartbeats.

Twins.

Two.

More. Than. One.

My pregnancy went perfectly.  I had a lot of preterm labor scares, but they were only scares.  My body likes to hold onto babies you see.  At 36 weeks, we had an ultrasound, and Baby A was breech.  This meant I had no choice but to have a c-section.  I opted to wait until week 38 instead of week 37, because I know that whatever my body was doing to grow these babies was way better than anything anyone could do for them on the outside.  It is better for them to be born a little early though, after a certain point, the placentas start to break down, and it becomes a less than perfect environment.

At 37 weeks, Baby A flipped back to vertex, so I could choose to try to birth these babies vaginally.  We scheduled my induction for the following Tuesday, I would be 38 weeks, 2 days.

On Tuesday, July 6, I said goodbye to my baby boy, who after the next day would be my big boy, even more so than I could have imagined.  We got to the hospital at 10, and began the induction process.  I had another ultrasound to make sure Baby A (Georgia) was still head down.  She was, and Baby B, was still transverse (sideways.)  My dr didn’t have a problem with this, he felt comfortable either flipping Miles around or delivering him breech.  At that point I was checked for progress, and I was 1cm dialated.  I couldn’t believe that’s all I was.  I’m thoroughly convinced had I not been induced, I would have broken some sort of record for being pregnant with twins for 44 weeks.

Pitocin was started at 12:15.  I labored through mild to moderate contractions throughout the night.  I didn’t get any sleep, the babies kept kicking off their monitors so the nurse was in a lot to monitor their heart rates.  My dr arrived the next morning at 6am, and said he would be back to check on me.  At 7:10, he checked me and I was dialated to 2.  He then broke my water, and that’s when the fun started.  At 7:45 my epidural was placed.  At 9:15 and 10:15 I was only 3 cm, and getting a little discouraged.  I remember looking at Ian and telling him, “I’m not going to get the chance to push these babies out.”  My Dr came back at 11:35 to once again check my progress.  I was dialated to 4cm, but Georgia was in a terrible position for a vaginal birth.  Instead of coming down head first, she was coming down face first.  She even bit my dr’s finger when he was checking me.  The decision was made then that I would have to have a c-section.  I made it to the operating room around 11:50, Ian was at my side by noon.  They began to up my epidural for surgery.  The only problem was I still had feeling in my stomach.  The dr kept pinching me from behind the curtain, and I kept saying “Ow!”  I remember feeling really tired, and telling Ian that I felt like I was going to pass out.  The next thing I know, I wake up, and hear babies crying.  Ian said to me, “We have two beautiful babies.”  Apparently I had to be sedated because the epidural was not working. I’m a little sad that I didn’t get to see them over the curtain, or here the “It’s a girl!” and It’s a boy!,” but I’m happy that I didn’t have to feel the surgery.

Georgia Alice was born at 12:12, weighing 5lbs 3oz and Miles Adam was born at 12:13 weighing 6 lbs, 6oz.  Both are perfectly adorable, and wearing us out.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I forgot to add this to my original post, but it’s one of my favorite parts of the twin’s story.  On Sunday morning after they were born, my OB was on rotation, so he was the one to discharge me.  He came into my room very early, around 5:30, and explained the no lifitng, take it easy, see you in 6 weeks normal c section instructions.  He also said that he was sure I could have delivered those babies vaginally if Georgia would have cooperated.  He also made sure they were just in the normal nursery and didn’t need any NICU time.  As he was leaving, he said, (and I’ll never forget this) “Alright sweetie pie, it’s all over.”  Then after a pause he said, “Either that, or it’s just beginning.”  Boy, was he right.

Poor Georgia’s face is swollen from being stuck face first.