The Babies are HERE!!

Well, obviously I've been awful at getting this updated. Luckily, it seems like most people are okay with that and they're checking Facebook or with other people in order to get information. The last chunk of my pregnancy wasn't too bad. After Thanksgiving break, however, I was done!! It was so much harder to get up to go to school, and overall there wasn't nearly the ease of movement I enjoyed pre-break.
As we got closer to Winter Break they started having me go to the doctor once a week, and once a week for Non-Stress Testing. What's that? When they strap your belly with monitors and watch the baby's (babies' in my case!) heartbeat. It prints on a sheet of paper, and they decide whether or not they "pass" based on a few things. It has to have a baseline-mine were around 135-and then it had to both go down, AND up. When it went up they had to sustain the "up" level of heartbeat (160-170 ish). The kicker was it has to be traced! These babies moved around so much at first it took over an hour to get them both monitored AND moving toward passing. Both babies passed every NST, which is really nice. They always had fantastic heartbeats, and never showed true signs of stress.
Of course, mom is monitored as well, and it shows the contractions my uterus is making on that same sheet as the babies' heartbeats. The idea is that as the babies move around, their heartbeats go up. Also as contractions cause the babies increased stress, their heartrates should increase. Though the machine showed I had contractions, we attributed most of that to uterine irritability because it was being stretched so far. The last NST I had was December 29, and I finihsed that appointment with a particularly strong and painful contraction, something I hadn't really experiened before. With no other signs of pending change in my status, I was sent home with two dates for Sumi's on-call status to coincide with my birth: Dec 30 and Jan 7. Since I knew they were NOT coming the next day (remember, NST didn't really conclude anything), I started coaxing the babies that it was in all our best interests to come Dec 30. Eddie kept telling me my body was going to hold onto our babies, and that was just a terrible thought at this point! I could hardly move, eat, breathe, anything!!
Luckily the next morning I had to take Eddie to work. We'd carpooled home after my Doctor's appointment Wednesday, and he had to be to work at 7:30 am Thursday. He woke me, gave me my Heparin shot, and then re-woke me after his shower to leave. I got up, went to the bathroom, and my water broke right then! I called Eddie and told him he was going to be late, beacuse I was pretty sure I was going to the hospital and staying, not just dropping him off! If that was going to happen, I was taking a shower first, and definitely getting something to eat. Turns out that was a very good decision, becuase all they did was weigh me before printing my chart and sending me to Overlake. Eddie had called his work and told them he'd be late, then when we found out we were headed to labor and delivery, we just walked over there (from GHC there's a tunnel to Overlake). We had to pass by Radiology first, of course, and they were all very excited for us, telling us good luck! It was SO nice they were all so excited for us!
We got to Overlake and saw Sumi and the other on-call OB, who told me to finish my yogurt/fruit/granola cup BEFORE I went upstairs or they'd take it from me. I asked Sumi if I could eat, and she said yes, but that the nurses upstairs likely wouldn't agree. Turns out she was VERY right. They wouldn't let me having ANYTHING except water until Sumi told them directly I could have lunch (which she agreed to around 1). They checked to make sure I'd leaked amniotic fluid (Yup!), then checked us into a labor and delivery room. Even though I was a twin birth, and so I'd actually deliver in the operating room, I got to labor down in the regular rooms, which was MUCH more comfortable than a freezing cold operating room. We spent what seemed like hours there with nothing much going on. Sumi even told me it needed "to hurt more" in order to make her happy. Not me though! Geez! Sumi agreed to lunch, and by about 2 I was in full fledged contraction pain. I still could eat if I wanted, but lunch didn't get there until 2:25 and by that point I was not in any type of condition to eat. The contractions made me feel like throwing up, and didn't let up enough for me to eat more than half my pickle and a few bites of grilled cheese. Eddie ended up eating more of it than I did!!
Sumi came back, saw my face, and said it was Epidural time. I was SO happy!! Regardless of whether I was "dosed" (given the medication of an epidural), a line was going to be set anyway because of the twins...easier to operate on an epiduraled patient than an anesthetized one, I guess. So, in the line went. I opted FOR drugs, and am SO glad I did. I felt so much better, and was able to hold a conversation again with ease, which also meant I was much more rational about what was going on, and much more able to contribute to my care. We spent hours like this, until around 10pm; when checked I was good to push. I took some practice pushes that got us nowhere, and then we paused for a bit to make sure I was actually as ready as Sumi thought I was. We pushed, and then realized the babies could end up born on different days, which Eddie wanted but I did not. I was adamant that was NOT going to happen if I had a say in it. So we paused again. It got close to midnight and we started up again, but my uterus was having NONE of it. It just stopped contracting. They upped the pitocin levels to the max, and around 4:30 realized that nothing was going to make it work properly. Apparently it's a side-effect of multiples, since it had to stretch so far, that it just wasn't going to help me push out either baby. :-( I wasn't happy at all, becuase it meant automatic C-section. At that point though, my water'd been broken for 22 hours or so, and the babies really needed to be delivered. So, into the operating room we went, not for a nice, proper delivery, but for a very unwanted and scary C-section.
It's the only time Sumi said she could see the anxiety on my face (besides pre-epidural when she saw pain of course!). She was right, though I wasn't necessarily worried, Sumi is fantastic at what she does, I was stressed about all sorts of things. Mostly because instead of being in my delivery room with Sumi, my nurse, and Eddie, I now had 5 people or so I didn't even know that were set up to handle my anesthesia and babies. I was worried the babies would be born and wouldn't be tagged (The hospital has a low-jack kinda system where the babies wear an alarm until discharged. If htey get too close to an entry door all sorts of alarms go off! I was glad to hear that!) and then I wouldn't ever see them again (silly, but it DOES happen). I asked three or four times after they were born, and Eddie said "Can you please do your job?" to me, which is what he says when he thinks I'm trying to tell someone else what to do. But I was really worried, I wanted to know my babies were safe, and now they weren't with the people I knew!!
Babies were born at 5:40 (Abigail) and 5:41 am (Jacquelyn), and both received 9's on their 1 and 5 minute Apgars. Good job ladies!! They were born at 35 wks 3 or 4 days, which is still very early, but overall, very good. Abigail was 5lbs 1 oz, and 18" long. Jacquelyn was 5lbs 6 oz, and they measured here at 18 3/4" long. We later found out she's more like 18 1/4" or so.
After birth they went to observation in the nursery for 6 hours. All preemie babies do this so they can make sure they are developed enough to be safe outside 24 hr monitoring. Mine were good, but Jacquelyn couldn't hold her temperature stable so she stayed overnight. The next night she came to the room with us, but the following day Abigail tested high for bellirubin (stuff that causes jaundice), so SHE went to the NICU overnight, under some hot blue lights. She got to wear sunglasses and be naked the whole time, and was able to pull her numbers down by 4 points, enough to get to come home with us!! It was SO nice, that's really all I wanted, babies that were healthy and could come home! We were discharged Sunday, with pain meds, and instructions to come back Tuesday (Monday if possible) so they could check Abby's bellirubin levels again.
The babies are here, fine, and good to go!! It's absolutely fantastic, and has been quite the ride. They're too little to have a developed suck reflex, so they don't nurse well. Means I give them a chance to try, then feed them pumped milk or formula, then pump myself. With two babies that routine takes between 45 minutes and an hour. Geez! That's every 3 hours, from start to start...so for us, it leaves around 2 hours for sleeping, prepping for next time, or finishing other things that need to be done, like baby laundry. It's fantastic though!! The 2-5 am feedings are the worst, because our bodies say sleep, and theirs say eat. But, they are great little girls, and I wouldn't trade them for any amount of sleep!
We're taking lots of pictures, and posting them on Eddie's flickr account because it's much easier for people to find them. I'll try to figure out a way to link it on this page so you can see too!