Labor and Delivery

Looking and feeling huge!

That Thursday morning was pretty much the most exciting morning of our lives.  We arrived at the hospital feeling nervous/excited/anxious/moderately terrified. We met with the doc and he confirmed that we would go ahead with the induction.  After having taken the Bradley class we were disappointed to have to induce but on the other hand I was thrilled to be ending the discomfort of pregnancy! At 10:00 the nurses started the Pitocin and told us they would increase the dosage every 30 minutes. 


Time to start the Pitocin!

The doctor also broke my water. The funny thing about him breaking my water was that I didn't realize he was going to do it! As far as I knew, he was just doing a "check" of my cervix.  I was doing my best to ignore what he was doing to my lady parts, making some awkward conversation and I look down and he's holding what looks like a crochet hook.  Aaaand suddenly I'm feeling like I peed the bed. I mean, I knew he was going to break the water at some point I just didn't realize that he meant he was going to break it right at that moment! That made it seem very real!

Until about 2:00 I really wasn't bothered too much by the contractions.  Yes, they were happening but not so bad that it hurt.  We joked about whether I'd rather do the contractions or a Crossfit workout called Fran-I chose the contractions.... until about 2:00.   Once the pain started, it became pretty intense right away.  I wish I could describe the pain a little better but the best I can do is to say that it felt like someone was wringing out my insides. My muscles felt like they were seizing and becoming frozen.  It was sort of like being trapped under a wave-it takes you by surprise and before you know it you can't figure out which was is up and you're pretty sure you're going to die when it finally lets up and you find the surface again.

I should also mention how difficult it was to track these girls on the monitors.  I'd experienced this multiple times already with all of my other visits but it was even more annoying this time.  The fetal heart monitors are basically like wearing an elastic belt with jelly smeared underneath it.  I got to wear 3 of them, one for each of the girls and one to monitor the contractions. I guess it's a good thing my belly was so huge in order to have room for all the dumb monitors!  The girls' heart rates were nearly identical from the very beginning.  Each ultrasound we had the girls' heart rates were within 3-4 of each other. The nurses were always concerned that we were only tracking one baby so they'd come in, wiggle the monitors around, stare at the computer screen muttering about one baby or two and finally decide that they were in fact tracking two kids. We'd had this experience with all of our other visits so I should've known to expect it but it seemed even more annoying when I was in serious pain.  The other thing that sucked about it was that I felt like once they were satisfied with the locations of the monitors I couldn't move because it would screw them up.  So that meant no walking around, no bathroom breaks, etc.

The anesthesiologist arrived to give me the epidural around 3:00.  By that time the pain was pretty intense and I was having a more and more difficult time relaxing through the contractions. The whole process of getting an epidural is some what of a joke because they ask unreasonable things of a largely pregnant woman who is out of her mind with pain.  Swing your legs over and sit up on the edge of the bed, yeah right... I'll just swing my legs over there.... now just curl yourself into a ball and round your back as much as possible... uhhh have you noticed the giant belly in the way of rounding my back??? Ok now just hold reaaaaal still or I'll probably paralyze you... um excuse me??  I'm over here experiencing the most pain I've ever had in my entire life!  Kinda hard not to squirm a little!  Once the epidural was done and the medication kicked in I felt a million times better, I could still feel the pressure of the contractions but the extreme pain was mostly gone. My mom, Greg's mom and my little brother came and kept us company while we waited.

Excited daddy ready to head to the OR

At about 6:00 I started feeling like I was ready to push.  Basically, I felt like I needed to poop. Real bad. The doctor wanted me to continue to "labor down" and wait to start pushing as long as possible to save my strength for pushing 2 girls out.  So I waited another hour. (Which felt like a lifetime). During that hour they administered some magnesium in order to lessen the chance for seizures since I was preeclamptic.  They finally had the OR prepped and wheeled me down to get me set up. I was shocked to see the giant production was waiting for us.  There was a nurse for each baby, one for me, the regular technicians, the doctor, a midwife, and the anesthesiologist and his team. 

The funny thing about having an epidural is that your legs are basically useless.  Getting my legs up into the stirrups was sort of hilarious.  The nurse couldn't seem to get the left one adjusted so that my leg wouldn't fall out and it did just that- fell out. Numerous times.  Eventually Greg gave up on the stupid thing and just decided to hold my leg instead.

It's at this point when things get a little hard to remember for me. The magnesium made everything a little harder to focus on, plus left me feeling woozy. It was time to start pushing.  The midwife and Greg helped me lift my torso up and push. Throughout each push my brain went fuzzy and I could focus on only one thing at a time.  Sometimes it was the sound of Dr. Tool's voice counting and encouraging, other times it was the midwife's sweet smile and voice, but mostly it was Greg's excited/anxious voice encouraging me and telling me how well I was doing.  With each contraction I felt like I was making progress.  Don't get me wrong, it was the hardest thing I've ever done, but I felt like little by little I was getting closer to meeting my sweet Hannah. After about 15 minutes of pushing Greg announced excitedly, "I can see her head! And she has hair!" That was all the encouragement I needed to keep pushing and 15 minutes later my sweet Hannah arrived.   They briefly set her on my tummy then cleaned her up and brought her back over to me.  I looked at my sweet girl and wouldn't you know it, she opened her eyes and looked right back at me.  I told her how much I loved her and watched as she took in this new crazy world. 

After they took Hannah to the nursery, my brain became even more fuzzy and my whole body began shaking violently and uncontrollably. My contractions continued but were far apart and much wimpier.  The doctor considered giving me more Pitocin but Emersyn's little heart rate would drop with each contraction so they couldn't increase the Pitocin and Dr. Tool decided to let me "labor down" again.  So basically we just waited.  And waited. And waited some more.  During our long wait Dr. Tool showed Greg that Hannah's umbilical cord was knotted.  He said that he had only seen that a few times in his career.  He is obviously bored during our long wait because he starts rolling the knot up and down the piece of cord and tells Greg that it's going to be a while so if he wanted to go talk to our moms and check on Hannah he had time.  Greg left for about 10 minutes to talk to them.

Eventually I started pushing again.  This time the pushing felt completely different.  I didn't feel like I was making any progress.  I kept saying to Greg, "I don't feel like I'm doing this right....something feels different...." I pushed and pushed and it still didn't seem like she was moving at all.  Come to find out, she was sunny side up- meaning her body was facing my belly rather than my spine- and that was what was causing the pushing to seem so difficult.  I began to feel pretty exhausted and hopeless.  I remember telling Dr. Tool to do "whatever you have to do" to get her out somewhat hoping that he would say that we were going to have to do a C-section so that I could be done with my part of it.  Dr. Tool kind of nonchalantly told me to chill out and that we would cross that bridge when we get there.  After a few more pushes he explained the pros and cons to using a vacuum or forceps and Greg told him to go ahead with the forceps.  Once he got the forceps in place it was only a few more pushes and my little Emersyn arrived. I don't remember them putting her on my chest but things were pretty fuzzy at that point so maybe they did.... they took her over and began cleaning her up and I remember freaking out because she wasn't crying.  It was only a few seconds but it seemed like an eternity and I felt such a relief when I heard her little voice for the first time.  They brought her over so I could see her and I fell in love immediately.

Once they took Emersyn off to the nursery I was finally allowed to have some water.  Greg sat me up and gave me a sip which I promptly choked on.  Since I couldn't really use my abs I couldn't cough. Funny enough, it wasn't preeclampsia, labor or delivery that almost killed me--it was an ice chip.  Ha! After a while, I sent Greg to check on the girls while Dr. Tool stitched me up.  It took an hour or so for him to finish, most of which, I don't remember - whether that's due to the amnesia they say mothers have after giving birth or the magnesium they had me on I don't know. I do remember continuing to shake uncontrollably and even more violently than before. Finally they wheeled me to the nursery where I got my first good look at my girls.

They were so tiny! And hooked up to so many monitors and tubes. Both girls were 5lbs 7oz. Hannah was 18.75" long and Emersyn was 18.5". Looking at Hannah my brain was so fuzzy that I couldn't count her toes and I thought she was missing one! I had my mom count them for me just to be sure. Turns out they were all there. :) My legs were still of no use to me so I couldn't leave my bed and I was shaking so badly that I didn't think I could hold the girls anyways, especially with all the wires, so I had to be satisfied to just sit and stare.  Dr. Tool came in to check on me and the girls and he noticed I was shaking terribly still so he tucked me into my bed with a heated blanket.

The labor and delivery experience is not exactly what I had dreamed of but we were able to have both girls without a C-section and everyone was healthy.  I couldn't ask for more.