the birth story

a while back i wrote this post about my pregnancy with the girls. afterwards, i had a few people ask to hear about the girls' birth story. 

i don't have anything else to write about at the moment, so here goes...

{july 6}

austin and go in for my 37 week appointment with my perinatologist (a high risk doctor. being a first time preggers and all and having twins, i decided to go to a perinatologist throughout my pregnancy to cover all my bases. but my regular ob would still be the one to deliver me. i was pretty bummed about this because i LOVED my perinatologist. but she only delivered triplets or more... what a surgery snob). i knew that my ob had promised to induce me at 38 weeks, but i went into my perinatologist appointment hoping that she would send me to the hospital to be induced. which she DID! i was only dilated to one, but i was looking pre-eclamptic, baby b had too much fluid in her sac and i had been feeling decreased fetal movement. so we went home, got our stuff and were off to the hospital. 

i was admitted around 6pm and after they monitored the girls and made sure everything looked good, they put in my cervidil. they told me they would start the pitocin at 7am the next morning. after a long night of not being able to sleep too well because of anxiety (and who sleeps well while they're pregnant anyways, especially in a hospital bed), morning arrived. 

{july 7}

they took the cervidil out at 5am and told me i was still dilated to 1. i then took a nice long shower and got myself ready for what i knew would be a long day. when the doctor came in at 7am to check me and see if i was ready for the pitocin, i had dilated on my own to a 5. we were all shocked because i hadn't been experiencing any significant pain, only what felt like regular menstrual cramping. i think i have the shower to thank for this! but before you become too jealous of my quick progression, read on. you'll soon see it was the one and only tender mercy of my entire day. 


she then went ahead and broke my water and put me on a very very small pitocin drip. i then opted for my epidural, because i knew once the pitocin kicked into action, so would the pain. the epidural went great and it was smooth sailing for the next 4 hours or so. 

i started pushing around 1pm. the doctor said that the pushing was going so well, that they were going to go ahead and move me to the operating room by 1:30. 

twin fact: doctor's normally prefer to deliver twins in the operating room, since there is such a high chance of c-section. this includes a c-section of both babies or in some cases where the first baby is born vaginally and the second needs to be sectioned. 

i was so excited because it looked like the girls were going to be making their grand appearance very soon! but my pushing didn't go as well as expected and i wasn't taken to the operating room until after 2. a couple hours and one episiotimy later, ella was born at 3:28 weighing 6lbs 9oz and was 19in.

{i think she cried for 2 seconds after she was born and didn't make a peep for the whole next hour while waiting for her sister to be born}

by this point i was SO exhausted, but we weren't done yet!! in order to make sure that baby b hadn't turned and become breech, an ultrasound tech checked on the second baby. she was still head down so the pushing began again. in between contractions, i was able to hold ella for a minute or two but that was it. i pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed... but this baby was stubborn. i mean, i had just pushed one baby out, shouldn't the second one be easier? my ob definitely thought so! she was getting so frustrated with me and kept telling me "i know you can push harder than this." ya. she wasn't exactly my favorite person at that moment. especially when she mentioned that she needed to get out of their soon because she had to go pick her kids up from something.


so after another hour of pushing and another episiotomy, baby b had to be vacuumed out (which then resulted in more tearing). reese was born at 4:33 weighing 6lbs 7oz and was also 19in.

{the poor thing was so beat up. austin thinks she looks like rocky after one of his fights.}

it turned out that the ultrasound tech was reading the ultrasound wrong the whole time i had been pushing!!! reese wasn't breech, but she WAS face up with her head tilted back. information that would have been useful yesterday! this explained why i had had such a hard time pushing her out. needless to say, my ob apologized (kind of). 

after reese was born, i didn't even get to hold her. her blood sugar was a little low and then my own complications started to unfold, so they took both of the girls to the nursery. after roughly 3 1/2 hours of pushing, i thought that everything was finally over and that i'd be able to get some much needed rest. nope, i was wrong. my placenta was being stubborn and wouldn't deliver. my ob said that we could wait up to a half hour to see if it would deliver on its own, but after that she would have to go in and retrieve it. she figured as she waited, she would go ahead and start sewing me up. as time went on and it got closer to a half hour the anestegiologist was brought back in to up my epidural (to c-section strength in fact. you'll soon see why i was SO grateful he did it that strong). 

well, the half hour mark arrived and no placenta (this condition is called an attached placenta and has a higher rate of occurrence in twins because the placentas sometimes fuse together). the plan was to go in and retrieve it. and when i say go in, i mean up to your elbow in (graphic i know, sorry). not to mention that in doing so, she re-ripped all the stitches she had just sewn. 

she wasn't able to get the whole placenta and i quickly started losing a lot of blood. so much so that they had to ask austin to leave (talk about a terrifying moment. not to mention, i could hear the nurse in the background calling the blood bank for blood and stating "this is an emergency"). i went from a high high from just having two babies to an extremely low low. and now austin wasn't even going to be there to comfort me and tell me everything was going to be ok. luckily, i had an amazing l&d nurse who held my hand and helped me get through it. since the placenta had torn, an emergency dnc was the next step. my ob performed it so quickly that i barely remember her even doing it. and did i mention that by this point my ob is covered in my blood and looking quite flustered. talk about the LAST thing you want to see after just giving birth!  

after the dnc, i received a blood transfusion of two units (after having lost what they estimated was about 2 liters of blood). by this point i was shivering so bad. i think it was a combination of the meds, blood loss, trauma and then the transfusion (the blood is cold). my teeth were chattering so hard that i thought i was going to crack a tooth. i was also pretty delusional by this point after going through everything. they took me back to my l&d room so they could keep an eye on me for the next 12 hours or so. later that night, around 10 or 11 i saw my family for the first time since delivering (including reese and ella). i also got to hold reese for the first time, but i was so exhausted that i had to ask them to take the girls back to the nursery after only 15 minutes or so where they then spent their first night. that was sad. my mom stayed with me that night (thank goodness for moms) and i was transfered to my regular room the next morning. needless to say, hands down the worst night of my entire life. 

but in the end, everything worked out. i left the hospital a day later with 2 healthy babies, a plethora of stitches and a slightly traumatic experience in tow. recovery was brutal. i could barely walk for weeks and the pain was pretty bad at times. but all in all i would do it again, because the joy and happiness i felt certainly outweighed all the fear and pain!

but i'd be lying if i said i wasn't a little nervous (ok a lot nervous) for my next delivery.


here's a few more pics...


{the night we came to the hospital to get induced}

{getting ready to go to the or}

{holding ella while reese is still inside. my sister-in-law pointed out that this is the only family photo we will ever have as a family of 3.}

 {right after reese she was born... she's the one on the left screaming her head off}

{proud papa}



{grandma (my mom) holding both for the first time}

{the day we went home. i love the baby a and baby b on the hats. it cracks me up!}