Looking Back

On this day two years ago I was admitted into the hospital for the 

second and final time for pre-term labor. 

The day went something like this:

First thing in the morning Josh brought me up a carnation instant breakfast and grape jelly toast- two of my favorite things while pregnant. 

I couldn't stomach eggs and needed protein so carnation instant breakfast helped a lot. 

Since I was on bedrest I stay upstairs in our master suite until close to noon. 

I watched the Today show followed by Kathy and Hoda. 

This was all a part of a normal daily routine since I could only go up stairs once per day and down once per day.

 Josh usually had plenty of water and snacks for me up stairs as well. 

After my favorite morning shows went off I showered and got ready for the day which usually meant wearing one of my guy's oversized shirts and leggings since my belly was rather large and nothing was really comfortable anymore. 

On this day I actually had to get "dressed" since it I had one of two weekly monitoring appointments. 

Every morning my phone rang and dinged like crazy! 

It was my sweet family checking on me and our sweet growing babies. 

This particular morning my Granny send me a text saying she wanted to see my beautiful face and see how big my bump had gotten- I remember thinking it must have taken her an hour to tap out that text from her little flip phone. 

I'm SO glad she sent me that text. 

It prompted me to take a photo of myself and my bump. 

It turned out to be the very last photo I took of my oversized belly before our babies were born. 

I then went on down the stairs for my once down that day and headed out for my doctor appointment. 

Josh had driven me to all of my appointments except this one. My OB office was literally in my neighborhood, maybe two miles away. 

When I got there they did a non-stress test and I explained that I was still having tightening but nothing painful. My favorite nurse took me down the hall to have an ultrasound done. This time it a labial ultrasound which is something I had never heard of or experienced. 

The ultrasound tech did her thing and told me to stay flat on my back while she asked the doctor a question. She and my nurse returned with a wheelchair and told me that I needed to go to the hospital immediately. Apparently the ultrasound indicated that my cervix was no longer there. 

I tried to get them to let me drive myself back home but they weren't having it and I had to call Josh to pick me up. Thankfully he only worked a mile from my OB office. 

He picked me up and we stopped by our house to grab our bags. 

While I was waiting in the car, trying not to walk more than I had to, I called and ordered a pizza from my favorite pizza place. Josh hopped back in the car and we went to get pizza on the way to the hospital. I remember Josh getting in the car with the pizza and sharing with me that when he mentioned his wife was in labor they really started rushing around to get our order ready. 

It still makes me giggle. 

My belly was so big that the pizza box wouldn't fit between me and the dashboard and had to sit on the dashboard. 

As we drove to the hospital I started having time-able contractions and they were slightly more uncomfortable but nothing that stopped me in my tracks.  

Our office had called the hospital to give them a heads up that we were on the way and we were admitted immediately. 

They gave examined me and started fluids. 

I was 90% effaced and dilated to 4cm. 

It looked as though this was the real deal. 

My goal was to get some rest until labor progressed but by days end labor completely stopped. 

Read how it all turned out here!

This is the first time I have written out the events of that day but I remember it like it was yesterday!

While I am remembering these events I am also celebrating our birthday girls all week long!! 

My Twin Birth Story...

This can also be found in the above link. 

I always imagined one day being pregnant and having the middle of the night wake-up call with close time-able contractions that would finally end the feeling of being huge and uncomfortable like so many women talk about or even being in the grocery store and having "the gush" indicating that my water had broken and it was game time. Unfortunately my birth story is far from normal. Actually it is as abnormal as they come, unprecedented even.

29 weeks. That was the view on my What to Expect when you're Expecting app the night that I felt tightening in my stomach. I felt as though I needed to urinate but I had just laid back down from attempting to do so two previous times with no success. Then I noticed every few minutes, at the same time that I had the urge to go, my stomach was tightening. This tightening wasn't painful or uncomfortable. It was only noticeable due to the pressure it was putting on my bladder. I started timing them out and quickly realized that they were time-able contractions which is one of the differences between Braxton-Hicks contractions and the real deal. Silly me decided that since I wasn't in enough pain to hinder me from falling back asleep that it was, in fact, just Braxton-Hicks contractions. The next morning I gave my OB a call and they had me come-in for a non-stress test which lead to heading down to the hospital for an ultrasound since theirs was booked until the end of the day. By the time I arrived my contractions had become noticeably more frequent and a little uncomfortable. After all of the usual questions they brought in the machine, completed the ultrasound and a cervix check. 3 centimeters and 80 % effaced. That was the results of the cervix check. A flood of emotions came over me. I was almost paralyzed by the words and all I could do was cry. It was too soon. They needed more time to develop and grow. Their lungs weren't developed yet. My mind went in a thousand different directions. Before I had the opportunity to ask any questions they had sent the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) doctors down to answer all of our questions and give us survival rates while simultaneously starting a bolus of Magnesium Sulfate to mature their lungs. Scare was an understatement. I prayed every waking second that my babies stay inside me long enough to get both of the Magnesium doses. Forty-eight hours later we got the second shot and two days later I was sent home on strict bed-rest at 3 centimeters and 70% effacement.

32 weeks and 2 days is what my i-Phone screen was showing when my regular scheduled ultrasound technician told me, "Don't move. Let me go get the Doctor." From the looks of things I no longer had a cervix. They wouldn't let me stand or sit up. They didn't do an actual cervix check because I needed to get to the hospital immediately. My husband picked me up at my doctor's office and off we went to the hospital.  Upon arrival they immediately started an IV and checked my cervix. 4 centimeters and 90%. That was how far I had progressed. I wasn't terrified, worried or emotional this time. I knew in that moment that if my babies were making their entrance into this world that the world was ready and so were they. I had prayed for weeks for understanding and peace in whatever my birth story ended up being. If only I had known what God was preparing me for each time I prayed those prayers. 

My last pregnant belly picture at 32 weeks and 2 days.

  

"32 weeks and 4 days," the nurse said as she came in to do my morning non-stress test (NST). I hadn't had a contraction since an hour of arriving to the hospital two days prior.  With the lack of contractions it was only necessary to complete two NSTs a day and as long as everything/everyone looked good there was no need to wear all three of the belts to monitor my contractions and the Zabies heartbeats. An hour later my Doctor came in, she, too, is a mother of twins. She said,"You haven't had a contraction in days. I want to check your cervix one more time but as long as everything looks okay you can do strict bed-rest at home. I'll be back in just a minute to check you." I was going home again. Praise the Lord. Every day inside of my belly is two days (rule of thumb) the Zabies didn't have to spend in the NICU. I stood up put my freshly washed hair in a bun and the it hit. A tetanic contraction. I quickly sat back on my bed, called a nurse and while waiting on the nurse I called my husband who was working (no contractions for TWO days! We thought we were in the clear.) When the nurse beeped in I was screaming out in pain. "PLEASE!!! I just need pain meds! PLEASE! HELP ME!" My room was suddenly filled with doctors and nurses. Dr. G (my doctor) was confused because she had just been in my room less than five minutes prior. The nurses were pushing turbutaline injections to attempt to release the contraction while Dr. G and the 5th year resident were rolling me from side to side, on all fours, back on my back rolling again while trying to stimulate my Baby A. Baby A's heart rate dropped tremendously and was in danger. After what felt like a lifetime. Dr. G said, "We have to get these babies out! Stat C!" In the rush to the OR, while vomiting from the pain and crying from being so scared, I managed to text Josh...Emergency c.  The last thing I remember is Dr. G holding the knife just above my belly and me begging her to save my babies. "Please save my babies," I cried to her as everything went dark. 

Josh made it in time to see our GIRLS come out of the operating room. GIRLS!! He couldn't believe it and neither could I when I later awoke. One NICU team came rushing through the OR doors and said, "She's doing fine. We had to intubate her to get her breathing but she is breathing on her own now." Josh's response? "It's a SHE? We didn't find out. Do we know what Baby B is yet?" The Doctor replies with, "It's a she too!" "Are you sure?" Josh questioned the doctor. I'm sure he thought, oh boy (or girl), time to cut up all of the credit cards!  Shortly after he got the news that I was not doing so well. I had lost nearly half of my volume of blood and they were still trying to stop the bleeding. A vessel rupture on the posterior portion of my uterus is what caused the contraction and was causing the extreme amount of blood loss. Two hours later I went into recovery. I was alive with uterus in tact and BOTH of my daughters were alive. This was unprecedented. After much research it was found that my daughters and I are the only living case with a vessel rupture on the uterus causing a tetanic contraction while pregnant with twins. Most other resulted in either a total loss of babies or babies and mother. Although I was alive. I had the hardest fight of my life in the coming 10 days. I will go into greater detail in a later blog but, in short, my intestines shut down in what's called an ileus and was unable to eat or drink anything for 10 days! 

Although I had a horrible birthing experience and it is not anything like I always imagined I have happy and healthy daughters today and the joy that they bring me overshadows the unfortunate way they came into this world. My girls were right on time. They were ready for this world and the world was ready for them.  God has a way of preparing you for all things in your life. All of those days I prayed for understanding and peace. I needed wanted to understand why me? Why my babies might be born early. Why I couldn't carry them to full term or why I was having problems with pre-term labor. I needed peace. Peace in knowing that if my babies were born early that they would be just fine and that God was in control. I might not have had a clear understanding until recently. Now I understand that I was in preterm labor so that the doctors would keep a closer eye on me and my babies. I was in no pain the day I was admitted into the hospital at 32 weeks. If my doctors weren't seeing me two times a week I would have never been admitted into the hospital and would have been home when that vessel ruptured. Me and my girls wouldn't be here today. I understand that all of that was God's way of protecting me and guiding me exactly where hewanted needed me to be. My babies were born early to protect me. He makes no mistakes and his timing is perfect. 

The Zabies, Kensington Rose (Baby A) & Quinn Harper (Baby B) 
Taken within an hour of birth

Photo by: Nicole James Photography