At 11:15pm on Monday night July 7th Noah and I went to the hospital. Isaac stayed with Marmee and Gran Gran. The waiting room was pretty much full when we got there. There were a couple of families and a couple of waiting pregnant women. We signed in and found a seat and waited. We waited for a long time but we were in no hurry since we were there to be induced. I felt bad that I was depriving Noah of sleep because he was supposed to be able to sleep once we got in the labor and delivery room. Noah read in his summer reading book for school and I think I even fell asleep at one point.
At 1:30am we were called back to an open labor and delivery room. The nurse apologized for our wait but we were fine. Once we got in the room I got prepped for the bed and they put on the three belly bands and monitors; one for Baby A, one for Baby B, and one for contractions. She had a really hard time finding the babies. Both babies were wide awake and were moving around like crazy. They kept jumping off the monitors. Another nurse went ahead and put an IV in my hand but didn't connect it to anything because we were waiting until the morning. By the time we had filled out our paper work, gotten the babies on the monitor, and were ready it was after 3:00am. Noah really wasn't getting any sleep. I turned on the television and tried to sleep as well but it was too hard. The bands itched like crazy, I felt like I was on fire. Also because Baby A was so low and Baby B was in the crook of my leg, in order to keep the monitors on the babies I had to be lying on my back when all I wanted to do was sit up. Every time the nurse left, I would carefully try to position myself into a comfortable position but eventually she would have to come back and try to find the babies and move me back to a very uncomfortable position.
It was a pretty unpleasant night, but fortunately it was only about two hours long. At 5:00am she hooked me up to the pitocin. She said she would put it at its lowest setting and very very slowly bump it up every half hour or hour. She did a cervical check before she started the pitocin and low and behold I was 3.5 centimeters dilated. I had still been closed at my appointment earlier in the day on Monday. So that was very encouraging. The doctor had told us that the hardest part of the labor would be getting it started and me dilated enough to break my water. Once my water had been broken it would be faster and smoother.
I asked her about an epidural and she said that most people didn't get the epidural when the pitocin first started. I really wanted the epidural, I had read that those pregnant with twins should always have it because the risk of c-section is so great that you need to have had it on the chance you will wind up with a c-section. Also, I was already in a lot of pain.
My belly had been stretched so thin. The lower part of my belly was supporting such weight it was always bumpy and sore. My skin was so very very itchy. The babies were putting so much pressure on my cervix it was almost unbearable.
Once the pitocin started, my contractions started too. Noah and I could see them rise and fall on the monitor and I could feel them. For the first time, I put some of those breathing excersises to use to help with the pain. I knew that this nurse would be leaving soon for shift change, so I decided that once the new nurse got there, I would ask for the epidural.
7am was the shift change and we got two new nurses who were in charge. One nurse spent a lot of time with me and the other nurse tried to get the machine ready for the twins that wouldhelp them breathe should they need it. I wasn't fully aware of what was going on over there but she was having a lot of trouble with the machine. She called in at least three different people to help her and they even rolled one out and athe new one in to see if that would work but they really couldn't get it to work because they could get one bag to fill with air at a time but now two bags. She told me we probably wouldn't need this anyway.
They kept increasing my pitocin level and I asked for the epidural. They called for the anetheseologist but he was somewhere else with a c-section patient.
The on-call doctor came by and asked if our doctor was delivering us and we told him that our doctor was.
When the anetheseologist arrived finally I was very ready but very scared. Epidurals are very scary. I sat up and leaned forward. One of the nurses was really helpful and help my shoulders and kept me calm. THe anetheseologist wasn't a very good people person. Once he had put in the needle he started saying 'o crap' over and over again. I wished he would have just kept that in his head, he made me so nervous. He told me to say something if I got a bad taste in my mouth and my mouth did feel a bit numb so I told him that and he said he thought so. The needle had gone in a blood vessel so he had to pull everything out and do it all over again in a new place. The new place worked and the epidural was in. It doesn't hurt very badly but it is a very very weird sensation. I was so glad the second one tookd and he administored the medicine.
After the epidural took hold, I felt the weight of the world drop off of me. For months I had felt so bad and so stretched. My skin was constantly itching, there was constant pressure on my left hip and my cervix. I had been having contractions on and off. There was no position that could make me comfortable. I could barely change positions at all. Any sudden movement would result in a pull and pain. But once the epidural took place, I felt free. I didn't feel the pressure or the itching or the contractions. I could lie in any position. For the past nine months, I had struggled to fall asleep, stay asleep, or be asleep and at all, and now I felt so relaxed, I could barely stay awake even as I labored.
I drifted in and our of consciousness as the nurses came back and forth to our room to monitor the contractions and babies' heart rates. Noah was amused at how high and delirious I was. It was the most relaxed I had felt and would feel for a long time. It was a short reprieve for the life of pregnancy to the life of newborn parenthood.
The doctor arrived at around 9:00 to break my water. He checked me and I was about seven centimeters dilated. We were making good and fast progress. He said he would be back soon.
I continued to drift in and out of consciousness and around 10:30 or so, we were ready. The room was really abuzz as we got ready. At one point there were five nurses, two for me and three for the babies, and two doctors, my doctor and the on-call doctor. The nurses had two stations set up for the babies and were preparing for them. My nurses were on either side of me. The doctor had his trey set up with all sorts of equipment and they laid down all sorts of sheets and pads and scrubs.
It was time to push. Pushing Baby A, Carleton out was not too difficult. He arrived at 11:05am, even faster than Isaac had. I pushed for probably five or six contractions, with three or four pushes on each contraction. The nurses were great, they would count to ten as I pushed and then tell me to take a deep breath and do it again. We did really well with Carleton. He didn't come out screaming as Isaac had, but he fussed and gurgled and they whisked him away to the warming/bathing/apgar station. Noah got to cut the cord as they placed him on my chest right before they took him away. Noah followed him over to the station and the nurses told Noah to get out his camera. Noah took pictures and looked after Carleton as we prepared to push again.
Baby B was higher up so we had a lot more pushing to do. The doctor broke my water again and it GUSHED. I had never noticed my water breaking before, but this was something truly dramatic. I couldn't believe how much water there was.
Since everything was going well, the on- call doctor ended up leaving. Carleton was cleaned up and put in a blanket and hat and Noah was able to hold him and walk around the room as we pushed with Baby B, Corder. I had to push for about forty minutes to get Corder out. He was so high up, I couldn't feel the pressure of him to help guide my pushing. It was much harder to push with Corder. They kept telling me to push harder but since I couldn't feel much of anything, it was difficult. We pushed for many more contractions than we had for Carleton. As he got down lower, I could start feeling the pressure, and pushing became easier. I must have been tired even with the epidural because as I was supposed to push four times on each contraction, I could feel myself getting weaker each time. I only had power for the first two pushes and the last two would be really weak. The doctor said his heart rate was dipping just a bit during the contractions and he decided to help pull him out with the vacuum. A few more pushes later, I could feel the extreme pressure of him being right there. Next contraction, he was out. Like Carleton, he fussed but didn't scream. They put him on my chest, Noah cut the cord, and he was whisked away to baby warming.
The doctor then finished the delivery and gave me my stitches and left.
Mom and Isaac were the first ones into the delivery room. Mom stayed behind the curtain because she had been running a fever. Isaac came in and saw Noah hold Carleton. Noah showed him Carleton, and his first question was 'Where's Corder?' They showed him Corder ont he warming station. Isaac came over and saw me. He seemed to completley understand that we were in the hospital to meet Carleton and Corder just as we had told him and read to him.
Mom left and Mrs. McQueen and Dad came in. Isaac was still with us. Mrs. McQueen got to hold babies. Isaac started feeling more comfortable with the situation and started becoming more animated. Dad took Isaac back out to the waiting room and Patti came in. Mrs. McQueen and Patti took lots of pictures of the babies and us. Then they left.
The nurses were able to get me into the wheel chair and handed me both babies. We had stayed in the recovery room much longer than we had with Isaac. They had been bathed in the recover room and we waited to make sure they could keep their temperature up.
Noah carried our things, and I carried the babies as we were wheeled up to our room.
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