The Birth Story

Originally this was posted on the boy's birthday, but  Blogger had a hiccup and lost it, thankfully I had a copy of it on my computer because it was a long one.

Here we are, a year later after the boys were born.  I started writing the birth story a couple of weeks after the boys were born, but I never finished it.  I wanted to finally finish it and post it today in celebration of the most amazing year of my life.  Some of the details are gone, but it was an incredible time and it is surprising how much is indelibly marked on my mind.

On Mother's day I finally slept in past 7am, I was so excited. Then I sat up and there was a gush of fluid. I was terrified. It was too early for my water to break, I was only 34 weeks 2 days into my pregnancy. We called Labor and Delivery and they told us to come in. Tor rushed around the house packing stuff up while I sat and cried and HOPED, HOPED, HOPED that it wasn't my water breaking and that I would be able to continue with my pregnancy and have it go to full term. I asked Tor to take a picture of me and the belly because it may be the last one of me pregnant. He asked me to smile and I told him I just couldn't, I was so sad and so scared.

We got to the hospital and by the time we were there, it was clear that my water had broken and that we would not be leaving the hospital without our babies being born. There was no going back. When my nurse Jennifer asked me what I wanted from my care, all I was able to say was that I wanted my babies lungs to be mature. Lung immaturity is the biggest, scariest premature infant problem (at least that I knew about at the time).  There are lots of treatments for immature lungs, but I had spent my whole pregnancy just sure I would go to full term and that I would have big, healthy babies who were able to breastfeed right away and would go home with us from the hospital in a couple of days. In fact, the Friday before I had a doctor's appointment and it was clear that my body wasn't close to going into labor at all (my cervix measured at 4.3 cm long by ultrasound, so not effaced or dilated at all) and my doctor even mentioned that I would probably be bored when I was off work at 36 weeks.

I was quickly admitted, since it was clear that we wouldn't be going home while I was still pregnant. Fortunately my labor and delivery nurse Jennifer pegged Tor and I correctly, as information gatherers. She did all she could to make sure we had every bit of information that she could give us so that we could know what to expect with 34 weekers. She asked the neonatologist to speak to us and took us up to the Special Care Nursery so we could see where the babies would go when they were born. We were so grateful to Jennifer, because we were able to have the time to process the information and get our minds wrapped around having 34 weekers.

Meanwhile, we were waiting for my body to go into active labor on its own. I was having contractions, but I couldn't feel them. We got to the hospital at around 10:30am and waited most of the day. I really wanted to go into labor on my own so that I wouldn't have to have pitocin to start labor. We waited most of the day and finally around 6pm we decided to start pitocin since my body wasn't doing it on it's own. Mom and Ralph drove over from Wenatchee and they came to the hospital with Jenn and Karl. Jenn had some work to finish up and I worked on drafting an email to work trying to make sure all loose ends were wrapped up, since I obviously wasn't going to be going back to work until my maternity leave was over.

Ralph needed to be back in Wenatchee for class on Monday morning, but Mom was going to stay. Ralph and Karl went back to their house and Mom and Jenn hung out for a while longer. Ralph planned on heading back to Wenatchee for his class and then coming back to Seattle when he could.

That night Tor and I rested. He got a good night's sleep on the pull out chair and I rested. I was feeling the contractions and never really got to sleep between them, though I was able to doze. I probably slept more than I thought I did, since the night actually went by pretty quickly. Eventually I was having to breathe through the contractions, though they weren't all that bad.

In the morning the contractions were coming harder and I was starting to have to cope with them. Around 9 or 10 am I finally was in active labor. Mom and Jenn arrived, and we called our doula Alissa and she came around 10 am. With the 7am shift change, we met our new nurses for the day, Maggie and her student Kara. Maggie was amazing and completely supportive of me going naturally, a gentle soul who listened intently to me. Her student Kara was also very sweet and very enthusiastic. They were able to work out a way to make it possible for me to walk the halls even though the babies were on constant monitoring and they don't really have a set-up for twins. They got two telemetry units which allowed me to walk around. I didn't appreciate it as much as I should have at the time, but thinking back to having to be chained to a 5 foot diameter around the bed...that wouldn't have been cool.

I labored in the halls, I labored on the rocking chair, I labored bent over the bed, through it all, Tor was absolutely amazing. He was there for every contraction, encouraging and comforting me through everything. My favorite coping technique for contractions was to bend at the middle, hold onto Tor's belt and put the top of my head on his stomach. At first I was able to do this and just breathe, then it was moaning as the contractions got stronger. I was coping very well, and was very pleased with how I was doing. My mind was clear and logical and I could rest between contractions. For a long time, I even was able to joke between contractions.

Things got pretty intense and I decided to try laboring in the bathtub. At first it was awesome, my body relaxed and it felt good. Then I realized that all I could do was focus on the contractions since the rest of my body was relaxed. I got nauseated and threw up and my confidence in my ability to cope was starting to really diminish. I thought I might be close to transition and remember asking Alissa if she thought I was close and she said "maybe." It wasn't quite the answer I wanted to hear, though it was truthful. I got too hot in the bathtub and had to get out, on top of my contractions getting stronger and harder to bear.

I got out of the tub and laid in the bed and my confidence was totally shaken. All I wanted was an epidural. I had the presence of mind to say "I either need my confidence back, or I need an epidural." Alissa and Tor talked with me a lot about the epidural, trying to ascertain whether or not I really needed it, or would regret getting it later. That is exactly why we hired Alissa, she tried to get me to try a couple of other laboring positions in order to get by confidence in my abilities to come back. It almost worked a couple of times, and I labored for another hour or so. By this time, the resident Kate came to check my progress which hadn't been done up to this point since they were trying to minimize the chance of infection. When she checked, I was only 2 centimeters dilated. I was crushed, and the last of my confidence flew out the window.  Tor said the rest of the room was crushed too, Tor, Mom, Jenn, Alissa, Maggie, Kara and Kate.  I actually had been given the opportunity to go totally naturally, since the anesthesiologist on call was willing to do a spinal block in the OR if something happened with baby B...I didn't HAVE to get the epidural because of medical protocol (which is VERY unusual for a twin birth). Which I think made the decision to have the epidural better, I made it for myself, no one told me I had to get it.

Around 6:30 pm, Maggie called the anesthesiologist and I was given the epidural. The epidural was given in 2 parts, 1st a light spinal block is given for immediate relief and then the epidural is placed and since it doesn't give relief for 20-30 minutes, the spinal block is there to give relief and it wears off in about 45 minutes. As soon as I got the epidural, I was finally able to get some much needed rest.  Sometime during this, there was a nursing staff shift change and my new nurse Alli came on.  Alli turned out to be an incredibly capable, calm, sweet, and professional person.  I was so grateful to have here there.  About an hour after the epidural was placed, I started feeling contractions and pressed the button for more epidural, and pressed it again and again until it beeped because there was no more that it could give me. I was having full on contractions again, and since my bladder had been catheterized, I could feel the catheter in my bladder with every contraction. It was excruciating. Since the pain had been taken away by the spinal block, all of the endorphins from coping with the labor on my own were gone.  Obviously the epidural hadn't worked and when the spinal block wore off, I got the full brunt of the contractions without the work up to them that I'd had before the epidural. It was awful. The anesthesiologist was called back to give me another epidural, but by this time I was having to cope with the pain again. I sat on the edge of the bed with my head in Tor's stomach moaning with Alissa rubbing my back, they both were moaning with me. I don't know how long I waited, but it seemed like years and the worst part was definitely the catheter in my bladder. The anesthesiologist arrived and re-did what he did before, a spinal block and I had immediate relief and another epidural...this time it worked and we knew it did before the spinal block wore off, because my blood pressure plummeted. The epidural is a vaso-dialator and some people can have that problem, I was one of those people. I had thrown up so much that I was dehydrated so in order for my blood pressure to come up they pushed fluids in my IV.

I didn't know how low my blood pressure had gone, but I felt a strange sense of calm.  I knew what was going on around me and that it was pretty serious, but I also knew that the babies were doing okay because they were on constant monitoring and their heart beats were strong.  I do remember thinking, "okay I will have an emergency c-section, and I'm okay with that."  Fortunately it didn't come to that since they were able to stabilize me, but it took several shots of epinephrine and 6 bags of IV fluid.  The anesthesiologist actually ran to the OR to get a hand pump to get the fluid into me faster because gravity just wasn't fast enough.  It was scary for my family and that's what I hated the most.  Tor said that he wasn't worried until Jenn stood up to watch when she saw my blood pressure numbers.  Alissa was so great about recording information for us, good and bad, and her notes say that my blood pressure went down to 73/44, she also noted that I needed epinephrine 6 times.  Yikes.

My condition was stabilized and the babies heart rates stayed rock solid the whole time.  I was finally able to get some rest and fell asleep quickly and soundly.  Mom and Jenn went to get some Thai food and they all ate something.  Then everyone else took the chance to get some rest.  It was a big room (saved just for twins), but the furniture while not comfortable in the best of times wasn't adequate for 3 people.  I remember waking up at some point and seeing little, former dancer Alissa curled up on the double wide chair with the wooden arms.  It sure didn't look comfortable, but I guess it is an occupational hazard in her line of work.  Mom and Jenn made use of the rocking chair and pull out sleeper chair.  While Tor had a good night's sleep the night before, I don't think he had a wink of sleep that night.  He sat on a chair next to my bed and bent over double with his head resting next to me.  It was really sweet, but not restful.  I have a hunch that he was pretty scared by the whole low blood pressure saga and wanted to be as close to me as possible.

After about 4 hours, I woke up to contractions.  Pretty much as soon as I opened my eyes Alissa was by my side asking if I needed anything.  I made a conscious decision to not push the button for more epidural so that I could feel what was happening with my body.  I started to have to breathe through the contractions, but it was totally do-able with some sleep and the epidural taking the edge off.  I was definitely feeling 'pushy' and the resident was called to check my progress.  Kate (incidently  a twin mom herself) came in and could feel baby A's head.  I was not only fully dilated, but the baby had moved down the birth canal and I was very ready to push!  I started pushing in the labor and delivery room and made great progress.  In about 40 minutes baby A's head was crowning and they took me to the OR which is standard for twin births, just in case something goes wrong with the babies.  About 20 minutes later Lars was born at 5:47 am.  He was sunny side up which may have been why my labor was so painful.  They checked him out and then Tor (my hero!) asked if I could have some skin to skin time with my son.  What a marvelous moment, to have my baby placed on my chest all pink and warm and looking down at his little hand with the vernix still in the crotch of his thumb and fore finger.  The odor of my little guy was indescribable, but it was just right.  Tor and I got to spend a little time with Lars (who was just baby A at that point...and who incidently I THOUGHT was a girl, surprise!) and then I started feeling some contractions again and it was time to push baby B out.  I held Lars on my chest while I pushed baby B out, amazing.  My pushing wasn't very organized because I was scared I was going to squish Lars!  The OB, Dr. Wesol broke baby B's sack and 24 minutes after Lars was born, at 6:11 am, Odin was born.  He had some more problems breathing than Lars did, but I still got to spend some amazing skin to skin time with both my boys while I delivered the placentas and they stitched me up.  It was simply amazing.  I am incapable of describing in words the feeling of having given birth to my two sons and having them lying on my chest with Tor right next to us.  The whole busy room of about 15 people completely disappeared and it was just our family of four.

Eventually the boys needed to be taken to the special care nursery since they were premature and needed help with breathing.  Tor was so amazing and wanted to stay with me but I needed him to go with the boys to the nursery.  I was so happy that even though they were premature their condition wasn't so dire that they had to be rushed to the nursery right away and that we got the chance to do some bonding right away.

It was amazing to have my sister and Mom there for the birth.  I couldn't have been happier with our choice of hiring Alissa to be our doula.  She supported all of us through a long labor with calm, grace and a sense of humor.  Tor was incredible in his support of me, and in becoming a father--those little boys couldn't be any luckier in who they have as a Papa.

It was an amazing experience.