Wow, what a week!! Christmas day/night, I went to bed at 10:00 p.m. I woke up three hours later, at 1:00 a.m. on 12/26, with painful contractions. I started timing them, and just when they would be regular (every 5 minutes) for an hour, I'd go about 15 minutes without one - so I never woke up DH or went to the hospital. But they sure hurt!!
That morning, Wednesday, I had an OB appt at 10:10 a.m. I told him I'd been up all night contracting and in pain. He checked me, and I was 2 cm dilated and 80% effaced. He was so indecisive...ugh. First he said I should go back on mag sulfate to stop labor...I said absolutely not, that the babies needed to be delivered. I told him about the size discordancy and other concerns - he hadn't received the report from the peri yet. So then he said maybe they did need to be delivered and said we would do a c-section since B was breech. He sent me over to the hospital.
I got to the hospital and checked in; the nurse called him to get orders, and he tells her to set me up for a vaginal delivery (go figure - I've been asking for this the entire pg, but he kept saying not unless both babies were head-down). So they admit me, and I am contracting all day...sometimes with as little as 20-30 seconds of rest between long, painful contractions - I had terrible back labor radiating into my thighs. I was getting Demerol every 3 hours, but I didn't want to get the epidural yet at that point.
By 10:00 p.m. Wednesday night - 21 hours into labor - I was STILL 2 cm and 80% effaced. The OB decides maybe I'm not really in labor, and restarts my Procardia (used to stop labor). UGH!!! I continued to contract all night, though much more slowly, but then started to have some mild bleeding. By 5:00 a.m. Thursday, I was starting to pass some small clots, and I asked the nurse to please check me again...she did, and I was 3-4 cm and 90%. Ironic - they give me med to stop labor, and I finally progress...
Around 9:00 a.m., they decided to break my water, since I was still only about 4 cm. I asked for the epidural at that point, and good thing - the contractions became unbearable after that. Once the epi kicked in, they started some pitocin to try to get things moving. Unfortunately, not long after that, Makayla (A) started having heart rate decelerations with every contraction...so they put me on oxygen and started an amnio-infusion through an intra-uterine catheter to try to replace some of the fluid I was losing to see if that would help Makayla...it didn't.
At 2:00 p.m., I was still only 6 cm. I think at that point, I counted something like 10 or 12 different tubes/sensors/etc. hooked up to me!!! It was getting a little scary and overwhelming. But all of a sudden, at 2:45 p.m., I had a lot of increased pressure in my rectum, and I asked the nurse to check me again - I was finally 10 cm!!! The action picked up immediately, as they had to move me to the operating room for delivery - just in case I needed a crash c-section.
The OR was scary and freezing cold. The anesthesiologist was a moron and was so busy talking on his cell phone that he thought we were doing a c-section and got me completely numb - just in time for my OB to freak out and ask how I was supposed to push out two babies when I couldn't feel anything!! And talk about an audience - in addition to me and my DH, there were 14 other people in the room - my OB, the anesthesiologist, the neonatologist, 3 L&D nurses, and a 4-person NICU team per baby.
Anyway, I told them if someone would kindly tell me when I was having a contraction (since I could feel NOTHING), I'd be happy to try pushing...so that's what we did. My OB thought it would be forever, so was leaving the room and told them to call him when I was close. Two pushes later, they yelled for him to come back b/c Makayla's head was coming out!! Talk about mind over body - I couldn't tell at all whether or not I was actually pushing, but my mind was working really hard to focus on pushing!!
Makayla was born at 4:14 p.m. Thursday 12/27. She came out bright red, screaming, with Apgars 8 and 9. But she turned quickly and they had to briefly intubate her and give her a dose of surfactant to help her lungs. I didn't get to see her before they whisked her off to the NICU.
Then things got ugly. My OB used the ultrasound and manipulation to get Mackenzie turned around (she was breech). He succeeded in this quickly, but then her heart rate crashed - it was down in the 30's at one point, and was in the 60-70's for extended periods of time. My OB started cussing, saying, "Oh $hit, oh $hit, oh $hit," and started asking for various tools and yelling at nurses to get ready for a c-section. He told them we didn't have time to get another OB up there, to get a doc from the regular OR up there right away. Meanwhile, I was apparently gushing blood, and he had his arm UP TO HIS ELBOW inside me, with his other arm across my belly, trying to get her out. At this point, I was thankful the anesthesiologist had made me numb - I can only imagine how much pain I would have been in if I could feel that!! Just when my OB said we were going to start a c-section, he said, "Oh, wait, there's a head!" I was pushing with all my might (well mostly my head, since I couldn't feel) - one after another after another - even between contractions. My heartrate was 130 and my blood pressure was 170/?? b/c I was working so hard - I was terrified she wasn't going to make it. I finally got her out at 4:29 p.m. - only 15 minutes after her sister, but it seemed like an ETERNITY!!
She came out pale, limp and not responsive, but quickly perked up. Her Apgars were 5 and 8, but she needed no respiratory assistance, and they were able to bring her over to me before they took her to the NICU. That was when I saw her cleft lip - the peri had somehow missed this on all of my ultrasounds!!
The rest of the time in the OR, they delivered my placentas, etc, and got me cleaned up. I had a reaction to the epidural and started shaking uncontrollably - warm blankets have never felt so good!! They took me to my post-partum room, and by about 6:30 p.m., I was able to walk over to the NICU and see the babies. Of course, I should have not been so stubborn, b/c within about 15 minutes of being up, I got a terrible spinal headache from the epidural, and got stuck in bed for the remainder of the evening...IV fluids and lots of caffeine did the trick and by about midnight, I was feeling much better.
My recovery has been very slow. My body was really traumatized by the delivery - hello, OB climbing inside me! I am still having to take a lot of pain meds, and at times can't even hardly walk the pain is so intense. I am still having episodes of uncontrollable shivering, even though I'm not running a fever - doc says it's b/c my body is still kind of in shock. They talked about giving me a couple bags of blood today, but b/c I tend to be so overly sensitive to stuff, they were afraid I'd have a strong reaction, so they held off on that.
I'm home now, and hopefully will get some rest and start recovering a bit more quickly. It was very hard to leave the hospital though, without the babies, but I know they're being well cared for. Next post - baby update...
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