What this was all about

I have started, and restarted this post a dozen times. July 25th was a day that it so absolutely hard to put into words, or onto paper computer. How do I describe seeing pure joy in the eyes of two men who had so desperately wanted a family for so long, and now finally had that in their hands, literally?

I could write about all the mundane stuff I have talked about in some previous posts, like how I had breakfast and barely kept that down. Or how I actually felt like I slept for the first time in ages. But that's not what you want to hear read about.

I spent most of the day in my room with 'Baby Boy Loucks' as his ID bracelet (or anklet, rather) still said. The nurse brought him in shortly after I woke up at my request. I'd had enough time without him. 'Baby Girl Loucks' was still in the NICU.

Peyton, my son, came to visit me and meet the babies in the early afternoon. I will talk more about that experience later, as I can't focus on that right now if I'm actually going to get this post out this time around.

E & S had boarded a plane sometime while I was sleeping and would arrive in Seattle around 3pm. They were expecting to arrive at the hospital around 6pm to meet their children.

Whoa. What a concept that is. To MEET THEIR CHILDREN. This was definitely what all of this was about.

At 6pm I was staring at the clock. I have a picture my mom took of the clock in my room of us waiting, and then a picture of the clock when her phone rang. My sister answered the phone, and in fact they were at the hospital.

Holy shit. (Pardon my language.) This was REALLY happening. I don't think I had prepared enough for this moment. There was no way I really could. She ran downstairs to meet them and bring them up to the room.

She said that when she got downstairs and outside they were just pulling up and E jumped out of the car without putting it in park! They were excited, to say the least. That word really doesn't do it justice.

I'm starting to tear up as I'm typing this. At about 6:17pm, if memory serves, E & S met their son for the first time. I was laying in my hospital bed, cuddling him, as they walked in the door. Wow, here comes the waterfall. Now and then, really.

The look on their faces is literally not possible to describe. There is no way I could do it even if I tried my hardest. Even if I looked up every word in the dictionary that related to pure joy, happiness, gratefulness, etc. And added them all together.

They just stared. At me, at him, back at me. Gratefulness was a good word to describe the look I saw in their eyes, although like I said it wouldn't really be an accurate description. They were crying, holding each other, staring at their son. The son they had waited 9 months to meet. Well, a lot longer than 9 months because this was something they had been wanting for years. My mom captured these moments on the camera, and there is one picture that I so wish I could share that would be absolutely enough explanation for you. You could see for yourself just how overjoyed these two men were. Their family was finally complete.

I think I heard them say "thank you" a few dozen times in the first few minutes of arriving. And they hadn't even met their daughter yet.

Shortly after their arrival the NICU nurse wheeled in baby girl and emotions started all over again. They stared at me, stared at her, stared at their son, and back at me. The nurses had all known what was going on, that I wasn't the mom of these beautiful babies, and had anxiously been waiting for E & S to arrive just as I had. I don't think that there was a dry eye in the room.

This moment in time is one I will surely never forget. I have many pictures to look at to remind me, and the memories flash through my head constantly.

Everything I had worked for this past year, all of the pain, all of the struggles I'd had with the pregnancy, they didn't matter. What mattered was this family that I had helped to create. Not many women get to say that they helped create a family for someone else. And not another woman in the world can have such a connection to THIS family.

Numbness

August 20, 2012

Today the twins left on a plane to Paris. They are going home. How do I feel about this? If only I could let myself feel, I could tell you. I'm a mess, I think, but I haven't cried since Thursday when I said goodbye in person. And even then, I didn't cry as much as I thought I would.

I think mainly, I feel numb. I don't know how to feel because I've never done this sort of thing before. It's nothing that anyone can prepare for. Even though many people asked me ahead of time, before I even got pregnant, if this was something I could handle, I couldn't really answer them honestly. How was I to know if I could really handle it? I don't even know if I am really handling it now as it is.

The plan is to Skype a LOT with them and be able to watch them grow from afar. I can go to Paris and visit, and they will come back here to visit as well, but no time seems soon enough for me to see them again. Even if they flew back in a month, I still would want it to be sooner.

These beautiful babies, although they are not mine, are a huge part of my life. I feel like their mother, in a sense. I carried them for 35 weeks of my life and theirs and helped them grow to the babies they are now. They don't have a mom. I'm the closest thing they will ever have to that.

As I am typing this, the numbness is fading and I am starting to feel pain. Sadness. I feel so lost without them. I just want to hold them again, feed them, burp them, and watch them squirm as they fall asleep. Next time I see them in person they will be so different. What if it is a year before I see them? They will be walking, and talking. Things I can't even imagine them doing now. I want to be there for those first moments, but I don't have the rights to do that. I'm not their mother, as I have to keep telling myself.

My friends, God love them, keep telling me to focus on spending time with Peyton. The one who is ACTUALLY my child. But seeing him, looking at him, makes me realize just how quickly time goes by. He was a baby just yesterday. He's going to be 5 at the end of this year.

After birth

As soon as baby B was born, and I saw my OB holding her up for me to get a peek, all I wanted was to hear her cry. I knew she had a rough beginning to her life, coming out with her feet being pulled out, and her arm stuck up by her head. She was discolored, and I remember Dr. Kennedy saying that was normal because of the breach delivery. But she wasn't crying. I had heard her brother cry shortly after he was born, but she still wasn't crying.

The NICU nurse was in the room and had whisked her away to a warming table at the back of the OR. I remember begging my sister to go check on her, to tell me why she wasn't crying. I needed to know that she was okay. Someone PLEASE make this baby girl cry!

After what felt like an eternity, I finally heard a squeak coming from where they had taken her. And then, actual newborn cries! I was so relieved. Words cannot express the feeling one gets hearing a newborn cry for the first time. I wish I could have captured that moment for E & S to experience later.

I still had some work to do even though both babies were here. I had two placentas that needed delivered. It was still so weird to me that there were two of them. Two placentas, two sacs of water, two umbilical cords.

When I had Peyton, delivering the placenta was easy as pie. I think I pushed one time and out it came. It was a little bit more difficult with twins. I don't remember pushing them out, and this is the part of my labor that starts to get fuzzy.

Dr. Kennedy had already been "up there" getting baby B out, so having her up there again to deliver the placentas wasn't exactly something new but it was the strangest feeling I've ever had. Even more weird than her up there trying to find baby girl's feet to pull out.

Apparently my uterus wasn't contracting enough to get them out on their own, or to stop the bleeding. My nurse, whose shift had already ended, was still in the OR with me while Dr. Kennedy tried to get control of things. She kept telling me how beautiful the twins were, what an amazing thing I had done, and how amazing I did through the labor and delivery. She was "petting" my hair while I just laid there and worried about what Dr. Kennedy was doing. Why wasn't the bleeding stopping? What would happen if they couldn't get it under control?

Sarah, my sister, in her wonderful hospital OR get-up was holding baby A and I could tell he was just so perfect. I wanted so badly to get out of this horrifying room with what seemed like way more than 4 white walls. This was the time when I really took in my surroundings. I felt like I was in some horror film for awhile, awake during an operation gone wrong. The oddest, scariest feeling I'd yet to experience.

Dr. Kennedy was still working on things, and instructed the nurse to give me more pitocin. This was strange to me, since I had already had the babies. It was to help my uterus contract more to hopefully get the bleeding under control and deliver the placentas.

Finally everything was under control from what I understood, and I was able to go back to my room. I was able to hold that beautiful baby boy I'd delivered what seemed like hours ago. I was able to watch him get his first bath in the sink, get all his measurements, and just stare at him.

But it felt like something was missing. E & S, for one. My sister called and talked to them (who were STILL in Paris), and they were sobbing with joy. So excited for their babies to be here and HEALTHY. And so anxious to get on their plane and head here to meet them. I wanted so badly for them to be there with me, to be experiencing all of this. But baby B was missing, too. This was the first time that brother and sister had been apart. My heart was aching for them, to have gone so long side by side to now not be able to see each other.

And I wanted to see her, too! I wanted to hold them both together. Get to experience them seeing each other on the outside for the first time. I hated that she had to be in the NICU, she was doing fabulously with eating and breathing on her own, she was only stuck in there because she was so tiny. That little girl whose brother took most of the nutrients, it seemed! Almost two pounds smaller!

The hospital so graciously supplied a really nice camera they use for births to take all of the "first" photos of everything. They captured an incredible moment when Sarah handed me baby boy for the first time. And they were able to take pictures of baby girl in the NICU to show me. She was absolutely beautiful, but covered in heart monitors and the pacifier they gave her was almost as big as her face! I wanted to go to the NICU, I wanted to hold her. I hated being separated from her, and hated that baby boy was off with nurses and not in my arms.

I knew that the next couple days would be difficult, because of that exact feeling I was experiencing. I didn't want to let go of them, not yet at least. As miserable as I had been while I was pregnant, I felt like I was robbed of 3 weeks that I was supposed to have with them inside me, time to be ready to say goodbye. I wasn't ready for that, not yet.

My nurse had me hooked up to magnesium after the delivery because of the preeclampsia. I was to be on it for 24 hours (if I remember correctly) and I couldn't drink anything until it finished. It was to help prevent seizures and any other complications that preeclampsia causes. I remember being absolutely insanely thirsty and begging the nurse to bring me something to drink. Something, anything! She said I could have a couple sips of water and some ice chips, but it just wasn't cutting it. I wanted to chug an entire gallon of water. My body was exhausted from everything it had just gone through, and still healing of course.

The nurses took baby boy to the nursery for the night so that we could all rest, and my sister went home to be with my nephew. I was on a lot of pain medication, still, and the magnesium wasn't making me feel the greatest anyway, so I was thankful for peace and quiet but longing to just sleep with a baby in my arms.

They came to take me to my postpartum room in the middle of the night, after monitoring me for awhile in my laboring room. I remember that my mom had taken her sleeping pill once all the commotion was over and my nurse had to shake her awake.

I still hadn't seen baby girl, not since Dr. Kennedy pulled her out of me. I was determined to see her before they took me to my new room, and I got my wish. They wheeled me to the NICU and weaved in between a lot of machines and cabinets to get to her. She was so tiny, smaller than I remembered her being when I saw her for that brief moment. But she was absolutely gorgeous.

They let me hold her for a little bit, but I was so dazed from all the medicine that I was falling asleep holding her. They said she was doing great and hopefully would only have to be in the NICU for a total of 24 hours. That couldn't come soon enough.

I went to my postpartum room and slept probably more than I had in the last two to three months. Thank you to my hot anesthesiologist, Adam, for that one.  

10 lbs 6 oz of perfection

July 24, 2012

It was finally here. After all this time, and all of this pain, the day was here. They started the induction at 6am. I had barely slept for more than an hour the night before, way too anxious for things to get started.

I was exactly 35 weeks along, meaning the babies wouldn't be required to go to the NICU when they arrived, but still there was a good chance of it.

The nurse came in at 6am to start the pitocin. By 9 am my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and lasting 60 seconds each. Surprisingly, I was doing really well with the contractions and pain. Remembering back to my labor with Peyton, I would have already been screaming for pain medication at this point.

I sat in the rocking chair they had in my room with those wonderful hospital socks on, rocking back and forth through each contraction. I was sick of being in bed, since I had spent most of my time in that bed for the last couple weeks.

My wonderful nurse, the same one that had been advocating for me this whole time to be induced, was on shift until 7:30pm and we were determined to have her there for the delivery. She was the one person at the hospital keeping me somewhat sane through all of this, and that I knew cared.

At this particular hospital they have anesthesiologists specifically for the Labor & Delivery floor, because of the high number of births they have there every month. They told me the average number, which I of course can't remember, but it was something ridiculous. They had one of the anesthesiologists from the L&D team come and talk to me about the plan for pain medication once I needed it. They wouldn't let me not get an epidural, or a spinal (whichever I chose), because of the high chance that they would have to do a c-section. It's not like I would opt NOT to get one anyway. I am not that crazy.

I sent a text to Caryn shortly after Adam (my soon to be best friend with the drugs) came in to discuss the epidural and risks associated and told her he was "HOT!" It definitely doesn't hurt having hot doctors helping you out when you're in labor. Not really the best time to flirt, though. "Hey, I know I'm a whale right now and about to deliver twins... but maybe we could grab coffee sometime?" Yeah, RIGHT! If only.

The plan was for the doctor to check my cervix for dilation at 9:30am, but my contractions had slowed down for awhile so they turned up the pitocin and would check me around 10 instead.

Unfortunately, at 10 nothing had really changed with my cervix. I was about 2 cm dilated and that was not going to cut it. They would have to turn up the pitocin even more and hope that it did the trick. The OB (not MY actual doctor) that came in said that there was a chance that I could be stuck at 2 cm for awhile and that the induction (pitocin) might not even work. That was not what I needed to hear!

At around 1pm, what seemed like an eternity later, MY OB came in to check on how things were progressing. I was having "wonderful" contractions, still no medication at this point, but when she checked my cervix I was only about 3-4 cm dilated at that point. So, in 3 hours I had progressed maybe 1 to 2 cm's. We needed to get this thing going, or I wasn't going to have my nurse for delivery.

E & S were still not in the U.S. yet, nor had they even boarded the plane. The whole time difference was making things a little difficult, and it wasn't that easy to find last minute flights from Paris to Seattle. (They were flying to Seattle because it was a direct flight and they couldn't find one to Portland.) It was becoming apparent that they wouldn't be there for the birth of the twins, but I could only have one person with me when I delivered them, anyway.

Because it was twins, because there was a possibility of a breach delivery, and because of the high risk of a c-section, I would deliver the twins in an operating room. All of my laboring was done in my room, and they would wheel me to the operating room when it became time to push. So the plan was for my mom to be with me. As soon as the boys arrived, whenever that happened, they would get arm bands to be able to have the babies in their own room (which I thought was awesome the hospital provided) and be able to go to the NICU, if that's where the twins ended up.

My OB decided that to get things going quicker she would break the water of baby A and hopefully that would speed things up. It was the strangest feeling when she did it, and soon the bed was soaked. My water broke on its own with Peyton, so I never had experienced it this way. I think they probably changed the bedding a few times after that.

Less than an hour after she broke baby A's water, the contractions were getting more and more intense. I asked for my hot doctor friend to come in and start the epidural. It went way more smoothly then when I had gotten one with Peyton, and I started to feel better pretty quickly.

At about 4:30 they checked my cervix again and I was at 5 cm dilated, but I was already starting to feel pressure from baby A. I went from a 5 to a 7 in less than an hour and was certain the twins would be there soon.

Around 6pm or so is when it really started to get intense. The epidural was working wonders on the bottom half of my body, but I suddenly had the worst pain I have ever experienced, ever, in my left arm. I described it as a charley horse multiplied by about 1,000 times worse pain. Adam came back in to try and give me more pain medication, and more, and more, but nothing seemed to help. I was screaming, very loudly, and began to panic. I told my sister I couldn't do it, that I wanted them to just do a c-section and get the babies out.

Another nurse came in to help with everything, to try and get me to stop screaming, I'm sure, but literally nothing at all would make this pain I was having go away. I could feel the affects of all the pain medication they gave me everywhere but where I needed it.

She checked me again and I was at 10cm ready for the babies to be delivered, and it was time for me to be wheeled to the operating room. I was panicing, still in extreme pain, but I knew my mom wouldn't be able to handle what was coming. I was crying, sobbing, really, begging my mom to be okay with my decision to have Sarah come in the room with me instead. I felt terrible, this had been the plan all along for her to be there, but she didn't do well with the kind of pain I was in. Sarah was a CNA, she had to be my rock.

Once I made it to the operating room, they wanted me to push. Once baby A was delivered, they would see what baby B was going to do and either deliver her breach or do a c-section. I didn't want a c-section and would do anything I could to avoid it. As scary as a breach delivery sounded, a c-section seemed so much worse.

Because of the enormous amount of pain medication they had given me to try and help with my "charley horse," I couldn't feel anything that was going on "down there." The doctors and nurses telling me to push did no good because I couldn't tell if what I was doing was the right thing or not, everything was numb.

There were a crazy amount of people in the operating room, two OB's (mine and another), nurses, Adam, my sister, more nurses, etc. They were all "encouraging me" to push and "hard" to get baby A out. I wanted to scream at all of them to shut up! I had no idea what I was doing, and my arm still hurt extremely bad. And of course they wanted me to try and use that arm to pull back on my legs while pushing to make it more effective. Didn't they know that I was in pain and that arm was pretty much useless?

By the time I got angry enough at everyone for not understanding, I finally got a hang of the pushing thing and used all that anger to get baby A out. He was beautiful, absolutely perfect at an even 6 lbs. Such a big baby for being 5 weeks early!

His sister was born only 6 minutes later, even though to me it felt like an eternity in between the two of them. My OB had to reach for her feet while looking at her with an ultrasound machine they brought in the operating room. She wasn't turning, and they wanted her out ASAP. She grabbed onto her feet, and I pushed and pushed continuously for what also seemed like forever until she was out. Feet first and arm up next to her head, but she was out! 4 pounds, 6 oz and she was just as perfect as her brother. A little discolored, but still so perfect.

7:22pm and 7:28pm, finished just two minutes before my nurse was done for the day. I was exhausted, still in pain, but incredibly happy. Seeing them made everything else disappear.

Full up

No one could figure out exactly why the blood was causing all this chest pressure, but as soon as they had stopped the IV I started to feel a lot better. The answer to me was easy, my body had enough of this pregnancy and trying to add more liquid was just making it have to work that much harder. But, no one else (at least the doctors) seemed to care.

The doctor's plan was just to wait a little bit and try to start the IV again. There was a specific amount of time that they had to get the blood into my system, or they would have to get a whole new bag. All that red tape they had to cross, i's dotted and t's crossed sort of thing.

After waiting a "little bit," the nurse started the IV again. She flushed it first to make sure the tubing was clear, and it stung so incredibly bad I almost screamed. OUCH! That could not be normal.

She (the nurse) thought that maybe it was just the saline she used to flush it that stung, which didn't make sense to me, but she started the blood anyway. OUCH! This clearly was not working, and it hurt way too bad to continue. Maybe the IV slipped in the vein so it wasn't in the right spot anymore, or something, but I was not having it. No way I could stand HOURS of time for this blood to pump in me with this pain. Yet, another bump in the road.... what else could go wrong?

The IV had been in for many days at this point, ever since I got admitted again this last time. (At this point I had no idea how long I'd been in the hospital, exactly, it just seemed like FOREVER.) So we decided to just take that IV out and start a whole new one. That meant waiting for the IV team to come in. Tick tock, tick tock. We needed to get this thing going, and SOON! I did not want to have to wait anymore for this and the time for the blood to still be "good" was running out. It took a certain number of hours for each bag to go through my system, too.

Finally, the IV team came, started a new IV and we got the blood going. We were all looking at the clock this time, hoping I made it through the 15 minutes that I was oh so close to last time. I think we all breathed a huge sigh of relief when that time came, and all was still going well.

My mom and sister Sarah were finally up at the hospital with me, and waiting anxiously for all of this to be over with so they could meet the twins. Out of everyone, even E & S, I think I was the most anxious. It had seemed like an eternity since I first decided to do this, since meeting E &S, since the embryo transfer, confirmed pregnancy test and first ultrasound. I couldn't believe that soon, (as soon as possible I hoped), it would all be over.

At 10pm that night (July 23rd) I FINALLY was "full up" on blood. Because it was so late, my OB decided not to induce me until 5am the next day and let me get some rest that night. I knew there was no way I would actually sleep, but didn't have a choice in the matter. 7 more hours until induction... I could wait that. 7 hours was nothing compared to everything else.

A hiccup in the plans

The plan was in place, E & S were figuring out flights and I was sitting in the hospital waiting for the nurses to start the blood transfusion.

There was a little bit of confusion when Sandy called E & S at first, they somehow thought that the twins were already here! They called my mom and were sobbing with excitement over the birth of their babies. She straightened things out and told them that I still had to "start the work" to get them here, first. It is sometimes hard to find the right words to say that will translate to what they understand in French. But, finally we got the message across. They would work on getting flights figured out, and I would work on getting blood in my system so I could get the babies out.

The whole blood transfusion process is a pretty lengthy one. Two nurses have to be present and double check each others work and scan everything in the system, scan my hospital bracelet, etc. Blood isn't something you want to just mess around with! They got two bags of A+ blood and went through all their procedures, and finally it was time to start.

Thankfully I already had my IV in, so they just hooked it up to that. Caryn (my nurse friend from California) told me that I needed to tell them IMMEDIATELY if I felt any kind of chest pressure, since this would just add to the already ridiculous amounts of liquid that my heart was having to pump through my body.

Once they started the first bag of blood, they had to stay with me for 15 minutes to make sure that I didn't have any negative reactions, etc. I was feeling fine for the first 13 minutes, and felt confidence that this was going to work. This was going to happen and I was going to get induced shortly afterward. Things were finally going to go my way.

At about 14 minutes in, though, I felt like someone was sitting on my chest. It was making it rather hard to breathe, and of course the nurse didn't like it when I told her that. She immediately stopped the IV, got another nurse and called the OB on call. Could this really be happening right now? I needed this to work. And the OB said very clearly that if I didn't get this blood transfusion, they wouldn't induce me.

With everyone running around frantically around me, trying to figure out what the problem was, and what the next step would be, I just laid there feeling miserable. Here I was so close to being able to not be pregnant, to start healing and get back to normal, and here comes this bump in the road potentially preventing me from getting induced until weeks from now. When was this going to end?