The story starts with a pretty sleepless night on Thursday, October 5th. With the anticipation of the induction the next morning, it was difficult to shut our minds off. After all, within 24 hours we would be meeting our babies!
We arose around 5 am on Friday morning (the 6th) since we were supposed to call the hospital at 5:30 to confirm they had room for us. After getting the go-ahead we arrived at the hospital at 6:30. We did some initial settling in, answering questions, and other mundane things. At 8:00 am Dr. Asdell came in to say hello, break the water, and get the pitocin (drug used to induce labor) started. And so it began...
The morning hour consisted mainly of waiting for good contractions to start. They came in about every fifteen minutes to increase the dose of pitocin. After a while they decided to place internal monitors to monitor contractions and Baby A's (Hannah's) heart rate. At 12:15 pm, Elizabeth was in enough pain that they put in her epidural. When I went back into the room after they had started that, she was a new woman. She said that she felt better than she had felt in months.
My parents had arrived at the hospital around 9:30 am, and Elizabeth's parents arrived around 1:00 pm. We were all expecting a delivery in the late afternoon or early evening.
Progress was slowly being made each time an exam was performed. The babies also handled the labor very well. The problem was that they reached the maximum dose of pitocin and Elizabeth's utuerus just wasn't contracting strongly or very regularly. But, the doctor said as long as there was progress, and as long as the babies were doing fine, we should stay the course.
As the evening wore on Elizabeth got more and more uncomfortable and began experiencing back labor that she was able to feel even with the epidural block. Finally, around 11:30 or 12 that night, after 16 hours of labor, Dr. Asdell came in and did an exam. We were dismayed to hear that things had actually started to regress. Backwards progress. After that things started happening very quickly as preparations were made for the c-section.
I got into my "bunny suit" and donned my hair cover and mouth/nose guard. At 12:20 am Elizabeth was wheeled off to the operating room while I was left to wait until I was summoned. So I waited, and I paced, and I waited for what seemed to be an eternity. Finally after about 10 minutes they came and got me and took me into the operating room where I seated next to Elizabeth's head. She was not looking good. She had already vomited before I got there and that continued throughout the surgery.
The operating room was packed! The occupants consisted of Elizabeth and myself, Dr. Asdell, a resident, Elizabeth's nurse, two nurses assisting with the surgery, the anesthesiologist, two respiratory therapists (one for each baby), two NICU nurses (one for each baby) and a student nurse.
The early part of the surgery was interrupted with a "Whoa!" from Dr. Asdell, followed by a "Is everything okay?" from me. The anesthesiologist looked over the curtain and told that everything was fine, Dr. Asdell had just shocked herself with the cauterizing tool. It wasn't long after that, when unexpectedly, we heard the first cries. Little Hannah had been born. They quickly cut her cord and lifted her up over the curtain for Elizabeth and I to take a peek. She was definitely gross looking, but it will always be remembered as one of the sweetest sights of my life. At that point Hannah was handed off to the team waiting to assess her as I shed a few tears and kissed Elizabeth. About that time the anesthesiologist asked if I wanted to watch them pull Noah out. Of course I did! About the time I stood up and looked over the curtain they were pulling his head out, followed by one shoulder, then the other, and then the rest of his body. Cries again. Noah had joined us! I sat back down as they held Noah up for Elizabeth and I to admire. Again, gross...but oh so beautiful. For the next thirty minutes or so they stitched Elizabeth back up while the babies were checked out, cleaned up, and passed to me to hold. Both were determined to be very healthy!
After the surgery was complete, and while they were preparing Elizabeth to transport her back to her room, I was able to chat with Dr. Asdell. She said that Hannah was a little stinker and was face up in the birth canal, instead of face down. That would explain the back labor! She also said that even though Noah was head down, based on his position, she thinks he would have flipped sideways after Hannah made her exit and would have required a c-section anyway. So, at least it was just a c-section and not a regular birth plus a c-section.
The initial recovery period went very well. The grandparents were all very anxious to meet their new grandchildren. After about 45 minutes they were allowed to come in. It was a neat moment for us all.
After a little more time in the labor room Elizabeth was transported to the post-partum unit. As we settled in and I laid down to try and sleep I started to feel sick. About the same time Elizabeth started to feel sick. I ended up throwing up a whole bunch in the bathroom. My blood sugar was a little high, but the probable culprit was dehydration, lack of sleep, and not eating very well throughout the day. Suddenly Elizabeth was feeling really ill. She was lightheaded, seeing gray spots, and bad things like that. As all of the nurses rushed in to help her, I headed into the bathroom to throw up again. Since Elizabeth was feeling even more upset worrying about me, I agreed to go to the emergency room. I went down and told them that I basically just needed some fluids and something for the nausea. They complied and I was as good as new in a couple of hours (as much as that is possible after not sleeping for 30 hours). Anyway, back to Elizabeth....they determined that her blood pressure was dropping dramatically and elevated her feet above her head. After a while they were able to get her stabilized. They started monitoring her hemoglobin and it continued to decrease (not a good thing) over the next day. There was some concern about internal bleeding because the blood loss from the surgery seemed minimal. Finally, Dr. Asdell recommended a blood transfusion, and Elizabeth received two units of blood. After the transfusion her hemoglobin almost doubled. Dr. Asdell decided that she may have underestimated the blood loss during the surgery and over-estimated the fluid loss associated with the babies. The good thing was that after the transfusion, Elizabeth started to get some of her energy back.
The last major hurdle for Elizabeth was the horrible gas pain she was experiencing. They went through several "invasive" treatments and finally Elizabeth found some relief from that. She said it was the worst part of the surgery.
The rest of the recovery time consisted of lots of feeding of the babies. They were in the room with us a lot, but we sent them to the nursery during the night when they weren't eating so that we could try and get some sleep. That helped a lot!
Elizabeth and the babies were discharged from the hospital on Tuesday.
Here are some pictures from the hospital:
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