Jordan and Jared’s Birth Story

The boys’ birth story really begins at conception. For the first time, I was fully aware of my cycles of ovulation and fertility. They were conceived on All Saints’ Day and by the end of the month (November), I was feeling poorly. I had Joel do an ultrasound the day after Thanksgiving to make sure that everything was ok. To our shock, there were triplets in there. The heartbeats were not evident at that time (six weeks) so we just walked around in disbelief, waiting until I was far enough along to discern heartbeats.

I had an OB visit at 8 weeks and the midwife actually didn’t believe me when I told her that I was carrying more than one. She was terribly patronizing, and I just gave up on trying to tell her what was true. Joel followed up with another u/s and we saw three heartbeats, but one of the sacs was visibly smaller than the other two. By the time I got into the OB’s office again for an “official” ultrasound, we were down to twins. There was actually a lot of relief in knowing we were having just two rather than three, since we have two daughters at home already.

The next problem, however, was that the twins were identical and appeared to be monoamniotic and monochorionic, which carries multiple risks. At 12 weeks, therefore, I was under the care of a specialist where an ultrasound revealed that they were not, in fact, mono-mono. The risk of twin-twin transfusion, however, remained. At the third “daddy” ultrasound, we discovered that they were boys. It was early, but the gems were there. Boys. What would we do with boys?!?

The pregnancy was riddled with long OB visits at the perinatologist and by nearly constant nausea and vomiting until around 22 weeks. As a result, I was unable to put on the recommended 40-50 pounds. I think the one week in the pregnancy in which I felt good was around week 23 or 24. After the nausea subsided, I was constantly exhausted and aching and quite unable to do simple things like grocery shop or walk to class.

By the beginning of June, I was in the hospital with preterm labor (at around 32 weeks). I had been to the ER several times for terbutaline shots, but the contractions continued and I actually began to dilate. Hospitalized, I was put on a constant IV of magnesium sulfate, which decreased the contractions to a more acceptable level and stopped the cervical change. After a week in the hospital and steroid shots, the doctors decided I could go home on bedrest. It wasn’t long before I wanted them out more than I wanted to keep them in.

On June 26^th, one day shy of 36 weeks, I had an OB visit. I was scheduled for a c-section on July 11^th (38 weeks) and the twins were measuring 6 lbs by ultrasound. They were also both feet down. This was news to me. I’d had so many ultrasounds and the boys were always head-to-foot and lying transverse. They moved but decided to move feet down! The OB commented that I was 2 cm dilated and that without the pressure of a head on my cervix, it was likely that nothing would happen, except that perhaps a baby might stick a toe through my bag of waters and rupture the membrane.

I went home and felt pretty miserable that afternoon. I took a nap and got up about six when sounds of dinner being made stirred me. I wandered into the kitchen to talk to my mom and husband when I felt a small gush. Part of me thought it might be my water breaking and when I stood up and was greeted by another gush, I rushed to the bedroom to check it out. The gushing continued and I called the doctor. By 7 pm, I was at the hospital, hooked up to monitors, and it was confirmed that my water had broken.

Things happened fast. They hooked me up to an IV, shaved me, gave Joel a “bunny suit” to wear in the operating room, and called in the necessary doctors and nurses. Dr. Scholten arrived and told me she must have jinxed me with her comment about a baby’s toe rupturing my membranes. I wasn’t quite mentally prepared to face a c-section at that point, thinking I had a few more weeks to come to terms with it. By 8:30 pm, I was being rolled into the OR and I was shaking with fear.

The anesthesiologist was very nice and tried to reassure me. I had to ask them to let Joel into the operating room to hold my hands while they administered my spinal. I guess that’s not usually done, but for me, it seemed like a critical moment. Dr. Scholten was right there trying to help me relax and get into the appropriate position, which I really appreciated.

The spinal took effect quickly and they draped a blue cloth in front of me, so that I could see nothing. My left arm was hooked up to an IV and a heart monitor and they loosely strapped my other arm to a board. There’s something about being laid out with your arms positioned horizontally to your body and your bottom half draped and exposed that just makes me feel … vulnerable? No, I think my problem with it is the unnatural nature of it. Lying there like that under OR lights, it just didn’t seem like I was giving birth.

Contrary to what they tell you, you can feel things during a c-section. You can’t feel the cuts (or sharps, as my OB put it) but you feel every tug and touch. When they started, I distinctly smelled burning flesh, which I confirmed with Joel was a cauterizing instrument used in conjunction with a scalpel. Mostly, I tried not to focus on all the sensations I was feeling in an attempt to avoid panicking.

By 8:52, Jordan had arrived, followed at 8:53 by his brother, Jared. When they tugged me open to deliver the first baby, Joel asked me if I felt that. I told him I could feel everything and asked him why he asked. He said that it was a pretty big tug at that point. Jordan arrived crying, which was a relief given they were early. The steroids must have done their job.

Joel disappeared from my side with the arrival of his first son and I was left alone with nothing to see but that damn blue drape as they delivered the placenta and stitched me up. Luckily the anesthesiologist was pretty attentive, not only to what he was doing, but also to me. He asked me all the time how I was doing and reassured me by touching my shoulder.

I could just see one of the babies to my left as they worked on me and them. At one point, I heard Joel say that at least there was one way to tell them apart. When he came over to see me briefly, I asked him what he meant. The boys had webbing on their second and third toes, but Jared’s is on his right and Jordan’s is on his left. Joel asked me how I was doing and I just said “I want it to be over.” They brought me the babies one at a time, but there wasn’t much I could do except look at them. Apgars were 9/9.

Dr. Scholten appeared on my side of the cloth at one point and I asked her who was stitching if she was there. The nurse was a plastic surgery nurse and she let him finish the top layer, since he was better than her at cosmetic stitching. I was amused to note that I was hungry as they stitched. I’d missed dinner when my water broke, but it still seemed funny to be hungry in the middle of surgery.

When all was stitched and bandaged, they moved me from the table to a bed and I caught a glimpse of all the blood on the table. I hadn’t thought I wanted to see any of the birth, but having gone through it without any view or even any sensation other than tugging of what happened, I wish I could have at least seen the boys as they emerged. With the drape in front of me, it’s almost as if I was completely detached from the experience.

They wheeled us all to the recovery room where we attempted to breastfeed. Jordan did a pretty good job for a small preemie. The numbness wore off very very slowly and as it did, I had IV pain meds. It was the next day when the full impact of a c-section hit me. Ouch. I wasn’t able to move without feeling a searing pain and when the nurses tried to get me up in the afternoon, I was light-headed and in a lot of pain. By the third attempt, I broke into tears as soon as I sat up and they decided to get me up and walking the following morning instead.

The first day I was particularly out of it. People called and I’m not quite sure what I said to them. I’m afraid I might have just blabbered at them. By day two, I was mentally more with it, but physically, I was in a lot of pain. Breastfeeding was difficult because I couldn’t maneuver myself of the boys very easily. Since the boys were under the magic 5 pounds 8 ounces, their blood sugar was monitored. It did start to drop and we were given the choice of formula or eventual admittance to the NICU. Formula it was. It hasn’t caused any problems with nursing and it probably also helped ward off jaundice. The boys just ate and slept the whole time we were in the hospital, with brief periods of being awake to be examined, poked, and bathed.

I went home on the morning of the fourth day, fully swollen up like the Pillsbury dough boy and full of narcotics. All in all, vaginal is better.