I've been trying to put the pieces back together as I sit here with my fingers on the keys. The blurry, exhausting, amazing pieces of the puzzle of events that have happened over this past week. The days, nights, feelings and moments that make up the birth story of our twins. Because our babies are here, and it's hard to know how to even put it into words.
My chest is heavy as my fingers hit the keys at just the thought of trying to start--because these past few days have been filled with every emotion that you can ever imagine and I don't want to forget a minute of it, so I'll just start typing.
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There were some signs of what was to come a few days before I went into labour. Painful cramping, nausea and just the feeling that something wasn't quite right led me to check my hospital bag, get the last minute things done at home and call on my family to warn them that something might be happening.
Then by Monday afternoon it all began.
Slight cramps led to stronger cramps, which led to me jumping in the car with my mom as my sister called Terry at work and told him to meet me at the hospital. Thoughts of my previous fast deliveries, where nurses were running me down the hallway, calling for OB's to get there in time and barely making it to a hospital bed all flooded through me as my mom sped down the road. Both babies were breech, so horrible thoughts of feet coming out first and not getting there in time overwhelmed me.
I told the nurses my previous birth stories when we got there. That these slight cramps would quickly turn aggressive and all of a sudden the babies would be born--quickly. No one ever really believes me though.
"You're only 2 centimeters dilated" one of the nurses said to me as she explained that they might just send me home and I could come back later if things progressed.
You can send me home, I thought in my head, but there's not a chance that I'm leaving this hospital and having breech twins on my living room floor. So I just kept smiling and told them that this is what always happens--by the time I got to 3 centimeters dilated last time, I had one more contraction and the baby's head was coming out in the hallway. So I'd rather stay put, thank you very much.
Anxiety started creeping through my body as I realized time was passing, my contractions were getting stronger and closer together and there was still no mention of getting me prepped for a c-section. "We don't want to have to deliver 34 week old babies if we don't have to", they kept telling me. "We need them to stay put if they can".
I agreed, but I also knew otherwise. These babies were coming whether the doctors and nurses wanted them to or not.
It all gets a bit blurry at this point, but I remember starting to get sick and people rushing a k-basin to my chin as a violent contraction ripped through my body--and all of a sudden I was being wheeled down the hallway into a room where the OB was ready for me. He still wasn't convinced as he checked me and realized I was only 3 centimeters dilated at that point--until he watched as one aggressive contraction took hold of me, then another one right on top of it, and another one right on top again--and all of a sudden things moved quickly.
"Let's get her into the operating room!" I heard someone call out and I felt the locks on my bed being clicked open and I felt myself being rushed down the hallway. My eyes were closed as contractions tore through me, one on top of the other. No time to breathe. No time to think. No one spoke to me as a million hands grabbed every part of my body, quickly prepping me for surgery. I felt needles in my back as two nurses held my shoulders down, cool liquid being rubbed all over my stomach, my legs were being positioned, my arms placed on the arm rests beside me, masked people stood over me as the room quickly filled up with more people than I could even count. I lost sight of my body as they pulled the blue sheet up over my face. It felt like a dream. I could feel the panicked energy in the room and the speed at which they were prepping me.
Then I heard a concerned masked voice behind me "Do you not have a partner here with you?".
"Yes, my husband is waiting to be called in here", I said, not realizing that they had already started cutting into me and had forgotten about him.
I still remember the look in Terry's eyes as he entered the room. That moment when you walk into a room where your wife is lying on a table having surgery performed on her right there in front of you--already cut open, already in the midst of it. I don't think he was prepared.
"Just start taking pictures" I remember telling him. "I want to see them being born".
He looked at me like he might throw up.
"You can do it--you have to", I said.
I didn't want to miss it. I would have torn that blue sheet right down if I could have.
So that brave soul--he did it. He stood up and took all of the pictures that I could have ever asked for. The bloody, the gory, the amazing and the miraculous birth of our twins--all documented. Thank you Terry.
*trigger warning--bloody but beautiful pictures to come. Feet first and all.
I heard a tiny cry, then another one right after that--they were here.
One minute apart.
I remember cranking my neck back so hard that it hurt, trying to get a glimpse of even one of them as both teams of nurses and doctors whisked the babies over to the warming beds and started working on them. I felt like I was outside of my body, watching this happen to someone else.
Then suddenly it happened.
Two warm, tiny bodies were placed on my chest and I could hardly catch my breath.
I had maybe 2 minutes with them before they were taken away to the NICU, but those 2 minutes were all wrapped up into a lifetime of waiting, hoping, praying, wishing for this miracle of twins. I couldn't believe it was actually happening.
An absolute dream come true. Unbelievable.
So as I lay here with these tiny babies snuggled up next to me, I'm reminded that this isn't the end of their story--the birth was only the beginning of the roller coaster ride that we went on throughout our stay at the hospital. My heart is already racing with anxiety just thinking about trying to put down into words the days and nights that followed. So I'll stop here and just pace myself--remembering just that precious moment with those two warm bodies placed on me, because that is the memory that I want to hold onto the most.
Erica xo
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