The Birth!

So, there I was in the doctor’s office with my husband, being told I had developed preeclampsia and the only way to cure it was to deliver the babies.  I responded with, “Okay, when will we do this?”  “Now,” responded my doctor.  My next thought was, “Who’s driving, me or you?” but I didn’t say that out loud!  Instead, my husband and I looked at each other and said, “Okay, explain what’s next.”  My doctor told us we would go to the hospital, be checked in and I would be put on medicine for the preeclampsia (sodium nitrate) and medicine to induce labor (pitocin).  When the babies came, they would go to the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit), but they would be fine.  My doctor then informed me he had office hours so another doctor in the practice, whom I had never met, would deliver the girls.  (I totally forgot to tell you that at our 20 week sonogram we found out we were having 2 girls!  However, at 16 weeks we had asked our doctor to guess and he thought one was a boy.  So, for the next 14 weeks of my pregnancy, every time I had a sonogram, the first thing I asked the technician was to show me the 2 vaginas!)  Back to my birth…

Dave and I left the office, got in our car and called our parents to tell them we were having the babies today.  My mom was devastated as she had just gotten home from the hospital herself the day before, after a full hysterectomy.  She was not going to be able to do much for me or her granddaughters for weeks!  But, we all tried to stay calm and Dave and I walked to the maternity hall.  On our way I all of a sudden looked to Dave in panic.  “What’s wrong?” he said.  “What if I can’t talk during labor?  What are we naming Baby B?”  Dave and I had known from the beginning that Baby A was Kayla Rachel.  Years back we watched Rescue Me and one of the characters had a daughter named Kayla and we agreed then and there that if we ever had a girl, her name would be Kayla.  But, for Baby B, we still had a list of 6 names.  We had narrowed it down to Olivia Rose or Zoey Lila and I was secretly hoping for Zoey, but I didn’t want to say anything.  “Zoey Lila,” said Dave.  “Yes!!” I thought in my head.  And off we went to have the babies.

My labor really wasn’t bad.  The medicine took a while to work because the pitocin was supposed to speed up labor, but a side effect of the sodium nitrate was that it slowed down labor.  The worst part was having so many different people up in my privates!  Doctors and residents came in to check and see how dilated I was.  Then the delivery doctor had to break my water and that was gross!  Literally, like a waterfall out of my vajayjay and it didn’t stop trickling for a while!  But, when I was 6 cm dilated I got the epidural and that was amazing!  I highly recommend it!  As one of the nurses told me, no one gets a prize for not using the drugs!  After that I went to 10cm pretty quickly and I learned how to push and was moved into a surgery room (All twin pregnancies give birth in a surgery room in case they need an emergency C-section).

I was a rock star!  Literally 2 pushes and out came Kayla!  Then a lot of liquid!  Then I was ready to start pushing again but the doctor and nurses told me I could rest.  I said, “No way!  Zoey’s ready!”  And 2 pushes and exactly 3 minutes later out came Zoey!  I thought hearing their heartbeats for the first time was the best sound I ever heard, but that’s nothing compared to the first cry from your baby, or in my case, babies.  I got to hold both girls amidst my tears of joy and I can’t remember being so happy, except maybe on my wedding day and finding out I was initially pregnant!  Then, the girls were taken away for the NICU and I was told I didn’t even tear, no stitches needed!  The birth was over.  I was off to recovery.  Now, the hard part begins…