Makayla and Mackenzie are here!

Wow, what a week!! Christmas day/night, I went to bed at 10:00 p.m. I woke up three hours later, at 1:00 a.m. on 12/26, with painful contractions. I started timing them, and just when they would be regular (every 5 minutes) for an hour, I'd go about 15 minutes without one - so I never woke up DH or went to the hospital. But they sure hurt!!

That morning, Wednesday, I had an OB appt at 10:10 a.m. I told him I'd been up all night contracting and in pain. He checked me, and I was 2 cm dilated and 80% effaced. He was so indecisive...ugh. First he said I should go back on mag sulfate to stop labor...I said absolutely not, that the babies needed to be delivered. I told him about the size discordancy and other concerns - he hadn't received the report from the peri yet. So then he said maybe they did need to be delivered and said we would do a c-section since B was breech. He sent me over to the hospital.

I got to the hospital and checked in; the nurse called him to get orders, and he tells her to set me up for a vaginal delivery (go figure - I've been asking for this the entire pg, but he kept saying not unless both babies were head-down). So they admit me, and I am contracting all day...sometimes with as little as 20-30 seconds of rest between long, painful contractions - I had terrible back labor radiating into my thighs. I was getting Demerol every 3 hours, but I didn't want to get the epidural yet at that point.

By 10:00 p.m. Wednesday night - 21 hours into labor - I was STILL 2 cm and 80% effaced. The OB decides maybe I'm not really in labor, and restarts my Procardia (used to stop labor). UGH!!! I continued to contract all night, though much more slowly, but then started to have some mild bleeding. By 5:00 a.m. Thursday, I was starting to pass some small clots, and I asked the nurse to please check me again...she did, and I was 3-4 cm and 90%. Ironic - they give me med to stop labor, and I finally progress...

Around 9:00 a.m., they decided to break my water, since I was still only about 4 cm. I asked for the epidural at that point, and good thing - the contractions became unbearable after that. Once the epi kicked in, they started some pitocin to try to get things moving. Unfortunately, not long after that, Makayla (A) started having heart rate decelerations with every contraction...so they put me on oxygen and started an amnio-infusion through an intra-uterine catheter to try to replace some of the fluid I was losing to see if that would help Makayla...it didn't.

At 2:00 p.m., I was still only 6 cm. I think at that point, I counted something like 10 or 12 different tubes/sensors/etc. hooked up to me!!! It was getting a little scary and overwhelming. But all of a sudden, at 2:45 p.m., I had a lot of increased pressure in my rectum, and I asked the nurse to check me again - I was finally 10 cm!!! The action picked up immediately, as they had to move me to the operating room for delivery - just in case I needed a crash c-section.

The OR was scary and freezing cold. The anesthesiologist was a moron and was so busy talking on his cell phone that he thought we were doing a c-section and got me completely numb - just in time for my OB to freak out and ask how I was supposed to push out two babies when I couldn't feel anything!! And talk about an audience - in addition to me and my DH, there were 14 other people in the room - my OB, the anesthesiologist, the neonatologist, 3 L&D nurses, and a 4-person NICU team per baby.

Anyway, I told them if someone would kindly tell me when I was having a contraction (since I could feel NOTHING), I'd be happy to try pushing...so that's what we did. My OB thought it would be forever, so was leaving the room and told them to call him when I was close. Two pushes later, they yelled for him to come back b/c Makayla's head was coming out!! Talk about mind over body - I couldn't tell at all whether or not I was actually pushing, but my mind was working really hard to focus on pushing!!

Makayla was born at 4:14 p.m. Thursday 12/27. She came out bright red, screaming, with Apgars 8 and 9. But she turned quickly and they had to briefly intubate her and give her a dose of surfactant to help her lungs. I didn't get to see her before they whisked her off to the NICU. She weighed 5 lbs, 6 oz, and was 16.5 inches long.

Then things got ugly. My OB used the ultrasound and manipulation to get Mackenzie turned around (she was breech). He succeeded in this quickly, but then her heart rate crashed - it was down in the 30's at one point, and was in the 60-70's for extended periods of time. My OB started cussing, saying, "Oh $hit, oh $hit, oh $hit," and started asking for various tools and yelling at nurses to get ready for a c-section. He told them we didn't have time to get another OB up there, to get a doc from the regular OR up there right away. Meanwhile, I was apparently gushing blood, and he had his arm UP TO HIS ELBOW inside me, with his other arm across my belly, trying to get her out. At this point, I was thankful the anesthesiologist had made me numb - I can only imagine how much pain I would have been in if I could feel that!! Just when my OB said we were going to start a c-section, he said, "Oh, wait, there's a head!" I was pushing with all my might (well mostly my head, since I couldn't feel) - one after another after another - even between contractions. My heartrate was 130 and my blood pressure was 170/?? b/c I was working so hard - I was terrified she wasn't going to make it. I finally got her out at 4:29 p.m. - only 15 minutes after her sister, but it seemed like an ETERNITY!!

She came out pale, limp and not responsive, but quickly perked up. Her Apgars were 5 and 8, but she needed no respiratory assistance, and they were able to bring her over to me before they took her to the NICU. That was when I saw her cleft lip - the peri had somehow missed this on all of my ultrasounds!! She weighed 2 lbs, 15 oz, and was 14 inches long...so tiny compared to her sister.

The rest of the time in the OR, they delivered my placentas, etc, and got me cleaned up. I had a reaction to the epidural and started shaking uncontrollably - warm blankets have never felt so good!! They took me to my post-partum room, and by about 6:30 p.m., I was able to walk over to the NICU and see the babies. Of course, I should have not been so stubborn, b/c within about 15 minutes of being up, I got a terrible spinal headache from the epidural, and got stuck in bed for the remainder of the evening...IV fluids and lots of caffeine did the trick and by about midnight, I was feeling much better.

My recovery has been very slow. My body was really traumatized by the delivery - hello, OB climbing inside me! I am still having to take a lot of pain meds, and at times can't even hardly walk the pain is so intense. I am still having episodes of uncontrollable shivering, even though I'm not running a fever - doc says it's b/c my body is still kind of in shock. They talked about giving me a couple bags of blood today, but b/c I tend to be so overly sensitive to stuff, they were afraid I'd have a strong reaction, so they held off on that.

I'm home now, and hopefully will get some rest and start recovering a bit more quickly. It was very hard to leave the hospital though, without the babies, but I know they're being well cared for.

 

WOW! What a delivery, I'm so sorry you had to go through all of that. I'm so glad to hear that the babies are doing well and I hope they are home with you soon. Take advantage of this time to recover and take care of yourself. :hug99:

 

Congratulations on your baby daughters!
Sounds like quite a birth experience! And with that growth discordance I think it is better they let them come! Also a cleft lip is nothing, nowadays they repair it and nobody will ever notice. We have a few users on here who has children who had cleft lip surgery and I would have never guessed (even though I see a LOT of cleft babies where I work).
Finally my boys were only 3 pounds each at birth and they are now very healthy very loud boys, so do not worry about your tiny one, she will be big in no time!
Millie

 

What a story! Wow! I am glad you and the babies are okay. Take care of yourself. I hope you are all home together soon.

 

Congratulations on the birth of your girls…

What a story… I was reading it to my DH as I went… he was trying to imagine what I would do if my Dr started to yell oh $hit a few times…
I’m glad your home resting and I hope your girls are soon to follow…

 

Congratulations on the birth Does sound like a very hard labor and delivery and I hope you are able to recovery quickly. I do hope the babies are doing well and are able to be home soon with you

Dianna

 

Congrats on the birth of your girls!!!

 

Congratulations!! x

 

Congrats...sounds like you had a hard time...sorry about that

 

congrats on your baby girls! i was on pins and needles reading your birth story! what an ordeal! thank god for that epi i cant imagine the pain u would have felt! I hope the girls are home soon and your recovery is short!

 

WOW WOW WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! You absolutely have some angels looking out after you! Thanks for taking the time to post your story, and please let us know how you are progressing.

 

Your birth story sent chills down my spine because it was SO much like my own. I can't believe they let you go so far with a discordance like that!! I'm SOO relieved to hear it all turned out well and that you've got two strong baby girls working to come home with you! CONGRATULATIONS!!

 

Hope your little girls come home soon. That's quite the birth story. Sounds like you did great. Congrats on your new additions

 

Congratulations on the birth of your girls! :Clap: I'm sorry you had such a long and difficult labor but I am glad to read that baby B is doing so well. Sometimes it is those small ones that are the healthiest because the stress in the womb causes them to mature more rapidly. Our girls followed a very similar care plan to your two. Get some rest and I hope the girls come home soon. Congrats again!

 

Congratulations and I see you've already made your way to the NICU forum, feel free to ask us anything there.

 

Congratulations!
What a scary delivery! I am so glad your babies are doing well. I hope your recovery starts getting better.

 

Good night!!! What a birth story. I'm so glad that the babies are out and that you're going to be ok. Congratulations on the birth of your children and thanks for letting us in on your birth story.

Fiona

 

Wow... so sorry you had a traumatic experience. I'm glad everything turned out okay. And I'm glad you didn't have to have a crash c/s after all of that. Hope your little ones have a quick recovery and grow, grow, grow!

 

:birthday: :birthday: girls!

Glad you are home and recovering.

 

Congratulations on your girls! That is quite a story, but I'm glad everyone is doing ok. Any thoughts on when they'll be home? I know your little girl will have to grow for awhile. :hug99: to you while you recover and watch over your new babies. Keep us posted on your progress and theirs!

 

Wow! That is quite a birth story, I wish you and your girls a speedy recovery!

 

hi, congrats on th birth of your babies!!! (just curious were they meant to be id or are they frat??)

sorry you had such a bad exp!!Hope you start to feel better soon.

My first son was born w/ a cleft lip and palate so if theres antthing you would like to talk about please pm me. He isnow 4 and doing great having had all his surgeries.

best of luck and well done!!

 

Wow, that sounds like it was extremely difficult--I'm glad you and the babies are okay. Congratulations on the little sweeties, and I hope they're home with you very soon.

 

:birthday: girls!

Congratulations and :sign0016: to the First Year!!

 

QUOTE(JenClark74 @ Dec 30 2007, 06:50 AM) [snapback]550588[/snapback]
Wow, what a week!! Christmas day/night, I went to bed at 10:00 p.m. I woke up three hours later, at 1:00 a.m. on 12/26, with painful contractions. I started timing them, and just when they would be regular (every 5 minutes) for an hour, I'd go about 15 minutes without one - so I never woke up DH or went to the hospital. But they sure hurt!!

That morning, Wednesday, I had an OB appt at 10:10 a.m. I told him I'd been up all night contracting and in pain. He checked me, and I was 2 cm dilated and 80% effaced. He was so indecisive...ugh. First he said I should go back on mag sulfate to stop labor...I said absolutely not, that the babies needed to be delivered. I told him about the size discordancy and other concerns - he hadn't received the report from the peri yet. So then he said maybe they did need to be delivered and said we would do a c-section since B was breech. He sent me over to the hospital.

I got to the hospital and checked in; the nurse called him to get orders, and he tells her to set me up for a vaginal delivery (go figure - I've been asking for this the entire pg, but he kept saying not unless both babies were head-down). So they admit me, and I am contracting all day...sometimes with as little as 20-30 seconds of rest between long, painful contractions - I had terrible back labor radiating into my thighs. I was getting Demerol every 3 hours, but I didn't want to get the epidural yet at that point.

By 10:00 p.m. Wednesday night - 21 hours into labor - I was STILL 2 cm and 80% effaced. The OB decides maybe I'm not really in labor, and restarts my Procardia (used to stop labor). UGH!!! I continued to contract all night, though much more slowly, but then started to have some mild bleeding. By 5:00 a.m. Thursday, I was starting to pass some small clots, and I asked the nurse to please check me again...she did, and I was 3-4 cm and 90%. Ironic - they give me med to stop labor, and I finally progress...

Around 9:00 a.m., they decided to break my water, since I was still only about 4 cm. I asked for the epidural at that point, and good thing - the contractions became unbearable after that. Once the epi kicked in, they started some pitocin to try to get things moving. Unfortunately, not long after that, Makayla (A) started having heart rate decelerations with every contraction...so they put me on oxygen and started an amnio-infusion through an intra-uterine catheter to try to replace some of the fluid I was losing to see if that would help Makayla...it didn't.

At 2:00 p.m., I was still only 6 cm. I think at that point, I counted something like 10 or 12 different tubes/sensors/etc. hooked up to me!!! It was getting a little scary and overwhelming. But all of a sudden, at 2:45 p.m., I had a lot of increased pressure in my rectum, and I asked the nurse to check me again - I was finally 10 cm!!! The action picked up immediately, as they had to move me to the operating room for delivery - just in case I needed a crash c-section.

The OR was scary and freezing cold. The anesthesiologist was a moron and was so busy talking on his cell phone that he thought we were doing a c-section and got me completely numb - just in time for my OB to freak out and ask how I was supposed to push out two babies when I couldn't feel anything!! And talk about an audience - in addition to me and my DH, there were 14 other people in the room - my OB, the anesthesiologist, the neonatologist, 3 L&D nurses, and a 4-person NICU team per baby.

Anyway, I told them if someone would kindly tell me when I was having a contraction (since I could feel NOTHING), I'd be happy to try pushing...so that's what we did. My OB thought it would be forever, so was leaving the room and told them to call him when I was close. Two pushes later, they yelled for him to come back b/c Makayla's head was coming out!! Talk about mind over body - I couldn't tell at all whether or not I was actually pushing, but my mind was working really hard to focus on pushing!!

Makayla was born at 4:14 p.m. Thursday 12/27. She came out bright red, screaming, with Apgars 8 and 9. But she turned quickly and they had to briefly intubate her and give her a dose of surfactant to help her lungs. I didn't get to see her before they whisked her off to the NICU. She weighed 5 lbs, 6 oz, and was 16.5 inches long.

Then things got ugly. My OB used the ultrasound and manipulation to get Mackenzie turned around (she was breech). He succeeded in this quickly, but then her heart rate crashed - it was down in the 30's at one point, and was in the 60-70's for extended periods of time. My OB started cussing, saying, "Oh $hit, oh $hit, oh $hit," and started asking for various tools and yelling at nurses to get ready for a c-section. He told them we didn't have time to get another OB up there, to get a doc from the regular OR up there right away. Meanwhile, I was apparently gushing blood, and he had his arm UP TO HIS ELBOW inside me, with his other arm across my belly, trying to get her out. At this point, I was thankful the anesthesiologist had made me numb - I can only imagine how much pain I would have been in if I could feel that!! Just when my OB said we were going to start a c-section, he said, "Oh, wait, there's a head!" I was pushing with all my might (well mostly my head, since I couldn't feel) - one after another after another - even between contractions. My heartrate was 130 and my blood pressure was 170/?? b/c I was working so hard - I was terrified she wasn't going to make it. I finally got her out at 4:29 p.m. - only 15 minutes after her sister, but it seemed like an ETERNITY!!

She came out pale, limp and not responsive, but quickly perked up. Her Apgars were 5 and 8, but she needed no respiratory assistance, and they were able to bring her over to me before they took her to the NICU. That was when I saw her cleft lip - the peri had somehow missed this on all of my ultrasounds!! She weighed 2 lbs, 15 oz, and was 14 inches long...so tiny compared to her sister.

The rest of the time in the OR, they delivered my placentas, etc, and got me cleaned up. I had a reaction to the epidural and started shaking uncontrollably - warm blankets have never felt so good!! They took me to my post-partum room, and by about 6:30 p.m., I was able to walk over to the NICU and see the babies. Of course, I should have not been so stubborn, b/c within about 15 minutes of being up, I got a terrible spinal headache from the epidural, and got stuck in bed for the remainder of the evening...IV fluids and lots of caffeine did the trick and by about midnight, I was feeling much better.

My recovery has been very slow. My body was really traumatized by the delivery - hello, OB climbing inside me! I am still having to take a lot of pain meds, and at times can't even hardly walk the pain is so intense. I am still having episodes of uncontrollable shivering, even though I'm not running a fever - doc says it's b/c my body is still kind of in shock. They talked about giving me a couple bags of blood today, but b/c I tend to be so overly sensitive to stuff, they were afraid I'd have a strong reaction, so they held off on that.

I'm home now, and hopefully will get some rest and start recovering a bit more quickly. It was very hard to leave the hospital though, without the babies, but I know they're being well cared for.

Congrats Jen!!!! Rest up until you get your little ones home.

 

Happy bday babies.....sorry you had such a difficult labor but at least it is over and I pray that the girls get strong enough to come home soon...hang in there!!!!

 

So sorry you had such a rough delivery. Hopefully the babies will be home soon that will make it all worth it. Congratulations.