So my last post showed us having another "textbook" twins pregnancy visit. Everthing checked out fine, with the exception of a routine blood draw for pre-clampsia. As I was home typing of our wonderful news, we received a phone call from the doctor. Dustin answered, and came upstairs stark white, as I got the news. Turns out I didn't have pre-clampsia, but a much more aggressive and severe version of it called HELLP Syndrome. As it turned out, my body was destroying red blood cells and my platelettes were falling at a very accelerated rate. The doctor said we had to get to the hospital for induction immediately. Talk about news!! At first I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Dustin was scrambling around the house, jumping around in a mild state of hysteria. I calmly walked upstairs and plucked my eyebrows. Strange, I know.
We checked into the hospital around 2:30 and I finally had a room by 4. Thank god I had already pre-registered, I couldn't imagine being a walk-in emergency. Now the fun begins... I hopped into bed, rocking my extremely stylish hospital cape, and the needles started flying. 1 poke for an IV, 1 poke for a lab draw to test blood counts; by the end I honestly don't remember how many times they stabbed me in an hour. They had me hooked up to saline, magnesium, steroids and pitocin. The magnesium was to help slow the HELLP and the pitocin obviously to start the induction. The true crap of it is that the magnesium and pitocin counteract each other....so I was headed for a very long and slow night. The other really wonderful side effect of magnesium is that it makes you extremely weak (almost like you're dying from the flu) so I was bed-ridden, on a liquid diet and in need of a catheter. Another rub was that through all the prep classes I was told the epideral would be onboard at the time of catheter placement...but no...no such luck for me. JOY!
By about 10 pm I was allowed my first "meal" - a cherry popsicle. It was heaven! At 3 am, I was dilated to 4 cm and starting to have a few mild contractions. I asked for the epideral before things progressed and it was too late. Now, this was one of my biggest fears after seeing all the details of the procedure. Honestly, the catheter was worse. The only issue I had, was the dosage they were giving me only lasted about an hour, after that I was feeling everything again. So I asked for booster shots, which they were a bit reluctant to provide, but in the end did.
By about noon, the dilation had progressed enough they thought I could start pushing...so push we did. 2 hours later I was being carted into the operating room (a place I hope to never see again) and the real fun began. I had been hooked up to the magnesium for 24 hours at this point and was utterly exhausted. It took another good couple of hours pushing, but Dylan was born at 4:22 with the help of forceps. I felt the vast majority of his delivery, even with the epideral.
Alexis was still breech so it was time for the aversion. They were able to mash my belly enough to get her turned, but unfortunately my contractions were spreading out to about 10 minutes each and getting weaker. The pitocin wasn't working anymore...neither was my damn epideral. I was screaming at the anesthesiologist for booster shots. Thank god the doctors had some clout because I got 2 immediate blasts of cold down my spine. NUMBING HEAVEN! Unfortunately, because of the contraction situation, and the HELLP Syndrome, c-section was not a possibility. So, the doc was in up to his elbow (literally), turning her back around breech. She ended up getting pulled out by her feet about 10 minutes after Dylan. The scariest point was when she wasn't crying. 2 whole minutes of nothing. The whole crew of OR people were huddled around her bed and me in hysterics. They ended up having to assist with her breathing, but she figured it out eventually. That was the longest 2 minutes of my life!
Everyone asks how the delivery was and basically that's all I remember of it. I know the pain was excrutiating and I was utterly exhausted. I'm pretty sure I blacked out during the resting periods of pushing with Dylan and definitely during all of what happened to get Lexi out (thank god).
- Did I have an episiotomy? - yes (not fun)
- Did I tear? - yes second & third degree (definitely not fun).
- Was it all worth it? - absolutely!
I was still bed ridden for the next day due to the additional magnesium I needed, but the nursery was kind enough to wheel Lexi to me at around 9 pm that evening. What a wonderful feeling it was to hold her! I didn't have an opprotunity to see Dylan until the very next night (over 24 hours without seeing my little man). He was placed in the NICU for 2 days because he was having difficulty breathing (another side effect of the magnesium since its a muscle relaxer). It was the saddest thing to see him hooked up to the little monitors. Between the hormone roller coaster and the sad state he was in, I was in hysterics again.
(Looking like hell, but SO happy to finally see Lexi)
(Little man in the NICU)
After asking the doctors why they didn't just do a c-section to begin with, I found out that I had lost 1/2 of my red blood cells through the course of the 26 hour labor/delivery period. If they would've elected to do a c-section I would've lost even more blood, forcing the need for blood transfusions.
Our little family!
In the end, the babies came out healthy and utterly perfect, and although worse for wear and currently anemic, I'm on the mend. I couldn't ask for anything more.
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