Babies Have Arrived

Okay...so the babies have arrived a little early. With this blog...I am going to talk about how the babies came into the world, how terribly wrong everything went with my spinal, how the babies are doing and how I am doing.

The Birth Of The Babies

It all started on the morning of October 29th at around 7:00 am. I noticed that morning when I went to the restroom there was a little more "red stuff" then normal. So called a nurse to come look. After she took a look she said she was going to call a Resident to come check me out. At that point I texted Billy (I would have called him, but my phone didn't work in the hospital room). I told him that he may want to start heading back to the hospital...I was about to be checked out by a Resident and I told him why. This was only the second morning out of the 8 nights we stayed in the hospital that Billy woke up at 3:30 am to go to work. All the other times he stayed all night and all day with me. So at around 7:45 am the Resident showed up to examine me. Right away...she said, "You are in labor! You are already dilated to 5 cm.". What? That can not be...I had not felt one contraction and I was there all alone. Mom and Suzy were on there way or just about to leave...but I knew they weren't planning on leaving EC until around 8:00 am. So they were just leaving town. The nurse was like, "Your husband should make it here in time. How far away do you think he is?" When I told her an hour and a half...she said, "oh yeah...he is going to miss it." At that point I freaked out! I texted Billy right away and said, "You better get here quick. Haul A**. They are getting me ready for a c-section and then taking me to Labor & Delivery!". Luckily the first ultrasound machine they brought in to see what position the babies were in wouldn't work. So that took a little time...to go find a different one. When they finally came back with a working machine they did the ultrasound. Joey was still head down in my cervix as usual...but Molly was sideways. Which was no problem since I was doing a c-section anyways. The doctor that was on-call was in a meeting so until she was done they didn't want to move me to L&D. At around 9:00 they started taking me out of the room and there was Mom and Suzy about to come into my room. Relief...They made it! I wasn't completely alone anymore. So then I went to L&D and they started to get me ready for my spinal. At that time...right when I was about to get the spinal...Billy poked his head in the room. All the nurses were telling him he wasn't allowed in there at that time...but he didn't care. He made sure I knew he was on the other side of the door waiting to come in and help deliver our babies. It was so good to see him and I was able to relax a little more. So I am in position for the spinal and the anesthesiologist tells me I am about to feel a little pinch and then some burning from the medicine. Boy did I feel the medicine. I nearly jumped right off the table. I felt something shoot down my left leg and into my foot. So painful at first but then immediately the numbing started to kick in. No more pain for the next 7 hours. It was amazing. Dr. Timmins said, "Here is Joey!" I heard a smack and then his first cry. A minute later, Dr. Timmins said "And here is Molly!" I heard another smack and then her first cry. It was the best sound in the world. I just started to cry. Then they took them out for a second for the NICU team to check them out. They wrapped them up in blankets and Billy brought them both in for me to look at. I gave both of them kisses, took some pictures and then they were off to the NICU. I got stitched up and then went to recovery for about 2 hours.

Finding Out There Is A Problem

Okay...so here is it 7 hours after delivery. I was up in my room with my family (Mom, Dad, Tracy, Sarah, Joe, Suzy, Shawn and Abby). I was standing up for the first time about to get in a wheel chair to go see the babies in the NICU. I noticed when I sat down that I was starting to get this terrible headache. But I was determined to go see Molly and Joey. Billy was wheeling me down to the NICU and Sarah and Tracy were with us. Sarah noticed my head was hurting pretty bad and mentioned something about me possibly having a spinal headeache...but I thought, no way...this was going to go away. I thought I was just really stressed because of everything that had gone on that morning and me just thinking about my last pregnancy and there was just so much going on in my mind...it would go away after I saw the babies and maybe after a good nights rest. But I went to see the babies and it didn't get better. It just got worse. I got to hold each of them for about 20 minutes and then I had to get back to my bed. By the time I got to my room I could hardly open my eyes. So I took a bunch of pain medicine Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Friday morning around 11:00 an anesthesiologist came in to do a blood patch. That will usually heal a spinal headache. So he did it around 11:00 and around 3:00 that evening I went to see the babies. Got to hold both of them for about an hour each and got to feed Joey. My headache was gone and I thought I was cured. That night I went to sleep feeling great. Saturday morning...I felt okay when I woke up. I took a shower and started to get ready for Amy and Wendy to come and visit the babies. I was brushing my hair when I felt the headache coming back. I tried to ignore it. I was so excited to get to the NICU that morning to show off my cute babies to my friends and so I did ignore it for a little while. By the time I got to the NICU my headache was back in full force! Felt like the blood patch never happened. So I went back to the room right away to get back in bed. Mom and Dad came that morning also to see the babies and to see how I was doing. Billy took them to the NICU while I stayed in bed. I layed in bed all day and then around 6:00 that evening another anesthesiologist came in to do a second blood patch. At that time Joe and Suzy were there to see us and the babies. The anesthesiologist told me the statistics of the amount of women needing these after a spinal and how rare I was to even need a first one and then to need a second one. I guess I'm special. So anyways...I do the second one in the evening. This time I decided to stay laying down even longer. I thought maybe I didn't stay laying down long enough with the first one...so this one I decided to not go see the babies that night...wait and go in the morning when this headache is gone. Well...I woke up Sunday morning and the headache was back. So on Sunday I saw my first neuro-surgeon. He suggested me do a CT scan and a MRI. The CT showed that I had some blood on the right side of my brian. So that means that during the spinal the fluid dripping caused a dura hematoma. Crazy! So once they figured out what was really going on they put me on the correct pain meds and then released me on Tuesday.

I will update more later...tired of typing!