Livin' the Dream: August 2012

7 hours before the Twinkies arrive.

Dilated to a 7 we're having TWINS!!

Wow. I DID IT!

I had 4 kids in 4 years...I'm a little crazy I guess

So here's the war story! It all started the beginning of August. I was 34 weeks pregnant, and well some early signs of labor appeared. So I called the Dr. and went in to have my cervix measured. As it turned out I was 75% effaced, so it was off to the hospital for me. They put me on medication to stop my labor (Magnesium Sulfate) and they gave me steroid injections for the babies. I was in the hospital from Wednesday until Saturday. When I went home I was put on strict bed rest. I could get up to use the bathroom and to eat. (My wonderful mother came all the way from Africa to take care of my boys and me. She's the best mommy ever!!!!!)

I was scheduled to see the Dr. again on Tuesday August 7th at 11:00am. Around 10:00 am I noticed that my back was hurting about every ten minutes, and it was getting harder and harder to ignore the ache. When we arrived at my appointment they did the ultrasound first, the babies looked great. They were a good size, and their hearts were strong. But when it came time to measure my cervix again, well, there wasn't any cervix to measure. So when I saw the Dr. she checked me as well to see how dilated I was. I was at a 3. She told me I was ok to have the babies, but that they might need to spend some time in the NICU. So I went home and tried to sleep hoping that my labor would stop. It didn't. Around 2:00 I told Cody that my contractions were about 4 minutes apart, but I didn't want to go to the hospital yet because I didn’t want to get hooked up to the monitors, and I was SURE that my labor would stall and that we would be there FOREVER (like with Toby). He came home any way at 3:00. Another fun labor symptom (too gross to share here) appeared around 3:50ish and Cody didn't give me a choice any more, we were on our way to the hospital. We were all checked in at 4:05, they checked me and I was dilated to a 7 and my contractions were 2 minutes apart. 15 minutes later my IV was hooked up and my water broke. By then I was about an 8.5 and they rushed my to the OR (Since there is a really high risk of needing a C-section with twins that is where they are delivered). Every thing was happening so fast I didn't have anytime to wrap my head around the fact that they were really coming, but when they rolled me in to the Operating Room it all became real and that's when the emotions started. I worried that my babies would be too small, that their lung wouldn't work, that they wouldn't handle labor well and I would need a C-Section. I wasn't in a lot of pain, it was actually not very uncomfortable at all. I can't really explain it, it hurt, but it wasn't horrible, or even unbearable. But I started to cry a little bit any way. Go figure. My wonderful nurse and sweet husband were there and they both held my hands, and once I was at the 10 and the DR told me to start pushing I was ready to go.

(Just a side note for the curious, in the O.R. there were 3 nurses there for me, 2 for each baby, a PA for each baby, 3 DR's for me [One to catch the baby, one to run the ultrasound machine and an Anesthesiologist just in case of an emergency], plus my Husband and me. It was a REALLY crowded O.R.). Pushing seemed to take forever, and was rather frustrating. But at 5:44 pm Parker Hue Plaisted came screaming into the world. Then came the tricky part. I was EXHAUSTED, I didn't have an epidural, and wow, there was A LOT of blood. So the Dr. told me to start pushing again whenever I felt a contraction. I lied to her and told her I couldn't feel them. I was too tired to start pushing again, and seriously just wanted to sleep. Well that's when they started the pitocin, I decided that I would stop lying and start pushing; Penelopie Lyn Plaisted was born at 5:59 pm. If there had been only one to push out labor and delivery would have been a breeze and every woman in the whole world would have babies everyday. It seriously hardly hurt at all. But since I had to go through pushing twice in less than 20 minutes, I'm not going to say that it was a breeze. It sucked, but I would do it again tomorrow (not really, but I love my babies and they were worth every drop of blood, every tear, and every stretch mark I have.) That being said, once the babies are out most people think that it's over and the healing can begin. Not in my case.

(CAUTION: This next part is really gross, and explicit, and, well, not for the weak of stomach....)With all of my kids the "after birth" has been rather difficult to get out. Carter's placenta was HUGE, and Toby's got stuck. Well with these ones, they just didn't want to come out. I had to start pushing again, they up-ed my "pit drip" and well nothing helped. Finally Dr. Perrin reached in up to her forearm and started scraping the after birth outta me. I TELL YA! OUCH! My attention was taken from the wonderful little miracles that were over to the side of me screaming, to the fact that there was some one's arm ALL the way up there, and well that is the MOST pain I have ever experienced in my life. Worse than the pain of labor I had on pitocin with Toby, and more painful squeezing 2 humans out of my nether region. I lost quite a bit of blood through this whole experience. (I'm glad I am remembering this right now because I was thinking that maybe we weren't done with kids quite yet, but now I'm pretty sure we're done).

After that they wheeled us all back to the room where I got my IV put in, and they checked out the babies some more. They were both wonderful. Parker was 4lbs. 8oz. and Penelopie was 5 lbs. 4 oz. and both were 19 inches long. Their vitals were great, and, well, they weren't going to NICU. Nursing was hard because they were premature. They were more interested in sleep than food. So we nursed, supplemented with formula, and as long as they could take a bottle they could go home in 48 hours. All went great. I pumped so that my milk would come in and they practiced nursing some, but mostly they took bottles. 48 hours later we were on our way home. The next week they really got the hang of nursing so I stopped supplementing and we just nursed; but they weren't gaining enough weight so I we are back to pumping and I have to put a special high calorie formula into the expressed milk, and now they are on the up and up. Today Parker is 4 lbs. 11 oz. and Penelopie is 5 lbs. 7 oz. Still TINY but growing. I have to say that I have NEVER held a baby as small as Parker. He's rather fun to hold.

I LOVE having newborns in the house. I love that there are two of them, and I LOVE love LOVE not being pregnant any more!!!!! The big brothers love being big brothers. They are always hugging or kissing the Twinkies. They both have a favorite too. Carter's is Pennie, because he's never had a sister before, and Toby's is Parker because they are both boys. They both think that the babies are so cute and tiny.

Cody goes back to work tomorrow, and on Saturday Kathleen (my MIL) is going to go back to Utah. So I'll be all on my own after that. We'll see how I feel about 4 kids in 4 years then. But for right now I love my young family.

-Sorry the pictures are so crazy, I finally figure this stupid blogger out then they change it on me. I'm technologically challenged.-