adminIf you haven’t read the first part, read it here.
It’s about 11 pm the nurses come back, check me and I’m ready. Fully dilated. They say don’t push because we don’t want to have to catch. Just as things are being moved on to my bed to move me, my blood pressure goes crazy. The next thing I know, I’m saying I feel like I’m going to throw up. Someone hands me one of those handy green collapsible bags. Off to the OR.
I want to make a note about the size of the team involved with my delivery. I had 2 nurses, 2 doctors, the anesthesiologist, some guy behind the doctor who was catching the babies, another person in the back, and 6 NICU nurses. Plus, my husband. That room was full.
The time comes to push but I clearly don’t know what muscles to use to push a baby out. Every time a contraction comes the doctors and nurses are very encouraging. But once a contraction is gone the doctor says that wasn’t quite right. At some point the anesthesiologist asks if I can feel my legs. I couldn’t. So, my epidural gets shut off. The pushing continues. The feeling in my legs starts to come back.
Midnight comes and goes. No babies. 1 AM comes and goes. No babies. I’ve been doing all this pushing and yet little progress is being made. I realized that after each sent of contractions and encouragement from the doctors that the people waiting on me were moving closer and closer to the feet end of my body. They just wanted see how close we were compared to all the cheering. Which was not very close. Though I’m making progress now because I’ve figured out how to actually push.
2 AM rolls around and here comes baby A. He is born at 2:03 AM. We did delayed cord clamping and he was sent over the NICU team. In a short amount of time they brought him back to me all wrapped up. That was the first time I held my little boy. The only thing I really remember about it is that he was all wrapped up in a blanket. Next thing I know the doctor is telling me that they have turned baby B and on the next contraction I can start pushing.
At that news baby A was off to the NICU. The husband asks if he should go with him. My reaction was to say “don’t you want to see the birth of your other son?” Let the pushing begin again. This time however my throat is so dry (from throwing up) and I’m so tired, pushing is more work than ever. I ask if I can have water or ice, anything to help my throat. But the nurse says no, just in case they still have to do a C-section. I push through another contraction. Then the nurse walks into the room with 2 cups in her hand. One sip and I feel 10 times better.
It took 15 minutes for me to deliver baby B. By 2:18 AM I have 2 sweet babies. He gets the delayed cord and shuffled over to the NICU team. When he comes back to me he has a breathing contraption on his face. The NICU nurse asks me if I want to hold him. Just then doctor say it’s time to deliver the placenta. I was frazzled and worried about the cords on his face. So I didn’t hold him right there. He’s off to the NICU, I tell the husband to go with him. I’ll be fine but those 2 little boys need one of us there.
I get stitched up and moved me back to my room. My blood pressure spikes again and they give me medicine. Next thing I know, I’m throwing up again. UGH! The thing is at this time in the morning (it’s probably around 3 am) I am beat, and I haven’t had any food. I just want to sleep. But the nurse is kneading my uterus. Which hurts a lot by the way. The nurse keeps saying they are going to get me cleaned up so I can go see my boys. She leaves the room and I tell the husband I just want to go to sleep.
Things settle down and labor and deliver sends me to postpartum. We probably got 5 or 6 hours of sleep before the day light just woke us up. That afternoon was the first time I went to the NICU to see the boys. While it was exciting to have them here they still had a lot of fighting to do.
I wanna hear your birth story. Leave it in the comments below.
