Pregnancy, Childbirth, & Newborns
I have been pondering on whether or not to create this page; and as you can see, I decided to do it :-) If any of you have read about me, you know that I suffered with infertility for a long time before finally being able to have a baby! Little did I ever know I'd end up with my first baby being twins and/or that my fertility problems would clear up and I'd have three more babies :-)
I would first like to talk about infertility -- well the one I suffered from anyway. I had polycystic ovarian disease (PCO) which means that my ovaries were covered with many tiny cysts and did not produce "eggs" each month. After many years of infertility, uncaring medical professionals, and heartache, I was finally diagnosed and received help! I went through the normal temperature charts and taking of the normal loading dosage of Clomid, which was ineffective. Then I was uped to a double dose, went through every imaginable test except surgery, and still no ovulation. My tubes were clear, though. I was started on a triple dosage of Clomid, and that did the trick. I ovulated. The next month, I was pregnant :-) All the waiting, all the frustration, all the heartache was well worth the wait! I found it totally amazing that I got pregnant so fast once I was ovulating :-)
Now onto pregnancy! What I am about to tell you may scare you out of ever having a baby *grin*; but, I would do it all over again today without blinking an eye!
I tell you, when I saw the results of my pregnancy test, I literally jumped for joy and screamed "Oh my God, I'm really pregnant." I was at work and ran around the hospital telling everyone :-) My joy quickly came to a halt, however, about two weeks later when I started with a terrible case of hyperemesis. I stayed "green" 24 hours a day for the next four months. I couldn't eat or drink without losing it all and more. I also broke out in a horrible and itchy rash which the doctor said was caused by my liver being in shock. It was overproducing bile :-(((( And if I wasn't being sick, I was sleeping! I could not keep my eyes open more than a few hours a day! I had to quit working due to being so ill :-( In my third month, I was taken to the ER twice due to the vomiting....once scared the heck out of us cause I had vomited so much that I passed blood and thought I was losing the baby. Thankfully, everything was okay and the blood was just from all the forcefulness of the retching! I had an ultrasound at 16 weeks, but the tech wouldn't let me see my own baby :-( I cried all the way home, but my mom was there and got to see and said the baby was "cute" and was "blowing bubbles" :-)
When I finally started feeling better, I started growing enormously. Thankfully, I had two months where I really enjoyed my pregnancy. Being my first one and all, when I thought I felt a kick, I wasn't sure and wasn't positive until my sixth month. Yes, can you imagine that? I'll never forget it. I was sewing and my arm leapt right off my abdomen. I started crying -- raised my shirt up and rubbed my belly, all the while talking to my baby and asking her to do it again -- and she did :-) I was amazed to see my skin jump and stretch with the tiny kick :-)
By the time I was in my seventh month, I was too large to even drive a car any longer :-( By the end of that month, I started having severe abdominal pains to the point of "burning" inside of me. I couldn't sit, couldn't stand, couldn't walk, and couldn't sleep for extended periods of time. Even my poor fingers and toes were so swollen that I couldn't wear my rings, write, or wear shoes :-( My fundal height was so huge that the OB said there was no way I could be having only one baby, but he refused to do another ultrasound or x-ray until I went into labor.
During my last month, I was placed in bed due to the swelling. I was miserable, to say the least. If I remember correctly, my fundal height at the time of delivery was 48 cm., normal pregnancy being 38 cm. My poor abdomen had stretch marks the size of Texas on it, and the soft tissues of my abdomen were overdistended which caused severe itching and tiny wounds. In other words, my skin was so stretched that it was tearing open in places :-( For about a week, I didn't feel any movement at all, so they admitted me to Labor & Delivery and performed a Fetal Activity Determination Test on me -- where they hooked me up to a monitor and pushed my abdomen around like it was nothing....which made the baby move like mad. In the process, the nurse and I heard two distinctively different heartbeats (so okay, the beats sounded the same but the rates were different *grin*). She questioned twins, but it really didn't prove anything.
Despite being on bedrest, I went home and cleaned house -- even getting on my hands and knees to scrub the kitchen floor :-) I had not had that much energy in months *grin* Four days later, I started having harder Braxton-Hicks contractions and worse burning in my abdomen to the point of completely incapacitating pain :-( The following day, a Tuesday, I went shopping with my mom and her best friend, and just the little bit of walking from the car into the store killed me. And there was no chair to sit in, so I just had to stand bent over as best I could to try to alleviate the pain. The day after that, I was stupid once more and went shopping again. By that night, I was really hurting with the B-H contractions, but I didn't think one thing of it. Little did I know.....
Thursday, April 21, 1983, I woke up after having slept the whole night long without waking up every hour on the hour, and I was shocked about that :-) It was my weekly clinic appointment, so off we went. I was the very first patient seen that morning, and from what I was told, I disrupted the whole clinic *lol* One of the docs came in and asked how I was doing, so I told him about the extra pain and the worse burning. He then asked when I last had an internal exam. When I told him the last one was at 16 weeks, I think he thought I was nuts, but it was true. So, he did an exam. He seemed to be taking a very long time completing this, but I didn't say anything until he finished and I saw his glove was covered in blood. I gasped, but he reassured me that everything was okay -- it was just that I was in labor, 100% effaced, 4 cm. dilated, had leaking bulging membranes, and he felt a foot presenting. My OB came in to double check, and he found the same findings. I found out later on that the burning incapacitating pain in my abdomen was one of the placentas tearing away from the lining of my uterus (abruptio placenta).
As he promised me, off I went to X-ray for a KUB of my abdomen. I worked at that hospital, so a lot of the employees knew me. I asked the tech what she saw, and she exclaimed, "It's twins". I didn't know what to say or do, so I cried and laughed and rejoiced :-) Then she told me that one was a footling breech while the other was a high transverse lie; and I felt sure the doc would more than likely opt for a cesarean. I was NOT happy about that at all and got pretty upset.
As I walked down the hall to the clinic with my x-rays in hand, I was shaking. My mom jumped up from her seat and I just gave her a "two" signal with my fingers....I remember her screaming "it's twins"!!!!! Then I went into the clinic to meet my OB and give him the x-rays. Sure enough, I was off to have an emergency cesarean :-( I paniced :-(
I did not want to go through that, and afterwards, I knew why I was scared. The surgery should have been a breeze, but it wasn't. I begged for a spinal; but the OB refused me :-( I went to sleep crying, laughing, and picking at my OB and all the other docs and nurses in the room -- I was verbally dictating to him one of the many cesarean section reports that I had typed. They were laughing at me before I "passed out". However, my passing out was very short lived. A true nightmare come true :-( I thought I was dreaming at first, but it was all real and very frightening. I heard a ticking sound -- found out later it was the respiratory machine clicking as it breathed for me. Then I heard a baby crying and one of the doctors said "It's another girl." There was mumbling in the background, but all I could focus on was the beautiful sound of that baby crying :-) Then suddenly, the crying seemed to fade (I gathered they had taken my second baby away from the operative field and to the waiting Pediatric team). I was telling myself I was dreaming, but then I realized I wasn't breathing on my own and I felt like I was smothering :-( That was scary! I remember trying to fight but my arms had been taped down, so I couldn't move them, plus whatever medicine they had knocked me out with made me feel "dead" -- they were soooo heavy. I was completely trapped and unable to open my eyes, scream, or move! Then I started feeling pain -- tremendous pain. The only way I can describe this pain is that it felt like a herd of cattle tromping through my open gut. From what I gather, they were cleaning my uterus at the time and suturing me all back up! I started fighting with all my might, and believe me, that was hard to do. I was screaming and crying on the inside -- begging God to take me away from this pain and praying for Him to let me live through it -- all in the same breath!
I still don't know how I did it, but I managed to untape my right arm -- I remember it came crashing down on my head, and the next thing I heard was "Oh my God! Knock her back out NOW!"
That was all I remember until the surgery was over and they moved me from the OR table to the recovery room gurney. I didn't wake up but I remember screaming and kicking and moving my arms. I guess my subconscious came out then -- all the things I was screaming during the surgery (on the inside) just came pouring out. I remember everyone trying to reassure me that the surgery was over and I was fine and the babies were fine, but it just didn't sink in. I heard my doc order Demerol and then topped that with Morphine, and I zonked out.
I woke up in the recovery room later on -- vomiting my guts up :-( I will never forget the pain when the nurse did fundal massage -- she literally pressed real hard on my newly incision abdomen :-( Then they took me to my room around 1:00, I think. I was pretty much zonked from Morphine and didn't feel much pain until a friend of mine came in to hug me and her purse landed right on my poor abdomen :-( OUCH! My incision is a vertical one and not the usual "bikini cut" -- I was incised right through my navel on down :-(
I saw my babies about 9:30 that night and all I could do was touch their little hands -- the staff wouldn't let me hold them with my IV :-( They were soooo beautiful :-) Radona weighed 7# 1 oz. and was 19 3/4" long while Daryth weighed 6# 3 oz. and was 19 1/2" long.
The pain was unbearable -- all the cramping from the Pitocin in my IV :-( The following morning, they made me get up, and I thought I would just die :-( I did get to hold my babies, though, at each feeding -- 30 minutes each, but I couldn't feed them :-( By the evening of the next day, I was in so much pain that I couldn't walk or move. My abdomen was distended twice it's size :-(
By the next morning, I was vomiting (projectile) and couldn't stop :-( The doc came in and ordered an x-ray of my abdomen and ordered me "nothing by mouth". I had developed an ileus of the small and large bowel -- which was an obstruction :-( The pain was unbearable but I thanked God that I hadn't vomited any more -- three times was more than enough :-(
The day after that, I was told that baby two had a high bilirubin, so she was placed under a bililight. It was touch and go for her, but she came around :-)
My OB was out all weekend, and when he came in the room that Monday morning, he made a comment that he heard I had been real ill. I was not in the mood for "sarcasm". Since he had not seen me since the morning after surgery, I was mad at him. I questioned him about my waking up during the surgery, and he said the assistants had told him I was questioning it. He said it was "just that they didn't order enough anesthesia for me and next time I could have the spinal I had wanted then." If I could have picked up my bedside table, it would have been thrown at him and landed on his head. He just pooed it off :-(
And that's not all.....during delivery, he cut Radona on her right leg -- which the nurses said was her scratching herself. Hey, I might have been a brand new mommy, but I wasn't stupid and knew that a newborn could not reach down and scratch her own leg like that. The scar has grown with Radona and is now about two inches long! And that's not all......he dislocated Daryth's right hip during delivery. She had to wear a corrective brace for three months (seven through nine months), and thankfully, it worked and surgical intervention was not necessary!!!!
Anyway, my pain finally broke free on the fifth day after surgery, and I began feeling better. My IV was finally discontinued, and I got to feed each of my babies for the first time :-) My first baby and I were discharged six and a half days after admission, and my second baby had to stay overnight just for observation. Radona came home weighing 6# 14 oz. and Daryth was 5# 10 oz., both having lost weight due to "Failure To Thrive" -- they both just wanted to sleep through their feedings, and I was lucky to get a 1/2 oz. of formula into each baby per feeding.
Radona slept all night long her first night home, and since I was such a doting new mama and worried to pieces, I stayed up ALL night long watching her *lol* I called the nursery several times to check on Daryth, too.
Daryth was released the next morning at 11:30, seven days after she was born! We rushed to get back to the hospital and bring her home :-)
That night, I found out how different my babies were. Radona slept all night long again while Daryth cried and wanted to be held all night long. This went on for six weeks, and I was one tired new mama!
The first night Daryth slept all night long, I woke in a panic thinking she had died. Sleeping through the night, though, was very short-lived! It seemed like years before they both finally slept through the night after that!
They both suffered with colic real bad, and that blew me away. I had no idea what colic was :-( Boy, did I learn fast with two babies!!! And they both had to be switched to a soy formula due to projectile vomiting after their iron fortified milk based formulas didn't agree.
It was an experience that I wouldn't trade for all the money in the world, though, despite the nightmare of my twin pregnancy and their delivery. I would do it all again today!!!!! It was worth all the pain to be able to have these two beautiful babies :-)
For the first three months of their lives, I'd look at these tiny beings and didn't believe they were really mine! They are my miracles and my dreams come true!
So many memories of watching my twins grow -- way too many to name here, but definitely memories that I will always treasure :-)
Isn't this background adorable! Thanks, Jan :-)
