Twin Sanity book excerpt...and a book cover!
We're almost there! I am so excited to unveil the cover of Twin Sanity, which is so close to being ready for print that I can almost taste it!
Most of the book's content is practical, how to survive and thrive during your first year with twins information, but I just had to share this memoir portion, as it was written about our experiences nine years ago this week. (That's right--we're about to have two nine-year-olds! Time flies when you're chasing kids.)
Fabulous cover design by Hannah Shields! www.beebuzzworthy.com
From Twin Sanity...
At about 31 weeks, the perinatal specialist (whom I was seeing every six weeks in addition to my OB) told me that I needed to start going to the hospital twice a week for non-stress tests. They would hook up the fetal heart monitors and a contraction monitor to make sure that all the contractions I was having were not distressing the babies. At that point, I was about to start seeing my OB once a week, the perinatal specialist every three weeks, and visiting the hospital twice a week—around three medical appointments per week.
By 33 ½ weeks, I was having contractions pretty much all the time.
When I went for a non-stress test last Thursday, I learned that I was having far more contractions than I realized and was told to start taking my Procardia every 4-6 hours regardless of whether I felt that I needed to or not. Yesterday at the non-stress test, I was having contractions every six minutes—even with the Procardia—but when the nurse called Dr. K., he said that as long as the babies weren’t being stressed by it, it was fine. And, thankfully, the babies were responding just fine so I guess we won’t worry about it. And I have pretty much felt like I’ve been having constant cramps for a week now—as long as I take my prescription super-Tylenol, it’s not too bad, but as one would imagine, I’m getting pretty tired of not feeling well and am ready to start feeling good again. It’s amazing how as you feel worse and worse in your pregnancy, the more ready you feel to care for a newborn (or two)! Oh—and Dr. K. told us last week that he and Dr. S. [my perinatal specialist] have decided that we need to shoot for more like 36 weeks instead of 37, so we only have about 2 ½ or 3 weeks to go. A couple of months ago, the thought of that would have really freaked me out, but now I’m starting to think, “Okay—let’s do this!” -November 13, 2007
It’s a good thing that I adopted an attitude of “let’s do this!” because it turned out that we did “do this” only days after that journal entry.
On Thursday, November 15, Stephen came home from work early to take me to the hospital for another non-stress test. I wasn’t feeling great and was having some contractions—really nothing unusual at that point. After they’d hooked me up to the monitors I started having even more contractions. They were just a few minutes apart, and the nurses had me take an extra dose of Procardia. When that didn’t slow things down, I received a shot of Brethine. And then another shot of Brethine. Stephen called to let someone know he probably wouldn’t make it to his master’s class that night, and after three-ish hours in the triage room, they decided to put me on an IV to make sure I was well-hydrated. Before they did, I asked to go to the bathroom, and as Stephen and I were getting me settled back into the bed, Nurse Tonya (one of my favorites!) told me not to get too comfortable—they were going to admit me.
We gathered my things and held my gown shut in the back with all of the cords hanging out as we walked (okay—I waddled) down the hall to room 1260. Nurse Dawn (another favorite and one of the head nurses—she en) started my IV and began the computer-paperwork for admitting me. I asked what the least amount of time was that I’d be in the hospital, thinking five or six more hours, and she said 24. Dr. K. ordered a magnesium sulfate drip for my IV, which was the strongest thing they could give me to relax my muscles and hopefully stop labor, and I received a shot of the steroid Celestone to accelerate the babies’ lung development, should they arrive early. They would keep me on the magnesium sulfate for 24 hours so the girls would hopefully stay put long enough for me to receive a second steroid shot, and we would see where things were after that.
Turns out that magnesium sulfate is miserable stuff. I immediately felt weird once they started it in my IV, and before long I was feeling really hot. I felt so hot, in fact, that I would have bet the house that the heat was blowing in the room. I had no blankets on me and was just in my little hospital gown and was burning up. I kept drinking LOTS of ice water, which shouldn’t have been necessary because I was staying hydrated through the IV. Stephen went out to get our dog settled with our neighbors and to get some food for us, since it was past dinner time once I was all checked-in. After calling our families and eating, we got ready for bed. Thankfully, we were in one of the nice birthing suites with a sleeper-loveseat; I gave Stephen all of my blankets, and he still slept with his clothes on and his hooded sweatshirt over his head! I did not sleep AT ALL. Okay, to be completely honest, I fell asleep for about 15 minutes around 4 a.m., only to be woken up by a wicked contraction, but otherwise I did not sleep at all. Besides having a lot on my mind—not wanting our babies to be born too early—the drugs kept me awake. I think Tiffany was my nurse that night, and she came in periodically to check on me, get more water for me, etc. Among other things, she had to check my reflexes because the mag can apparently affect that, too.
The next morning, I was feeling completely awful. I thought it was just the sleep deprivation, but I later realized that it was mostly the mag. My sinuses became clogged so I had to breathe through my mouth, causing me to constantly have a dry mouth—more water! Even my jaw muscles had become relaxed, making it difficult to chew anything tougher than a green bean. At some point, I realized my legs were swelling—my left leg became so swollen it was difficult to bend. I could barely walk without assistance, even though I was only going a few feet away to the bathroom. And my eyes were swollen—something I attributed to crying Friday morning after Dr. K. came in to visit, but that swelling, too, was mostly due to the mag. My contractions had only slowed but hadn’t stopped, and he didn’t think they would. He thought our girls might be born over the weekend. He wouldn’t be on call, but said he might come in to do the C-section anyway—that he’d be around. (That made us feel good.) He told us about what we could expect if the girls had to be delivered—they would possibly need some oxygen, wouldn’t have their suck-swallow reflex yet (and thus wouldn’t be able to eat on their own), would probably need to be in incubators, and would likely need to stay in the hospital for 2-3 weeks. We probably wouldn’t have more severe problems and need to go to the higher-level NICU in Oklahoma City, but we wouldn’t know for sure until they were born. I’d made it 34 weeks, and that was a good thing.
It was really hard to think of our babies having to be hooked up to all kinds of equipment when they were born. You have this romanticized picture in your mind of your baby (or babies in our case) being born and holding them in your arms, gazing at them, taking in their first moments on earth, and to think that none of that will happen is really hard. Add to that what it means for them to have to be hooked up to machines—that they’re not healthy—plus elevated hormones, magnesium sulfate, the pain/discomfort of hours of labor, and sleep deprivation, and you definitely have a case worthy of tears. Friday was a hard day.
A few of high points on Friday—Stephen came to sit on the edge of my bed one time and accidentally sat on a tube of KY jelly that one of the nurses had left on my bed and had become hidden under the sheets. It squirted all over him and the floor, making us both laugh. Dana and Melanie came to visit and brought lunch, magazines, snacks, and flowers. It cheered me up a lot to see them, even though I felt just about as rotten after they left. And, right next door, another friend was delivering her baby boy, so that was exciting. She still doesn’t believe me when I tell her that I heard absolutely nothing! Maybe it was the mag, but I really think they just did a fantastic job insulating those walls.
At some point during the day, I asked Stephen to please just turn off the heat. He said, “Sweetie, the heat isn’t on. That’s the air that’s blowing, and it’s about 60 degrees in here.” Yikes. When 24 hours had finally passed, they gave me another Celestone shot and took me off the mag. I was absolutely amazed at how quickly I felt better. It was like a fog had lifted. I could breathe normally again. I suddenly didn’t feel so hot—and asked Stephen if the room had been that cold all along. (It had.) After a while I could chew normally again. My legs continued to be swollen and uncomfortable, but I felt so much better than I had for the past 24 hours. They wanted to keep me overnight again, to see how I’d do with contractions once I was off the mag, and then see how I was doing in the morning.
The mag had not stopped the contractions, and being off the mag didn’t miraculously stop them, either. I continued having contractions, probably about every 10-20 minutes, and they became stronger and stronger. Every time they started getting regular in timing (maybe one every 5-10 minutes), the nurses would come in and give me another shot of Brethine or some more Procardia, which had to be done pretty much as often as they were able to drug me. There was not a point at which we thought, “Maybe I’ll get to go home;” it didn’t take long to figure out that the contractions were not going to stop, and we would be there until the girls were born. We were just praying that they would stay put until at least Monday, when Dr. K. would be back—and every extra day they were inside me was invaluable in making it more likely that they would be healthy when they were born.
I think it was Friday night that the nurses let me take a bath, but they were very strict about me sitting in the tub, not being in there more than 20 minutes, and having lots of help getting in and out. I had to keep my right arm dry because of the IV, so Stephen had to help me. That night, my nurse offered me some Ambien to help me sleep, which was a God-send. I didn’t sleep well exactly, but I slept.
We had more sweet visitors on Saturday, but after visiting with friends, the contractions would really kick in again. Any amount of excitement or activity would set them off. At that point, we realized we had to really limit my time with visitors. It was either Saturday or Sunday evening when we were watching TV that we found a really entertaining stand-up comedy routine with Frank Caliendo. We were laughing so hard, and it felt so good! Except that every time I’d start to laugh, I’d have contractions, so we had to change the channel. What a bummer.
Saturday evening, I was really upset about the contractions coming back so strong. My dear friend, Katie, got married that night. She had asked me to be one of her bridesmaids, which I’d obviously had to decline, and my parents were at the wedding. They called us from the reception, and Katie, even as the busy bride, wanted to talk to me. I couldn’t get on the phone with any of them. I hated to not talk to them, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to get a word out without just falling apart and bursting into tears. So I just told Stephen to congratulate her for me, and tell her that I would talk to her soon. She said afterwards that she knew then that I must have been feeling pretty awful to not talk to her on her wedding night.
On Sunday, my parents told Stephen that they couldn’t stand it any longer—they were coming out. The original plan had been for my parents to wait until the girls were home, when we’d really need their help, but they couldn’t wait any longer. They knew that we needed them, and they needed to be with us to see that we were all okay. Stephen did a pretty good job maintaining an even keel throughout this challenging time, but they knew him well enough to sense over the phone that we were about out of gas, keeping these babies inside as their little lungs developed. When he got off the phone and told me they were coming, we both broke down and cried. We were both so tired, so physically tired and emotionally exhausted. We had really needed to call in the cavalry, and they decided to come before we could ask. They and my sister, Allison, would arrive from Georgia on Wednesday.
As time went on, the contractions went from feeling like a really uncomfortable tightening sensation to being a debilitating tightening sensation to being that and somewhat painful to being full-out tightening and crazy painful. I was having back labor, and I tried one time to shift positions and it only made it worse. I remember one time in particular, waking up with such a strong contraction and needing Stephen to coach me through it, but I didn’t have the extra strength to do anything but whisper his name to try to wake him up. I think I finally coughed out a “Stephen!” loudly enough to wake him and get him by my side. At some point they started giving me pain meds to help me, but it’s not like I was on an epidural or something. Yuck. And I had horrible heartburn—not something that had plagued me during my pregnancy until I was in the hospital. I asked for some Tums, and it seemed to take forever to get them! I guess they had to get Dr. K. to “prescribe” them for me; I wished I’d had Stephen walk across the parking lot to Walgreens and just buy me a bottle.
By Sunday night, we were completely exhausted. I had obviously had it by then—I’d been in labor since THURSDAY—and Stephen was tired of seeing his dear wife in such misery. As hard as it was to think of our girls coming early, by that point we knew it was only a matter of hours or days and were praying that Dr. K. would go ahead and deliver them on Monday. When he came in Monday morning, I think Stephen was ready to strong-arm him into doing whatever he had to do to get the babies out of me, but when he checked, I was dilated four centimeters. “It’s time!” he said. That was at around 7:30 am, and he said he’d get an operating room booked and we’d do the c-section at about 9:00. We talked some, he sent in the head nursery nurse to prepare me for what would likely happen with the girls, and then one of my nurses came in to prepare me for surgery. Nothing to eat, nothing to drink, lots of papers to sign. Monday, November 19, 2007.
