Birth Story

Here is the super long story of how our family doubled in size and grew infinitly in love on March 5, 2011.

On Thursday March 3rd (36w2d), I had an appointment with Dr. Elliot where we hoped I might have progressed far enough on my own to justify an induction. I was so uncomfortable I could not imagine being pregnant for another 7-10 days as we approached 38 weeks. We were sent home disappointed, expecting to come back and see him again on Monday.



Friday March 4th was a pretty normal day for us. Matt went to work and I passed the time as best I could, watching TV and reading. Matt came home, we had dinner, and then headed to bed around 10:00. At 11:25 pm, I woke up to a big contraction, and sat up thinking I had to pee (yet again). When I sat up, I felt a big gush of warm fluid, then another. I stood up and it just kept coming and coming, and I knew my water had broken. The contractions started right away, about 3-5 minutes apart and getting stronger.

I woke Matt up, and he promptly flew out of bed and started running around like a chicken with its head cut off while I called the doctor to let them know we'd be coming in to Labor & Delivery. My OBs were not on call, so we learned that Dr. Born would be expecting us, and would deliver the babies. We'd never met her, but figured that Drs. Elliot and Lashgari wouldn't share on-call duty with anyone they didn't completely trust, so figuring we were in good hands, we hopped in the car.

We got to Virginia Hospital Center around 12:35 am, registered and were in our room by 1:00 am. Dr. Born came in and checked me - I was 5 cm dilated and 100% effaced and having regular contractions every 3-5 minutes. We did a quick ultrasound to confirm both babies were still head down - they were - and confirmed that we would try for a vaginal delivery. She said I could have my epidural anytime, so we made that priority #1. The epidural was in place by 2:30 and I was completely comfortable after that - I couldn't feel the contractions at all, but I could still move my legs. Dr. Born checked me again - 6 cm now - started some pitocin to help regulate my contractions, which had started to space out a bit, and left us to get some sleep until morning.



By 7:30 am, I was 9.5 cm dilated, and by 9:00 we were ready to start pushing. This is where things went downhill... after more than an hour of difficult pushing and irregular contractions, I had made very little progress and it seemed our baby girl's head was stuck behind my pelvic bone. Dr. Born suspected she was "sunny side up" (face-up) with her chin pointed up, which presents the widest part of the head first and makes for the most difficult delivery. On top of that, I was starting to run a fever, and they worried I might be developing an infection from the ruptured membranes. When Tylenol didn't bring it down, they started me on IV antibiotics and told us that as a result, the babies would have to go to the NICU for 2 days to get antibiotics and to await the results of blood tests that would check for any sign of infection. Needless to say, we were disappointed to hear that even if the babies were otherwise healthy and strong, we weren't going to avoid the NICU.

My contractions were slowing down (even after uping the pitocin), I was exhausted, and I didn't think I'd have the energy to finish pushing her out, let alone her brother too. Dr. Born suggested I push as hard as possible for another 30 minutes, and then we'd reevaluate. My contractions almost immediately slowed to more than 10 minutes apart, and lost a lot of their strengh - my overextended uterus was just done, it seems. I was so exhausted I could hardly keep my eyes open, I still had a fever, and the babies were starting to show some signs of distress, so we made the decision to go ahead with a c-section.

The nurses immediately prepped me and wheeled me to the operating room. I got stronger meds through my epidural, which took a little more strongly and higher than expected, so I couldn't fee or move anything from the neck down once it fully kicked in. Matt came in and within minutes, our son and daughter were born at 11:20 am - both in the same minute!



First out was "Baby A" - Lucinda Jean - crying and cute as a button. She weighed in at 5 lb 7 oz, 17.8 inches long, and scored 9/9 on her APGARS.



"Baby B" - Malcolm Walter - arrived 30 seconds later, also crying. Malcolm weighed in at a hefty 6 lb 9 oz, 18 inches long, and scored 8/9 on his APGARS.



Unfortunately, Malcolm was having a bit of trouble breathing, so the pediatric team decided he needed to be assessed in the NICU right away. After I got a quick peek at him, he headed out with the NICU team and Matt. Lucy stayed with me in the OR while they finished sewing me back up, and she came back to my L&D room for a bit, before being taken down to the NICU to run tests for infection and start her on IV antibiotics.




It took me a while to recover from the spinal block, and get enough feeling back that I could be transferred to my post-partum room. While we were waiting, my mom and Aunt Pam arrived, and Matt took my Mom down to the NICU to meet her new grandchildren. Matt's parents and Adam and Julia arrived shortly thereafter.

It was incredibly hard to have the babies in the NICU. Matt was running back and forth escorting visitors all day, while I rested and waited for the epidural to wear off. I wasn't able to get down to see my babies until about 12 hours after they were born - that wait was awful - and neither of us were able to hold Malcolm until the next day. But we knew they were well cared for - the NICU nurses and doctors were amazing - and that they would be fine and we'd all be together in just a few days. I started pumping, and was shocked when my milk came in the day after they were born. Other than a small amount of formula Lucy got in the NICU, they've been exclusively fed breastmilk, and I'm so happy my supply seems to be keeping up with them.

Lucinda spent 2 days in the NICU, awaiting the results of her blood tests. She showed no sign of infection, and was eating well, so she joined us in our room on Monday, night. Malcolm stayed in the NICU for one more night to catch up on his bottle-feeding, since he was eating through an IV at first. By the afternoon of our third day in the hospital, both babies were with us in our room. After months of bedrest and worry that they would come too early and would have to spend a long time in the NICU battling all sorts of prematurity issues, we feel so blessed that we all came home together and healthy on Wednesday March 9th.