Holie Molie, Guys! I maybe should have made this a 3 Part series! Get comfy and maybe get a snack, cuz this could take a while!
Here I am, with my Lily, at 5 months pregnant.
Miss Lily, playing dress-ups a few months before we went from being a family of 3 to a family of 5.
July 4, 2003, one month before she becomes a big sister.
At 31 weeks I started having consistent contractions. My Dr had me to go to LandD and after being monitored for a while, I got some medication to hopefully stop labor. The contractions did slow down but I had a bad reaction to the meds and my heart started racing at 150bpm. Even though my labor slowed down, we had to stay at the hospital until my heart rate came down to an acceptable level.
At 32 weeks, I started again with the frequent contractions. After talking to a nurse at 2am and letting her know that I was having more than 6 contractions an hour for two hours and each contraction was at least 60 seconds long, we made our way back to the hospital, tagging poor Lily along with us.
The first attempt to stop my contractions did not work. My Dr. decided to start me on Magnesium, which required staying in the hospital. DaddyO and Lily went home and I began enjoying the wonderful effects of Magnesium. Any one ever tried it? It is A.W.F.U.L!
During this stay in the hospital I was also given 2 shots of steroids 24 hours apart to help the boys' lungs mature more quickly. After 3 days, I was sent home on strict bed-rest.
The very next day, after being released from the hospital, we were back AGAIN with consistent contractions. One more night in an uncomfortable bed, lots of painless contractions with no dilating and I'm sent home with instructions to deal with the contractions unless they become painful.
Friday, one week later, I have a regular prenatal visit. I am still having frequent contraction but only dilated 2cm. My Dr is going out of town for the weekend and is hoping I don't go in to labor while he is gone. He is pretty sure that an on-call Dr would put me back on magnesium instead of delivering the babies.
I also have an ultrasound to check the babies weights. It shows that one baby is 4lbs 1oz and the other baby is 4lbs 6oz. That is WAY too small! My next appointment is Monday.
Monday, August 4, 2003 - 34 weeks pregnant
My contractions have pretty much stopped. I haven't really been keeping track of frequency, but they definitely aren't painful. DaddyO and Lily stay home while I head to my Drs appointment, with the car. When I get to the office, which is located at the hospital, I am running a bit late so I'm trying to waddle as fast as I can in to the building. As I opened the door to the elevator room of the Women's Center, my foot went under a rug that had moved up over the ledge of the door, invisible to me beneath my ginormous stomach! I WENT FLYING! I landed on my knees, then my stomach and finally caught myself with my hands which ended up jamming my elbow. I was going so fast, that one of my very sensible flip-flops went flying over my head. A very kind man and lady helped me up off the floor and handed me my shoe.
I was terrified!
I made it upstairs and waited anxiously to talk to the Dr. He said that what they worry about with a fall is the placenta pulling away from the uterus and not being able to support the babies. If the placenta pulls away and is bleeding, the blood can irritate the uterus and make you go in to labor. He checked the boys on the ultrasound and they both had great heart rates. I, however, had dilated from 2cm to 3cm in 4 days. The Doc wanted me to go to Labor and Delivery to be monitored and make sure I wasn't going to go in to labor.
I left the office and immediately called DaddyO. All he heard for the first few minutes of the call was me sobbing. I told him the whole story and sobbed some more about how he was going to get to the hospital when I had the car with Lily's car seat!
At about 4:30pm I got all set up with monitors to keep track of contractions and the boys' hearts. My brother came to the hospital, got Lily's car seat and delivered it to DaddyO so he could get Lily's to my Mom's and come be with me at the hospital.
At 6pm, my Dr came to check me. I was having regular contractions and I was now dilated to 3.5cm. It looked like the fall had sent me in to labor. He was going to have me monitored until 8:30pm and if I dilated even a little bit more, he was going to do a c-section that night. He said that there were too many extenuating circumstances to stop labor (ie, the fall, my bag of waters was bulging and apparently Ashton's foot had started coming down the birth canal).
Here I am getting prepped for my c-section. I was 34 weeks pregnant but measured 42 weeks pregnant. Can you imagine if I had gone any longer?
At 8pm the nurse checked me and I was dilated to 4cm. She said the c-section was going to happen at 9pm. She also told us since the boys were coming 6 weeks early, that we should probably plan on them being in the hospital for at least 2 weeks. I didn't like the sounds of that!
And so, off we went to meet our little boys. At 9:23pm Ashton was born with perfect cries! After they took Ashton out, Bailey turned sideways and moved way up by my ribs. The Dr was having a hard time reaching him. He asked for the big suction thingie, but was finally able to grab his butt and Bailey was born at 9:25pm, also with perfect cries! Music to my ears!
I got to give them a quick kiss and then they rushed them off to the nursery for some more detailed evaluations. Both of the boys had a little bit of oxygen blown in their faces, but they were doing so good that DaddyO brought them back to me while I was still in recovery! Ashton ended up being 4lbs 13oz and Bailey was 5lbs 1oz. Bailey had a few problems with his blood sugar being low but a little bit of sugar water and formula straightened that out. Because they had absolutely no fat on their skinny bones, we had to wrap them up tight and make sure they stayed warm. My little champs did so well that we all only stayed in the hospital for 3 days. NO TWO WEEKS!!!
Here is the new big sister whispering sweet nothings in to Bailey's ear!
Even the preemie diapers were too big!
That was fun reliving those exciting days! Thanks for making it through my mini-series!!
