The Happiest of Beginnings

**Disclaimer: This post is very long, and I am probably the only person who finds in interesting. Feel free to skip ahead to the adorable pictures at the end while I remember.

...So after the worst day of my life I started a waiting game. Baby A (Matthew) had a ruptured sac and really "needed" to be born. Baby B (Daniel) did not have a ruptured sac and would be in great danger if he was born. The doctors actually said that if they boys had been fraternal twins they may have tried to deliver Matthew and wait a few weeks to deliver Daniel... since both boys were okay I'm really glad we didn't have to do that!

I was kept in the hospital in a high-risk pre-partum room. My legs were both in pressurized boots, my arms had IVs (for fluids and antibiotics), and my stomach had 3 monitors 24 hours a day. It was not comfy! Each morning I was taken for a sonogram to check Matthew's fluids and a decision would be made for the day as to if I needed to be induced.

On Sunday (Memorial Day) my doctor was on vacation and I saw an associate from another practice. During his 30 second stop, he said that my iron levels had changed dramatically overnight and I needed an iron therapy treatment. I guess if I had delivered at that point there would have been a great risk of hemorrhaging. An oncologist came in mid-afternoon to start the 4- hour IV treatment.

Apparently it is very rare to have an allergic reaction to the iron... BUT if you do it can be deadly so they go over all the side effects in great detail and warn you to page them immediately if you have a problem.

About 20 minutes later I had one of the worst pains in my back I'd ever felt. Brian burst out laughing and said he could have called it. While calling me a hypochondriac he paged the nurses, who paged the oncologist, who ordered a Benadryl treatment, but since my breathing was fine everyone agreed it was in my head. I swear in retrospect, I KNOW it was a contraction of some sort. However, at that moment, I was embarrassed about overreacting and trying not to complain too much.

Over the next 12 hours I started having a lot of pains in my abdomen and getting very uncomfortable. I was told this was to be expected with the iron therapy. By 5 am I was in pain. Again, I was told this was a very common side effect and to "hang in there". The same doctor from the day before stopped by at 7 am. I told him about the pain I was having and he said, "Right. We explained to you that the iron therapy could be painful," and walked out... thanks for the reassurance.

I called Brian at about 8 and told him not to come visit that morning. I was in a horrible mood. I didn't feel good and couldn't stop crying. I told him I wanted to just "feel sorry for myself" that morning and that he should spend the morning outside with Kirsten. At about 10 I decided to watch The Notebook. This is my favorite "cathartic, cry your eyes out movie". I thought it would give me a reason to just sit and cry (which is all I wanted to do) but I couldn't concentrate and soon turned it off.

I paged a nurse shortly after that and spoke to her about the cramping and pains I was having. She said it would be fine to take off my monitors (remember I had THREE monitors on this whole time) to get up and use the bathroom. I was again assured that this was common with the iron treatments I'd received.

My dad came to visit at about noon. My poor dad. I was in a horrible mood by that point. I remember tearfully telling him to "just go" a few times and being frustrated when he didn't. I told him I didn't feel good and wanted to be alone. He said he'd just sit in the corner and read the paper and I was totally annoyed. (Sorry dad.) Sometime within the next hour he could tell something wasn't right and convinced me to page the nurse again. The nurses had changed shifts by this point and someone new came into the room.

I explained the pain to her and she sat down and asked a few questions. She looked at my monitors and mentioned it was "possible" that I'd had a few contractions. After a few minutes she asked my dad to step out of the room so she could check me. This is where it all gets crazy!

She did a quick exam and then started pushing buttons on the wall, paging the nurses desk. She said to page my doctor. Now my dad says that in the hall people started running around, he heard an intercom page someone saying "32 week twins about to be delivered", and that a nurse ran past him saying "We're having babies!". I didn't hear any of this.

I knew they thought the babies were coming but this was about the 5th time they thought the babies were coming. I really didn't get that this was the "real thing"... plus I was in a lot of pain and wasn't really processing things very well. I was wheeled out in the hall to see my dad's tearful face and I told him to "cut it out" and that "everything is going to be fine. It will be fine." He was frantically calling my mom and Brian during this time.

Soon I was in an operating room and my mom and my doctor arrived. Everything was happening very, very fast. My mom kept saying over and over "the dad's not here yet,". I was annoyed thinking obviously... but apparently my mom was afraid he was going to miss the whole thing...

Brian walked in and asked if I'd had an epidural. I said no and the doctor told someone to page anesthesiology. Then she said "Never mind, don't page them,". I swear I thought that meant it wasn't really happening... not that it was much too late. My mom says I sound crazy when I say I didn't know they were going to be born, but I really didn't. It was just too much to process all at once. No one ever told me "this is it," and there had been so many false alarms.

I was told to bear down during the next pain and with one push Matthew was born at 2:00 pm. Danny was born with two pushes at 2:05. I kept asking Brian over and over if it was our boys that were crying. I started to get really upset when he didn't answer me. Later he said he thought that was a rhetorical question, "who else would be crying in our room"... but I'd been told so many times how they wouldn't be able to breathe without assistance... how they would be rushed to the NICU at the children's hospital next door... how I would get to see them later that night... Then suddently I was holding the most beautiful baby I'd ever seen.


Brian brought Danny over for me to peek at and then they boys were hurried out of the room.




The neonatologist explained that they were breathing and were doing very well. "For the moment" they would stay at the special care nursery... but to expect a NICU trip soon. It was a good sign that their lungs could work but they would not be strong enough to continue breathing on their own for long. The criteria for staying at the special care nursery was 32 weeks gestation and independent breathing. (If the boys had been born 12 hours earlier they would have been 31 weeks 6 days and would have been rushed to the NICU).

My strong babies never stopped breathing... they never missed a breath... and they never went to the NICU. They stayed at Bayfront for 18 days and then they came home to us... almost 6 weeks before they were supposed to be born. Matthew Dean Taylor was 2 lbs 14 oz and 15.5 inches long. Daniel Ward Taylor was 3 lbs 3 oz and 16 inches long. PERFECT.

 

 

 

The Worst Day of My Life

was exactly 2 years ago.



I've been known to exaggerate a little (shocking, I know!). I am not exaggerating at all when I say it was the very worst day of my life. I am very blessed. I have not had very many traumatic days/times in my life. There was a very bad car accident when I was 16... some rough moments fighting for finalization of the adoption, deep sadness when my grandmother passed away... overall a VERY blessed life...

That's not what this post is about. This post is about the WORST day of my life. (Which still ended in blessings... but it was a BAD day.) I'm going to write about it here because I don't have a journal and have never kept baby books. It's probably not interesting to anyone except for me (so feel free to stop reading here) but I'm going to remember it and write it down.

May 22, 2007 was the last day of school for teachers. My LAST day before summer and maternity leave... I had been counting down for so long. I couldn't wait to have time for naps and nesting. I planned about 2 weeks of "down time" and figured after that (the 33 week point of my pregnancy) I'd have to be "ready to go" at any time.

...So May 22 I went to work and was very uncomfortable. I didn't have any pain but I was very uncomfortable every time I moved. At about 11 am I thought something just wasn't right... I called the dr. to try to get an appointment for first thing the next morning. Instead the nurse wanted me to come in for a non-stress test. I tried to negotiate for the next day... but she wasn't having it. So, I told my principal I'd be back "in about an hour" after a lunch break and ran to the doctor. I left my desk a huge mess. I didn't turn in my lesson plans for the year. I didn't turn in my keys or end of the year checklist. I didn't even pick up the National Board mentoring logs (worth $4500!) that were due the next day. I just went.

I sat in the comfy chair, reading a magazine, being monitored for 15 minutes. When the nurse came back I knew it wasn't good. Apparently I was having contractions I couldn't feel. Next came a meeting with the doctor where I was instructed to go straight to the hospital for steroid shots (to develop the twins' lungs in case they decided to come earlier than expected.) Fine. Scary, but fine.

I tried to call Brian... no luck. Tried to call my mom... tried to call my dad... finally started to get a little nervous and had Monica page my dad at work to meet me at the hospital. I got hold of him just as I was parking in the hospital garage. (** On the TOP floor of the garage. With the broken elevator. That no one told me about when I was pulling in to the garage. So I walked down 8 flights of stairs. Having contractions. Alone. Crying. Cursing the garage attendant. Seriously... how do these things only happen to me??)

Okay... so I get into triage, my dad meets me there, I talk to Brian, he meets me there, I get my steroid shots, I get a shot to stop the contractions (which I was warned would probably make me panic due to the increased heart rate and "rush" I'd experience... but I LOVED it... wish I could bottle that energy!) ...Overall I was feeling good. Until the doctor told me I had to stay overnight. Ugh. I had a child at home in her last week of kindergarten! I had a classroom to pack up! I didn't even have a toothbrush with me... NOT convenient... but I was assured it would only be overnight.

It was a LONG night. I had to move rooms twice. I eventually wound up in a room that was "not designed as a double" with a very young, very scared girl who was so close to me I could touch her through the curtain. This poor girl had a condition which required her urine to be collected. So there were bins of urine all over the bathroom and room. YUCK. I felt really bad for her while I listened to her cry all night... but at 6 am I decided "overnight" was over and I was signing myself out. They couldn't MAKE me stay. I had stuff to do!

I climbed out of bed and was MORTIFIED as my water broke all over the floor. The thing is... when you are only 30+ weeks pregnant, feel great, and carrying twins... you don't know what's going on. I wasn't sure if this was really "it". I tried to page my nurse and thought I lost all my shame when I had to describe the problem over an intercom to the entire nurses station. I was wrong. I really lost all my shame when she walked into the room, then stepped back into the hall screaming for a mop.

Want to hear how sick I am? Sick. When the sweet nurse, who had to test my puddle, announced it was amniotic fluid I, for a split second, was SO relieved that I hadn't peed on the floor. Nice maternal instinct right? Want another chuckle? My dear friend Charlotte and I had the same doctor. Charlotte was scheduled for an induction at 7 am that morning. The nurses were thrilled to find my doctor on the floor and I was seen immediately. A month later, as Charlotte and I traded stories, I listened to her irritated account of how late the doctor was and had to admit it was all my fault... something we laugh about now.

The next few (36) hours are the bad part. The doctor came in and I was checked. I was rushed to a Labor and Delivery room, called Brian and my parents, and started meeting with doctors. So many doctors.

The worst part... the worst moment of my life... was listening to Dr. Stone the neonatolgist come in to tell me what to expect. I remember the words "brain bleeding", "permanent blindness", and "underdeveloped lungs". I remember crying like a four year old. Sobbing, snotting, totally out of control. She stopped speaking, handed me a tissue, and waited for me to compose myself. When I managed a breath she said "mental retardation" and "death".

I asked her what decisions I had to make... what my choices were and I was told there were "none". Her team would do whatever was necessary to try to "save the lives" of my babies. I was just being "informed" and asked to sign a lot of paperwork. I guess I checked out for a moment because I remember staring at her really hard. I remember thinking it was strange that someone so pretty could be so mean. I really thought she was just being mean. She didn't say one encouraging word... she never said "maybe they'll be fine" or "maybe they won't need these interventions". She did say "you need to control yourself. Your heart rate it much too high." Then a cardiologist came in and sternly reprimanded me. It did not help.

(*** On a side note, Dr. Stone was an EXCELLENT neonatologist. She was the expert I wanted taking care of my 3 lb babies. I didn't want a "smiley" "feel good" doctor doing procedures on my tiny sons... I wanted a scientist. I wanted someone who wouldn't flinch or second guess herself. I'm grateful for all she did for us! ...But that day I though she was mean... okay back to the story ***)

Then we waited. We waited for hours. We kept waiting and waiting for the labor pains, for the inevitable, to start... which it didn't. We just waited. I was hungry (SO SO SO hungry) and tired and terrified. I cried and prayed. I talked to Brian and my parents and tried to act "normal". I refused to let my best friend come visit. I just waited. It was the worst day of my life.

...But then the next day came... and eventually the worst day of my life led to two of my life's greatest blessings... more about that in 5 days.