Adalyn & Reagan's Birth Story (and my recovery!)

Better late than never, right?! :) Anyways I was inspired to finally write out the girls' birth story by Miss Bailey Ann's recent arrival, and want to get it out for everyone that follows this blog and is interested.

Mimi (my Mom) came Feb 8-27 (she was supposed to leave the 22nd but I begged her to stay.) She helped me get the house ready for the two special arrivals, which we were expecting any day. Honestly never thought that we'd have to be induced at 38 weeks (Feb. 12)!


Morning of the 12th we (Mimi, Rush, and myself) headed up to the hospital, and I finally got hooked up to the monitors and the pictocin started around 10:30am. Poppy arrived around 2:30pm and I had hoped to have had the girls by then. Of course after being in labor for quite a while we still had no progress. Around 4 pm the Dr. broke Adalyn's water, and it was a LOT! It was such a weird sensation and thought I was going to flood the room! We all hoped that would get the ball rolling, but there was still no progress, just more painful contractions. Not long after I was given an epidural, which I was very thankful for because since they had broken Adalyn's water and I was on pictocin the contractions were very strong and one on top of the other and I wasn't even in active labor yet! Well later in the day (and still no progress) and after the shift change we talked to the new doctor Dr. P. and since Reagan was breech she advised against a natural delivery. Apparently there are a LOT of statistics about breech deliveries that aren't good, so Rush and I discussed the pros and cons and what we wanted to do. We came to the conclusion that we were going to 'ok' a c-section. *I really had hoped to deliver the girls naturally for many reasons, one of the main was that I wasn't really wanting to be cut open and go through major surgery if it wasn't neccessary. But when we were told that if Reagan didn't turn or ended up coming breech her chance of death or even having a handicap due to an accident during delivery (i.e. she pinches her neck or gets her head caught and we still end up in an emergency c-section) was like one in FIVE! I decided that I didn't care what I had to go through, I just wanted my babies as safe as they could be. We decided to go with the decision we could live with, because I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I had been selfish enough to try and something go wrong. Besides I wasn't progressing, after almost 12hrs on pictocin and 6 hrs after they broke Adalyns water and knew that we were only a few hours away from a mandatory c-section anyways. At least I was able to "pick" their birthday, the 12th. (I am weird and don't like odd numbers, and then there is the Aggie part of me that liked them being born on the 12th!) :)

Well once we made the decision they immediately started prepping us for the OR (we would have delivered there anyways.) Then it seemed like forever before they came and got me (I actually told the nurse that I was going to be very upset if they missed the 12th by a few minutes!) Needless to say they got us in and finally got the huge team in the room (think nurse teams for each baby and for me!) And the surgery started. Rush had no intention of looking but they started working before he realized to sit down so I think he got a peek at them cutting me open. In the moment it felt like a lifetime waiting for them to say "Baby A" at such and such time and to hear a cry, but once we did it was amazing. Rush had the video camera and was up and videoing the team with Adalyn. Then one minute later we hear "Baby B" and both of them crying it was very surreal. After they were cleaned up and swaddled they held each of the girls up to me so that I was able to see them and give them a kiss. The girls then left (with their teams of nurses) and I sent Rush with them so that our friends and family could meet them. *Not everyone knows this but Reagan still had not been named at this point!

That left me alone in the OR while the Drs worked to sew me up. I don't know what took so long (it felt ridiculously long) or what all went "wrong" but they ended up giving me a shot in the shoulder to try and get my uterus to contract (there was alread pictocin in my IV drip) and when that wasn't giving them results they also decided to give my uterus a direct shot of pictocin! Apparently it had gotten SO stretched that it was taking it a while to contract enough to tuck it back in to place. All I remember during this whole process was being very cold and shivering so much that my body (at least the top half) was practically bouncing off the table (hence the wrist straps they strapped me down with in the beginning.) Finally they were done and were taking me to recovery and at this point I was drifting in and out but still telling them that I was very cold. *I was later given two blood transfusions due to losing quite a bit during surgery and because I apparently had a massive placenta! While in recovery I remember seeing Rush come in to check on me but then quickly passing back out again (the recovery nurses later told me that my condition kind of freaked him out and they sent him back to be with the girls.) I must say that I loved my recovery nurses! No kidding the head nurse was Mama T and she was so sweet. It was while I was in recovery and passed out that I dreamed that we had named Baby B, Reagan! Rush and I had gone back and forth between Reagan and Payton and still hadn't made our minds up, I knew he was leaning more towards Reagan but I hadn't completely come around to it. But dreaming of her as Reagan I knew that's who she was meant to be! :)

Around 2 am I was finally released from recovery and sent back to our room and thirty minutes later the girls were wheeled in to stay! It was an amazing journey that all started with finding out we were pregnant on Father's Day 2010, to finding out we were doubly blessed, then making it to 38 weeks, and finally their arrival and getting to hold them in our arms on that early February day. God works many miracles and I thank him everyday for the two he gave me!