Let's start with their birth day - Friday, April 12th. After 15 days on hospital bedrest, it was time for them to make their debut. My c-section was scheduled for 12 pm, and I had to be ready to go at 10 am. The morning was really calm. Got up, finished packing up my room, showered and put on my hospital gown. They wheeled me down to Labor and Delivery at 10 o'clock on the dot, and I was put in a room to get monitored and start my IVs. Our families came in and visited with us and Jenn and Connor surprised us too! It was a really sweet, surreal time preparing for delivery. The anesthesiologist came and talked to us. He mentioned that since my blood pressure had been so high due to pre-eclampsia, that I would likely feel light headed after the epidural because that makes your blood pressure drop. I still felt really calm through the whole thing - I was ready to go.
They wheeled me into the delivery room by myself to get the epidural. It was a weird experience. There were tons of people in the room setting up the stations for the twins. The epidural didn't hurt at all. It literally felt like a shot. I instantly went numb and couldn't lift my legs. They laid me back on the table and the doc started asking me how I felt. The next few minutes were yucky. I was kind of nauseous, light headed, etc. But as soon as I told them how I was feeling, they adjusted the meds and got me feeling stable. The anesthesiologist took an ice pack and moved it from my legs up to my face to see when I could feel the cold. I didn't feel it until it was on my forehead! He actually joked and said next time I do this to let them know I am 'extra sensitive' to epidurals. What the heck! Then he pulled out his iphone and texted my doctor to let her know I was ready. (Technology is crazy, right??) Her reply to his text - "Let's do this!" A couple minutes later she came strolling in, with another doctor from the practice to assist her because it was twins. By this time Justin was in the room too standing right next to me and I could see him looking around soaking everything in.
At 12:10, our sweet Keegan entered the world screaming. I did not feel one single thing during my surgery. No pressure, pulling, tugging, nothing. Justin watched the entire thing! At 12:12, Noelle was born. She was also crying, but not as loudly as her brother. The next few minutes are kind of a blur. I remember Justin going over to be by the babies while they were getting weighed and cleaned up, and I also remember hearing lots of voices talking about Noelle and her breathing and coloring. While I was getting stitched up, one of the nurses came over to tell me they were taking Noelle to NICU to get checked out - so her and Justin left. I laid there for a little while longer, the doctors said bye, and I was wheeled to the recovery room. Kind of a weird moment, but I wasn't scared or nervous for some reason.
Keegan and I were taken to recovery where I was taken care of by the sweetest nurse, Emily. Right away she brought me Keegan and helped me nurse him. She is a huge breastfeeding advocate, so she also started helping me express milk for him and Noelle. Everyone came in and out to see me and Keegan, and give me updates on Noelle. I was in quite a bit of pain though, and Emily told me I was bleeding a lot more than she liked, so she called the anesthesiologist and my doctor to give them an update. Not to go into too much detail, but basically after you deliver, your uterus has to contract to start going back to its normal size. Mine was not, and I was losing a lot of blood and blood clots. The doctor had to come in and massage my uterus (hello worst pain ever, even on the hard core pain medicine I was on) for 30 minutes to get the bleeding to stop. He actually ordered me three units of blood because he thought I'd need a blood transfusion. Luckily the bleeding stopped, and while my 1 hour recovery turned into 6 hours, I finally got to leave and head to my hospital room.
On our way to my hospital room, Justin and I stopped at the NICU to see Noelle. I was laying in my hospital bed, and remember getting pushed up next to her incubator. She was the most precious little girl I'd ever seen, and I was extremely emotional. She was on a machine called CPAP which was helping put pressured oxygen into her lungs. The tubes and IVs were larger than her tiny little body, and I could only get a good look at her eyes. The NICU nurses assured us that she was doing OK, just getting some extra breathing support she needed, and that I should come back in the morning for an update. (I will write a whole post on our NICU experience later on).
April 12th was by far the sweetest day of my life. As I write this, I wish I could go back and relive every single moment. It was absolutely perfect, despite it going a little differently than I had imagined, and we were blessed with two sweet angels who have forever changed our lives in this short 19 days. The amount of love we have for them is unimaginable, and I find myself just staring at them soaking up every detail. God had a plan to bring our babies into this world, and while it was a challenging time with Noelle in NICU, Justin and I learned patience, trust, sacrifice and pure joy to a whole different level then every before.
