Birth Story

Sorry this has come so late, but I had a really horrible day yesterday until we finally found a pain medication that works. :-) And now I'm a new woman! So, here's what went down Wednesday morning. This is not for the faint of heart.

I was having contractions late Tuesday night. They were somewhat painful and coming somewhat regularly, but nothing I couldn't handle. I finally went to bed around 2am and woke to more contractions at 5am. I was doing fine until 6am when I experienced the most horrifying pain I've ever had to experience. I thought that maybe I was going through transition (already??) but I had no relief in between contractions. The pain was worse (if that's possible) during contractions, but it was still a "30" on the 0-10 pain scale. I was also very dizzy & lightheaded. I woke my hubby and we were out of the house by 6:15am. I was taken right up to labor & delivery where they hooked me up and tried to find the babies heartbeats. They had a very tough time getting the heartbeats, so they brought in an ultrasound to help. My blood pressure was also quite low (70/40). Meanwhile I was begging for pain relief...it was just too intese. (And this from the same person who was planning for a natural, vaginal birth.) When they got the babies' heart rates, Baby A was at 110 and Baby B at 95--normal is in the 140 range. The OB basically said that they needed to do a C-Section immediately and I was like "where do I sign"? (This once again coming from the same person who was planning for a natural, vaginal birth.) My husband had gone home where he had forgotten the cord blood kits (which were never used), so he didn't realize I had gone in for the C-Section until he got back.

In the C-Section room they tried to give me a spinal, but they were having a hard time and the OB had a feeling that Baby B's placenta had separated from the uterine wall (aka abruptio placenta), which means mandatory general anesthesea. (That being the one thing I wanted to avoid most of all, but I had no choice in the matter.) So while I was sleeping, the doctors were in hell. I was bleeding a lot, but the first thing they had to do was deliver the twins. They were born within a minute of each other (7:28 & 7:29am), but Baby B wasn't really breathing for almost 5 minutes. Baby A's APGAR scores were 3 and 8, Baby B's were 1 and 7. Not so good. And I was bleeding...a lot. Dr. Testa (aka the man who saved at least 3 lives on Wednesday) thought maybe my uterus had ruptured. Thank G-d that was not the case, but there was an artery on the outside wall of the uterus that was bleeding into my abdomen. My OB (Dr. Rabin) said that this ruptured artery was a complication of surgery and not of the pregnancy/birth, but I lost a ton of blood in either case.

Anyway, they worked on me for about two hours after the twins were born trying to get the bleeding stopped. When they finally closed me up, I was sent to general anesthesea recovery. Later on they transferred me to the ICU, then to labor & delivery and finally to a postpartum room. The doctors were surprised that I was doing so well seeing that I had lost about a pint & a half of blood and receieved 4-5 units of blood. Thank G-d I'm fine now and the babies are doing great! I'll have more updates with pictures later, but it's time for Shabbos soon and I must be off.

Check out my brother-in-law's blog if you'd like to see pictures now.