Alex and Tony's Birth Story

So I'm finally getting around to writing this post...sorry for the delay, but I didn't want to rush it and leave stuff out - that means it'll be long ;)

Here's a quick summary of the events leading up to 9:59 AM:
3:48 AM - Water breaks in bed, Striker gets out of bed the fastest I've ever seen him wake up and start moving. He was super cute and very helpful. He stayed calm and managed to remember to grab everything except the diaper bag. We're both super excited and relieved to not have to count and time contractions. Water breaking means guaranteed admission to the hospital and a birthday within 24 hours! I like the efficiency and that I will have not once gone to Labor & Delivery with a false alarm - YAY US!

Approximately 4:15 AM - We leave for the hospital in the rain. It's a Monday morning, but thankfully before rush hour. We listen to Mariah Carey Merry Christmas. I'm calm, excited, and typing away on my BlackBerry while Striker drives us safely to the hospital.

Approximately 4:45 AM - We arrive at the hospital, Striker grabs a wheelchair and takes me up to L&D. While not confirmed by a medical professional, I'm pretty sure that my second bag of water broke right before we got to the hospital. Thank goodness for beach towels!

By 5:30 AM - I've been admitted, changed, hooked up to monitors, checked, dilated to 3-4 cm, and had my c-section scheduled for 9:30 AM. Baby B was still firmly transverse (horizontal) and no one wanted to bet the odds on which way he'd flip. Once my water broke I started having some pretty decent contractions but wasn't feeling much pain...mostly just uncomfortable, but tolerable. The nurse began prepping me for surgery.

Shortly after 6:00 AM - the anesthesiologist - Dr Edwards - came in to put in the epidural. I hadn't requested it yet, but she'd just started her shift, knew I'd need it before 9:30's surgery, and wanted to get it in while she had plenty of time. Efficiency...like it! She gave me a test dose of the happy juice to make sure that it was properly in place. I didn't need the full dose yet because I wasn't in pain...freakishly high pain tolerance of course. It worked and I laid around saying over and over how weird the epidural makes you feel. It's exactly how everyone describes it, yet nothing like it at the same time. I seriously probably said "that's so weird" several dozen times in the less than 5 hours I had the epidural in.

Around 7:00 AM - I started to feel pressure with the contractions and asked the nurse to check me because I was second guessing my pain tolerance and didn't want to deliver Baby A before I knew what was happening. I was at 5 cm. Holy wow things were progressing quickly!!! There was discussion of whether or not we'd make it to 9:30.

Around 7:30 AM - I decided to just go ahead and get the happy juice pumped through the epidural since it was already in place and I was starting to really feel the contractions. Why feel them if I didn't need to? That's sort of like beating your head against a wall for fun.

7:30 AM - 8:30 AM - Under the influenece of the epidural...that's when this first picture was taken. By this time they'd already pumped me full of IV fluids which is why I look so puffy. Luckily the epidural seemed to slow my progress down a bit so that I was less worried about giving birth both ways. (Sort of like poking a sharp stick in your eye for fun).














9:30 AM - I was wheeled into the OR and final preparations for surgery began. There was Christmas music playing the whole time. The blue curtain went up and it was just me, Striker, and Dr Edwards while we listened to all the people on the other side chat about Christmas gifts and shopping. The NICU doctor came to my side of the curtain and introduced himself...Dr Schultz. I really appreciated him doing that since it was really odd to be behind the curtain while so many people were working on you on the other side.

9:59 AM - Alexander Martin was born. He began crying right away. While Dr Schultz and team were checking him out, he peed all over.

10:00 AM - Anton Mikael was born. It took him a few extra seconds to start crying...from the limited reflection in an overhead light, I think I saw the cord wrapped arond his neck (I've got to remember to ask my OB when I see her next week), so maybe that's why. He also peed all over Dr Schultz and his team.

10:01 AM - 10:30 AM - Striker went over to be with the boys while I laid there and got put back together. My doctor confirmed that I had a good amount of scar tissue from my ruptured appendix when I was 10. Perhaps that was at least the partial cause of my infertility as I'd suspected. I heard Dr Schultz tell my OB that both boys APGAR Scores were 9 & 9. I laid there crying like a baby. Dr Edwards was awesome and told me what was going on, asked me about our journey to that moment, and generally just comforted me. I will always remember that moment. It's tough, because you're left there all alone while Daddy is off with your babies and all you want to do is see them and hold them after going through so much for them to get there. When I told Striker that later, he felt bad, but he was supposed to be with our boys, that's where I wanted him to be. It's just tough to explain or understand unless you've been there.

Dr Edwards took a bunch of pictures of the 4 of us together for the first time. It's pretty impossible to get everyone's head the same directon with the stupid curtain in the way, but I still like this picture:

10:30 AM - 12:30 AM - We were all taken back to my original LDR room where I promptly got nauseous when they sat me up which prevented me from holding the boys right away. Striker got to hold them and take pictures with them (courtesy of Jennifer Dahl). Jennifer gave them their first baths while I willed my stomach to cooperate so I could hold my babies!

1:00 PMish - We finally made it up to the postpartum floor and got the twin room - score!!! It's in the back corner of the floor, has 2 hospital beds (no pull out chair or sofa for Striker), and lots of room for visitors and stuff. It was only when we were being discharged that we learned that there was another set of twins born the same week...we just beat them to the big room...good job boys!

Grandma Barbie holding Alex and Oma holding Tony:

I feel that I should mention that the hospital requires ALL visitors to wear those stupid yellow masks. In some ways I sort of liked it, but mostly it just annoyed people. Please don't think that I'm some germ freak that made the boys' grandmothers wear masks to hold them!



Opa was SO EXCITED to take this picture...and break the rules by removing his mask!

Auntie removed her mask the second she came into the room every time. She's quite the rebellious rule breaker!

My Aunt and Uncle (I so need to teach the boys to call him Uncle Ding Dong):