Babies:: 34 Weeks

Last Tuesday we hit 34 weeks and I felt a little bit of relief hitting one of the biggest goals of this pregnancy. The iron treatments had started to kick in and I was feeling a bit better besides the awful acid indigestion that had showed up. My weekly doctors appointment was Wednesday instead of the normal Thursday and we were excited to have our growth ultrasound. Wednesday morning started off with Ben & I laying in bed watching Paw Patrol while he played with the babies. Little did we know what the next 24 hours would have in store...

The ultrasound Wednesday showed the babies were both doing great and they had plenty of fluid. They estimated that Sister was 5lbs 4 oz and Brother was 5lbs 10 oz. We were surprised and relieved that they were over 5 lbs! Sister was still breach while Brother remained head down. After the ultrasound the nurse weighted me and I had gained 6 pounds in 6 days-I knew that was a bad sign. Then she took my blood pressure and it was the highest it had ever been in the office-something like 165/110. So all that and having a 3+ protein result in my urine sent us straight to labor & delivery. We checked into our old room 3209 and figured I would spend the night to be monitored and then be released. But yet again what everyone thought would be the plan wasn't how it worked out. My blood pressure kept rising and at 11pm I was put back on magnesium. This time I knew what to expect so that was a plus and we knew what helped me and what didn't to make it more tolerable. It was a pretty sleepless night of being miserable and counting down the hours until it would be over. But then about 6am a flood of people came charging into the room and said your blood pressures are getting worse, you officially have pre-eclampsia and the babies are coming out now. We barely had time to call our parents before I was getting wheeled away to the operating room. They didn't even wait for my doctor we had the on-call doctor, Dr Mitchell. He said he hated waiting this long (6am) he would have delivered me in the middle of the night had I not had a late dinner. Before I knew it my epidural and spinal block were in place and they were staring. A few minutes later at 7:16am Abigail Elizabeth was born crying followed by a crying William Collier at 7:17am. I got to see Will for about a minute while they worked on Abby and then I saw her for about 20 seconds before they whisked both away to the NICU.

I was back in my room by 7:40am. They skipped the recovery room because I needed to immediately go back on the magnesium for a minimum of 24 hours. That meant I was not allowed out of bed for 24 hours which meant I didn't get to see the babies for at least 24 hours. The next 24 hours are a big blur for me thanks to all the magnesium. But I know Vince was with the babies a lot and took lots of pictures and videos for me. We even FaceTimed a few times so I could see them "live"! His mom and my parents all got to go up and see the babies in the NICU that morning but Ben isn't allowed up. Since its cold & flu season only parents and grandparents are allowed in the NICU. Both the babies were doing great considering they were only 34 weeks 2 days. Both were getting nasal oxygen and were given iv's but that was pretty much it. Poor Abby was really not feeling well and she let everyone know it. I felt so bad for her. So helpless.

Friday morning Dr P decided after much debate to take me off the magnesium! But I was warned I could end up back on it. So after the mag was turned off they turned off my epidural drip and I got to get up and move to the mom/baby floor for recovery. And after the move I finally got to go see my babies 31 hours after they were born...

To say that those first few moments meeting them were overwhelming would be an understatement. Having your pregnancy end 6 weeks early is hard and having it end that early because your body failed your babies is even harder. Initially seeing your babies so tiny and all wired up is heartbreaking. The whole emergency delivery experience really robbed me of the little things I had planned on like a final belly pic and making sure to enjoy the last few moments of them kicking. Letting go of my "plan/vision" for their birth was hard too. But we are lucky. Lucky that we have a great doctor who was overprotective of me and my pregnancy. Lucky that we have 2 babies who are doing as well as they are. Lucky for all our family who have helped us these last few weeks survive all this and still are. Lucky to have such great friends for all their support and prayers.