Birth Story

April 5 2013 is their birthday. The day they turned 28 weeks exactly. The plan was for me to be inpatient on the maternity floor for 6 weeks for monitoring until they were born via c section at 32 weeks. I was in the hospital for 11 days before they decided to make their appearance.

As some of you know, the twins are monochorionic-monoamniotic twins. This is the rarest pairing of twins, and accounts for 1% of identical twin pregnancies. What it means is that while I was pregnant they shared the same amniotic sac and the same placenta. This makes it a very high risk pregnancy because normally each twin would have their own amniotic sac and be able to keep their cords and bodies separate. So because they shared the same sac they had a very high risk for cord entanglement and cord compression. When we found out they were twins at 20 weeks and on top of that mono-mono twins it was a very scary time to say the least. It was a blessing that we had made it to 20 weeks as most mono-mono twins are lost before that time.

So up until 24 weeks (which is the age of viability) we had an ultrasound every other week. Then at 24 weeks we had ultrasounds twice a week and then I went inpatient at the hospital at 26 weeks 3 days gestation. The plan was to stay there and have ultrasounds twice a week as well as being hooked up to the monitors to monitor the babies heart rates 3 times a day for 2 hours at a time.

Before I went into the hospital was a very scary time for me, not knowing from one minute to the next if the girls were still alive or not. A cord accident could happen at any time and that could be it. Being in the hospital gave me more peace of mind because I was monitored so frequently, but it was still scary especially at night when there were 8 hours when I wasn't being monitored. It wasn't easy being away from Norah and Kyle, but I knew that I was in the place I needed to be for the twins.

The night and day before they came they looked awesome during their monitoring. So far Twin A (Mary) had only had a couple small decelerations in heart rate but had recovered just fine, and that had been a week ago. The following day, Friday April 5, I had an ultrasound with growth scan scheduled in the morning, and so I had asked  to have my morning monitoring at 6 AM instead of 8 AM, so that I wouldn't have to be laying in bed all morning, especially since I had a bunch of visitors coming that day.

Luckily, my favorite nurse Audrey was working that night. She had been working when Mary had those couple of decels the week before and I had been very impressed by her response to it and her knowledge of my specific situation and how risky this pregnancy was. Not all of the nurses seemed to even know what mono-mono twins were, and seemed confused about why I was even there, but she did.

I remember feeling like they weren't moving quite as much when I woke up around 4 AM, and almost called Audrey in to check, but figured they would be monitored early anyways and decided to fall back asleep. So Audrey woke me up for my monitoring at  6 AM and hooked me up and they were both fine and she found them right away. I decided to fall back asleep, but Audrey came in at 645 and said that Baby  A was having some variables (lots of increases and decreases in her heart rate, more than is expected normally), and had me turn to my left side. I did, figuring it was no big deal, since the same thing had happened a week ago. She called the doctor on call, Dr. Osborn, and he said to go ahead and give me some IV fluids and see what happened.

Literally 5 minutes after that, as Audrey was putting in the IV and getting the fluids set up, Baby A started having major declerations, with her heart rate going down to 60 beats per minute for 5 minutes at a time which is an emergent situation. Audrey then pushed the emergency button, and all of a sudden there were 5 nurses in the room. They told me that they were taking me down for a c section right then. I was in a state of shock and kept asking all of them, "Are you sure? It has to be today?" Up to that point I had had no worries that we wouldn't make it to 32 weeks. I knew it was a definite possibility but really didn't think it would happen to me. I was prepared for 32 week old babies in my mind, but not for 28 week old babies. Audrey called Dr. Osborn back and he said that he had already seen the strip and was on his way over and would meet us in the OR in 10 minutes.

Then they were wheeling me down the hall. I had called Kyle when we first saw the variables as he was planning on coming in that morning for the ultrasound anyways, and the nurses called him again and told him to get here right away. He told me later he made it to the hospital in 6 minutes which is impressive for a trip that usually takes 10-15 minutes ;)

They transferred me to the operating room table, and all of a sudden there were a ton of people in there. The babies had both recovered and their heart rates were back up to the 150's but they were still not stable. The anesthesiologist came in and started asking me all the questions about anesthesia, etc. They considered putting a spinal epidural in so that I could be awake for the c section, but didn't want me to sit up in case that would compress the cords more. Stephanie, one of the other night nurses, stood by me and held my hand and said that everything would be ok. I had started to cry at that point as the reality of what was happening started to set in. It was one of the scariest moments of my life, not knowing if the babies would be ok, and knowing that I would not be awake for any of it. Then Dr. Osborn came in and said "well, we're going to get them out today!" And that is the last thing I remember before they gave me the anesthesia, and then I woke up in an incredible amount of pain.

I was back in my room and it was all over and the nurse was pressing on my stomach to get my uterus to contract and I was crying it hurt so bad. There were a few nurses in there and Audrey was there and showed me pictures of the babies from Kyles phone. They were both doing very well, and were being stabilized in the OR by the NICU teams before being taken up to the NICU. She also showed me a picture of the cords, which were incredibly tangled and knotted. Audrey also told me (which I didn't remember until she reminded me when she visited Sunday) that Dr. Osborn had made the incision, broke my sac of waters and pulled both girls out at the same time because he couldn't tell which cord was which. Besides the 4 true knots and multiple twisting of the cords, they were wrapped around both of the girls' necks and bodies. Other nurses who were in there told me later that they had never seen cords as tangled and knotted as those. So all three things happened in one minute, 7:12.  Its nice, because they are exactly the same age, and so that is one less thing for them to fight about later ;) I am so thankful that Dr. Osborn made the right decision and got them out so quickly. All of the staff there was so amazing, and I credit them with saving the girls lives.

I spent the rest of the day recovering from the c section and trying to get out of bed so I could go see the girls! It was hard to get my pain under control at first, and of course I was an idiot and tried to decrease the amount of pain meds I was taking too early because they made me so tired. I soon realized I needed all the pain meds I could get ;)

I finally got to go see the girls at around 5 that evening...10 hours after they were born. I don't actually remember it all that clearly, I felt like I was in such a fog. But I do remember looking at them and realizing that they had all their fingers and toes and looked pretty much perfect, just tiny! That whole day and night was surreal because I felt like I was still pregnant. It has been hard to process the whole experience. I feel like I wasn't ready to not be pregnant, and it was such a shock to have the emergency c section. I am so glad though that they are safe and healthy. They truly are miracles, and we are so thankful to God for them, and also to the amazing staff here at Methodist and Blank.