Jane and Elizabeths Birth Story

For Premature Birth Awareness Day, I thought I would post Jane and Elizabeth's birth story in full. It's really long. Good luck.

(Taken the day before Jane and Elizabeth were born)

At 4:30 a.m. on August 2, 2010 my water broke. I had just reached 33 weeks with the twins that day. I put on a skirt (the only thing left that still fit me) and woke up Trevor with a sharp “My water broke. We need to go to the hospital.” I woke up D. Ann, who had been staying with us since I was put on bed rest, to tell her what had happened, and would she please take care of Atticus, our 14 month old son. Trevor grabbed his keys, I grabbed nothing since I had somehow failed to pack a hospital bag, and we were off.

We went to the E.R. entrance and told the nurse at the desk that I needed to go to Labor and Delivery. He called up and we waited for the wheelchair as I filled my shoes with amniotic fluid. When we arrived upstairs, our nurse asked the billion or so questions that are required to be checked in. I was checked into a room just as the day shift took over. I was the only mother on L&D, which was shocking since the last time there had been 12 or 13 women laboring with me.

The contractions weren’t horrible, but I requested an epidural anyway because I knew I would be getting one eventually. I knew I wanted an epidural because of the possibility of an internal version. An internal version happens when Baby A is born head first, but then Baby B turns breech. The doctor reaches all the way up and manually flips the baby down head first. This was not a memory I wanted to have. The anesthesiologist promptly arrived and inserted my epidural, and I lay back down not thinking anything of it since I had such an easy time with it last time. Then I started to feel nauseous... I told my nurse, who reached for a puke pan… but the room wasn’t stocked. At this point I knew something would be making an appearance soon, so I tried to tell Trevor to grab a trashcan, but it was too late. One sheet change and some Zofran later, my blood pressure came up, righting what was wrong, and I settled in to wait for the babies.

(A picture of Elizabeth from one of the billions of ultrasounds we had)

If you’re wondering why I wasn’t having a panic attack or freaking out the way most women would be in this situation, it’s because I was as well prepared for it as I could be. 3 days prior to my water breaking, I had found out I was 3.5 centimeters dilated, so it would have been a miracle to make it full term. We had also already had a baby in the NICU, so we were prepared for the awfulness of having our babies in the hospital. This was the time to grit our teeth and deal with it.

A few minutes later, I realized we didn’t have a camera. I called our beautiful friend Leigh-Ann and woke her up to ask her to go to our house and pick up our camera for us. She obliged and even brought us muffins and juice too. We chatted for a while and I was very grateful for the distraction from the two impending premature births. After a while though, she needed to leave. Shortly after she left, Dr. Meredith and Dr. Harling came in to talk with us, noting that my contractions had nearly stopped. I should have remembered that this is what happened when I was fully dilated with Atticus, but I didn’t. I just thought “Great! Maybe I can keep the girls in a little longer!” Dr. Meredith brought in an ultrasound machine in to check if Jane was still head down. He stuck the Doppler about halfway up on my belly, looking for a head, but he couldn’t find one… he moved it down farther and farther looking for a head before Dr. Harling finally said “It might be quicker to look the other way.” Sure enough, I was very nearly fully dilated with hardly any contractions. Not that it really takes 10 centimeters to give birth to a 33 week baby anyway.

The nurses rolled me out of the room and into the operating room, where all twins and preemies need to be delivered "just in case". Everything was gotten ready (except the temperature of the room; it was freezing in there) and 2 pushes later, Jane was born. She cried, so they briefly allowed me to see her and touch her before she was handed through a window to the NICU. 2 more pushes later, Elizabeth was born. She didn’t really cry, but she gurgled a little bit. I also got to see and touch her very briefly before she was whisked out of the OR. The NICU called out to us “four eight and four eleven!” Four pounds, 8 ounces and four pounds, eleven ounces.

Trevor left me to wait outside the NICU until he could go see them. I got cleaned up and wheeled back into L&D to recover. After a while, I’m not sure how long (it always seems like forever when you don’t know what’s happening to your baby) I asked the nurses if I could try standing and clean up. They were doubtful that I would be recovered enough, but I guess they just didn’t understand the motivation. I stood up and got into the shower, quickly cleaning off. Trevor returned, and we were given permission to go to the NICU to see Jane and Elizabeth. That's where, through 2 half inch thick sheets of plastic, I met my daughters.