And then there were 5…Max and Mia's birth story!
First of all let's take a trip down memory lane to recognize how far we've come. My first post ever on this blog was 2.5 years ago on July 30, 2013 and we came out to the world as infertiles. As of 7/30/13 at 10am I was - for the first time ever - pregnant until proven otherwise. It was our first transfer and we were positive it would work. Unfortunately it didn't and that would be the first official baby we would "lose". Now here we are - 4 transfers and 3 kids later - talk about a success story! It wasn't easy and it wasn't always pretty but I wouldn't change our path for anything!
So I have been dying to share Max and Mia's birth story with you for almost 3 weeks now but phew - let me tell you 3 kids - and 3 kids under 2 years old - is no joke. Put on top of that recovering from birth and you have one exhausted, overwhelmed - and overjoyed momma! So here goes - I'm going to furiously write hoping to get it all done before they wake up!
So we scheduled our induction for 38 weeks 1 day. We had the option to schedule any day in the 38th week but our doc's policy was that babies had to be here by 39w0d for safety reasons. Once we found out in week 36 that baby A was measuring quite a bit smaller we were on edge. At our 37 week appointment the doctor stripped my membranes and I was already dilated to 4 cm so he said it could be anytime - literally could be hours away. So we decided to pack up and stay in the city for the week just in case to be closer to the hospital.
We had a discussion with our doctor about when to schedule the induction. He mentioned to us that there wasn't much research that shows waiting until say 38w5d vs 38w1d is all that beneficial but that once you hit 39w that it typically only brings problems when it comes to twins. So we decided to choose 38w1d to help calm our fears about the discordance between the twins.
Needless to say - the babies were comfy and cozy inside and were not going anywhere. I walked the city, walked Water Tower Place everyday shopping - we did it all to try to avoid the induction process but Friday, February 26th came and I was still pregnant. So Chris, my Dad and I headed to the hospital to check in for our 6:30am induction. It was weird to go this time and check in whereas last time my water broke at home. The rest of the family stayed back with CJ.
We got all checked in, got my IV and by 7:30 the pitocin was flowing. There was very little progress all day and really zero contractions so around 2 or so the doctor decided to break baby A's water to speed things along. That definitely helped! Shortly after I started feeling pretty intense contractions and requested the epidural. Just as with Ceej - I am a terrible epidural candidate. I'm not sure if my spine is weird or if I get weird med students at Prentice but after a good 30 minutes of trying to get the epidural in all while I was feeling sharp pains to the left and right of my spine (OUCH!) the overseeing doc came in, told the student he needed to call it and she got it in within 5 minutes. She apologized profusely and told me it was a great learning opportunity for them to just pull it out and start over if they are having that much trouble. You think?? Then of course, my BP dropped so I got a nice shot of epinephrine and then the shakes began. Uncontrollable, teeth chattering shakes. Every single time I get an epidural this happens. It looks like I'm having uncontrollable seizures and is actually pretty scary. Anyhoo…once the epidural was in the proverbial shit got real…
I was trying not to use the button too much as I wanted to feel labor and contractions so I could keep track of what was going on. Around 5 was shift change for the docs. Dr. Garvey came in and checked my and said I was about a 5 or so so it could be 4-5 more hours as most progress at a centimeter an hour. Boy was he wrong….by about 6pm or a little after one of my favorite docs in the practice Dr. McNair was on. I started feeling a lot of butt pressure (yes yes, get your laughs out now) - but this was not something I ever felt with Ceej so it was a new sensation. Rita - our doula with Ceej - actually texted and said how's the butt pressure which gave us all a good laugh. About that time I told Chris I think you might want to call the doc and nurse I think something is happening. He said no no babe, it's fine they have you on the monitors if something were happening they would know and come in. I urged him that we needed to get someone in there now. About that time both the nurse and Dr. McNair came in and I said I'm having a ton of butt pressure I think this baby is coming. Dr. McNair said ok - let's check you - and she looked me square in the eye and said it's time to have some babies - you are at 10. Yay it was baby time! I immediately started crying - tears of joy - but uncontrollable sobbing!
At Prentice all twin moms are required to get an epidural and deliver in an operating room in case of an emergency. They started to prep everything and said let's do a test push here in the room before we transfer to the OR. The nurse grabbed one leg, Chris grabbed the other and Dr. McNair got into position. They said next contraction you are going to push - and push I did - until Dr. McNair hollered STOP stop stop stop - one more push and we are going to have this baby right here she said - we have to get to the OR. This is when everyone went into a tizzy. Lots of calls and rushing around. They had to get Chris all suited up, they had to be sure an OR was available (it wasn't for 10 minutes) and they had to get the team in place. About 10 minutes later I was being wheeled down to the OR with a team full of people in tow. They transferred me to the table - each and every one of the 16 people in the OR/delivery room in a fury of activity - and it was go time. With the huge lights and the sterile atmosphere of the OR it was a totally different yet equally beautiful experience as my first birth with Ceej. I pushed 3 times and the doc said you have to wait - the pediatricians aren't here. So i tried to not push through one contraction but it was too hard. So she said forget it - the peds will get here when they get here and I pushed Mia out on the 4th push. Easy peasy - no exaggeration. The only hiccup was that there was something wrong with my epidural so I felt the dreaded ring of fire and screamed out Jesus that burns to which the anesthesiologist quickly shot some pain meds into my epi line and all was right with the world again. Everyone yelled It's a girl and there she was our Mia Grace at 6:51 pm - all 6 lb 2 oz and 19.5 inches of her and she was beautiful and perfect. Because of the twin factor I got to see her but she was immediately whisked into the adjoined room so that they could begin the checks on her and we could focus on getting baby B out.
I had been terrified of a breech extraction since I first heard of it. I had zero doubt that all the docs in my practice were 100% capable but it still scared me to death. And now here it was go time. They brought the ultrasound machine over as the resident proceeded to break Baby B's water and to stick her hands in my uterus - not glamorous but pretty amazing. Dr. McNair was walking the resident through every step of the way which was kind of cool for me as it was sort of a play by play of what was going on. They determined Baby B was still transverse breech so it was time for the extraction. They used the ultrasound to guide them and once they were able to grab a foot they started to pull. At this point Chris was peering into the room to check on Mia and when he looked back down he said there was an entire leg - one leg - just sticking out. It's something he likely will never forget. They continued to work on pulling baby out and eventually got both legs and the butt at which point they yelled "there's a scrotum" so that's the point at which we knew Max was a he! They continued to maneuver him out and at one point everything but his head was hanging out - again an image Chris will never forget and I so wish I could have seen. Next thing you knew - 8 minutes after Mia at 6:59pm Maximus Alexander entered this world at 6 lb 12 oz and 19 inches long. Max was a little quiet when he first came out and the docs assured me it was normal that he just went through a very traumatic entrance into the world and he was perfect. And soon after we heard him screaming and knew he was just fine.
After that Chris got to go into the rooms with the babies and the pediatricians while the doctors worked on delivering the 2 placentas and getting me all wrapped up. Amazingly after all that I just ended up with a few internal stitches and zero tearing - I was amazed and attribute it all to amazing, world class care and doctors.
So as you can see - the birth of the twins was night and day different than Ceej but still equally as beautiful. The only hard thing for me was that I didn't really get to snuggle and bond with them until I was in recovery. This was where we discovered something was indeed wrong with my epidural as it had been accidentally left on but I had full movement of my legs - very strange! Shortly after we were taken to our room where we would stay less than 48 hours before being discharged and sent home to start life as a family of 5.
As I look back I worried for 38 weeks and a day that these babies would be early, that they would be tiny and fragile, that they wouldn't make it into our arms safely so to this day - the fact that they made it to full term, were beautiful and healthy and came home less than 48 hours after birth - still feels like a dream. And the fact that I had a successful breech extraction - something that literally gave me extreme anxiety and nightmares - makes me feel like - excuse my french - a total bad ass. It's not for the faint of heart and most doctors would not even try it - so the fact that I rocked it honestly - out of all the things I've done in my life - is my greatest accomplishment.
I could not have asked for a better experience - start to finish - and I'm so very thankful to have them here safe and sound. So that's it - that's the story of M&M's arrival! But I can't leave you without sharing a few of my favorite pics from that day! Enjoy!
So I have been dying to share Max and Mia's birth story with you for almost 3 weeks now but phew - let me tell you 3 kids - and 3 kids under 2 years old - is no joke. Put on top of that recovering from birth and you have one exhausted, overwhelmed - and overjoyed momma! So here goes - I'm going to furiously write hoping to get it all done before they wake up!
So we scheduled our induction for 38 weeks 1 day. We had the option to schedule any day in the 38th week but our doc's policy was that babies had to be here by 39w0d for safety reasons. Once we found out in week 36 that baby A was measuring quite a bit smaller we were on edge. At our 37 week appointment the doctor stripped my membranes and I was already dilated to 4 cm so he said it could be anytime - literally could be hours away. So we decided to pack up and stay in the city for the week just in case to be closer to the hospital.
We had a discussion with our doctor about when to schedule the induction. He mentioned to us that there wasn't much research that shows waiting until say 38w5d vs 38w1d is all that beneficial but that once you hit 39w that it typically only brings problems when it comes to twins. So we decided to choose 38w1d to help calm our fears about the discordance between the twins.
Needless to say - the babies were comfy and cozy inside and were not going anywhere. I walked the city, walked Water Tower Place everyday shopping - we did it all to try to avoid the induction process but Friday, February 26th came and I was still pregnant. So Chris, my Dad and I headed to the hospital to check in for our 6:30am induction. It was weird to go this time and check in whereas last time my water broke at home. The rest of the family stayed back with CJ.
We got all checked in, got my IV and by 7:30 the pitocin was flowing. There was very little progress all day and really zero contractions so around 2 or so the doctor decided to break baby A's water to speed things along. That definitely helped! Shortly after I started feeling pretty intense contractions and requested the epidural. Just as with Ceej - I am a terrible epidural candidate. I'm not sure if my spine is weird or if I get weird med students at Prentice but after a good 30 minutes of trying to get the epidural in all while I was feeling sharp pains to the left and right of my spine (OUCH!) the overseeing doc came in, told the student he needed to call it and she got it in within 5 minutes. She apologized profusely and told me it was a great learning opportunity for them to just pull it out and start over if they are having that much trouble. You think?? Then of course, my BP dropped so I got a nice shot of epinephrine and then the shakes began. Uncontrollable, teeth chattering shakes. Every single time I get an epidural this happens. It looks like I'm having uncontrollable seizures and is actually pretty scary. Anyhoo…once the epidural was in the proverbial shit got real…
I was trying not to use the button too much as I wanted to feel labor and contractions so I could keep track of what was going on. Around 5 was shift change for the docs. Dr. Garvey came in and checked my and said I was about a 5 or so so it could be 4-5 more hours as most progress at a centimeter an hour. Boy was he wrong….by about 6pm or a little after one of my favorite docs in the practice Dr. McNair was on. I started feeling a lot of butt pressure (yes yes, get your laughs out now) - but this was not something I ever felt with Ceej so it was a new sensation. Rita - our doula with Ceej - actually texted and said how's the butt pressure which gave us all a good laugh. About that time I told Chris I think you might want to call the doc and nurse I think something is happening. He said no no babe, it's fine they have you on the monitors if something were happening they would know and come in. I urged him that we needed to get someone in there now. About that time both the nurse and Dr. McNair came in and I said I'm having a ton of butt pressure I think this baby is coming. Dr. McNair said ok - let's check you - and she looked me square in the eye and said it's time to have some babies - you are at 10. Yay it was baby time! I immediately started crying - tears of joy - but uncontrollable sobbing!
At Prentice all twin moms are required to get an epidural and deliver in an operating room in case of an emergency. They started to prep everything and said let's do a test push here in the room before we transfer to the OR. The nurse grabbed one leg, Chris grabbed the other and Dr. McNair got into position. They said next contraction you are going to push - and push I did - until Dr. McNair hollered STOP stop stop stop - one more push and we are going to have this baby right here she said - we have to get to the OR. This is when everyone went into a tizzy. Lots of calls and rushing around. They had to get Chris all suited up, they had to be sure an OR was available (it wasn't for 10 minutes) and they had to get the team in place. About 10 minutes later I was being wheeled down to the OR with a team full of people in tow. They transferred me to the table - each and every one of the 16 people in the OR/delivery room in a fury of activity - and it was go time. With the huge lights and the sterile atmosphere of the OR it was a totally different yet equally beautiful experience as my first birth with Ceej. I pushed 3 times and the doc said you have to wait - the pediatricians aren't here. So i tried to not push through one contraction but it was too hard. So she said forget it - the peds will get here when they get here and I pushed Mia out on the 4th push. Easy peasy - no exaggeration. The only hiccup was that there was something wrong with my epidural so I felt the dreaded ring of fire and screamed out Jesus that burns to which the anesthesiologist quickly shot some pain meds into my epi line and all was right with the world again. Everyone yelled It's a girl and there she was our Mia Grace at 6:51 pm - all 6 lb 2 oz and 19.5 inches of her and she was beautiful and perfect. Because of the twin factor I got to see her but she was immediately whisked into the adjoined room so that they could begin the checks on her and we could focus on getting baby B out.
I had been terrified of a breech extraction since I first heard of it. I had zero doubt that all the docs in my practice were 100% capable but it still scared me to death. And now here it was go time. They brought the ultrasound machine over as the resident proceeded to break Baby B's water and to stick her hands in my uterus - not glamorous but pretty amazing. Dr. McNair was walking the resident through every step of the way which was kind of cool for me as it was sort of a play by play of what was going on. They determined Baby B was still transverse breech so it was time for the extraction. They used the ultrasound to guide them and once they were able to grab a foot they started to pull. At this point Chris was peering into the room to check on Mia and when he looked back down he said there was an entire leg - one leg - just sticking out. It's something he likely will never forget. They continued to work on pulling baby out and eventually got both legs and the butt at which point they yelled "there's a scrotum" so that's the point at which we knew Max was a he! They continued to maneuver him out and at one point everything but his head was hanging out - again an image Chris will never forget and I so wish I could have seen. Next thing you knew - 8 minutes after Mia at 6:59pm Maximus Alexander entered this world at 6 lb 12 oz and 19 inches long. Max was a little quiet when he first came out and the docs assured me it was normal that he just went through a very traumatic entrance into the world and he was perfect. And soon after we heard him screaming and knew he was just fine.
After that Chris got to go into the rooms with the babies and the pediatricians while the doctors worked on delivering the 2 placentas and getting me all wrapped up. Amazingly after all that I just ended up with a few internal stitches and zero tearing - I was amazed and attribute it all to amazing, world class care and doctors.
So as you can see - the birth of the twins was night and day different than Ceej but still equally as beautiful. The only hard thing for me was that I didn't really get to snuggle and bond with them until I was in recovery. This was where we discovered something was indeed wrong with my epidural as it had been accidentally left on but I had full movement of my legs - very strange! Shortly after we were taken to our room where we would stay less than 48 hours before being discharged and sent home to start life as a family of 5.
As I look back I worried for 38 weeks and a day that these babies would be early, that they would be tiny and fragile, that they wouldn't make it into our arms safely so to this day - the fact that they made it to full term, were beautiful and healthy and came home less than 48 hours after birth - still feels like a dream. And the fact that I had a successful breech extraction - something that literally gave me extreme anxiety and nightmares - makes me feel like - excuse my french - a total bad ass. It's not for the faint of heart and most doctors would not even try it - so the fact that I rocked it honestly - out of all the things I've done in my life - is my greatest accomplishment.
I could not have asked for a better experience - start to finish - and I'm so very thankful to have them here safe and sound. So that's it - that's the story of M&M's arrival! But I can't leave you without sharing a few of my favorite pics from that day! Enjoy!
Swaying with my lucky socks on!
Sitting with the peanut ball between my legs to get things moving!
The plan!
Daddy all suited up and ready to go!
Let's do this!
Miss Mia Grace!
Diva Mia
Big Man Max!
Look at that stink face on Miss Mia!
My first time meeting my sweet babies!
Headed to our room!!
Papaw meeting Max for the first time!
Grandma loving on Mia
Nene with both her babies
A proud Mamps and Papaw
So happy...
Auntie Kristin and Uncle Adam came to see us!
I'm officially a big brother!!
Opening his big brother gift and of course he went straight for the cookies!
What's that momma!
Our first pic as a family of 5
Nene and Papaw
Snuggling and waiting to go home!
One proud papa
I never knew how much I loved your dad until I saw how much he loves you...
Ready to blow this popsicle stand!
XOXO
K
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