Our Baby Bears Have Arrived!

Sorry I slacked on the most important part of this blog – the girls are here!

Allison Sophia (Baby A) was born at 10:49 pm on November 21 and was 5lbs3oz and 17” long. Danielle Audrey (Baby B) came less than a minute later at 10:50 and was 4lbs15oz and 17 ¼” long.

Much like the rest of the pregnancy, their arrival was anything but predictable. I went to the hospital on Friday night, 11/18, because I was having painful and frequent contractions. It wasn’t unbearable, but definitely felt different from the contractions that I had been having. The contraction meds didn’t seem to be touching them at all either. My doctor came by that night and said that she didn’t want to deliver the girls just because I was having contractions, and added “they have to earn their way out.” Since I wasn’t dilating, I wasn’t technically in active labor. The doctor stopped all medications except for IV fluids and left me on a constant contraction monitor overnight.

Saturday was more of the same. I was still having lots of contractions but no active labor. Even watching our Baylor Bears beat up on OU didn’t put me into labor. The nurses were quite amused following the game from the nurses’ station and seeing how the big plays corresponded to my contractions.

By Sunday they took me off of the monitors and told me to just let them know if I started feeling different. The doctor came by to check on me in the morning and mentioned that she didn’t think the girls were going to make it past Thanksgiving but she wanted to try to get past the next 36 hours. She was planning to take off from Weds-Sunday for Thanksgiving, so if the babies weren’t born by Tuesday night, another doctor would be the one performing the C-Section. I felt strongly that I wanted my doctor to be the one to do it given all my health issues during the pregnancy and let her know that.

Luke went to work on Monday since there didn’t seem to be anything changing with me. I was allowed to wander the halls with the hope that a little bit of exercise would get me into labor. I had a little bit of cramping but more than anything I was just frustrated that I was just hanging out in the hospital. The doctor came by late in the afternoon and checked my cervix and said that now she could not only feel Alli’s head, but she also could feel an outstretched hand. She didn’t seem concerned though and said she’d come back by later to check on me.

Around 7pm Luke was exhausted and asked if he could head home for the night. I told him to take a nap in the room at least until the doctor came by. She came in shortly thereafter and saw my empty dinner tray and seemed a bit frustrated that I had eaten. I explained that no one had told me not to and it didn’t seem like anything was happening tonight. With a smirk she said “I didn’t say that” and told me she’d come by again later in the evening to check on me again. After she left I was asking the nurse “So is that her way of telling me we’re having the babies tonight?” The nurse wasn’t positive, but thought it was possible. That sent us in a bit of a panic. We knew that the babies would be required to be in the NICU at least initially because I was less than 36 weeks along, but we hadn’t met with the neonatologist group yet. So the nurse called them and had the on-call doctor come up to my room for a consult.

It was kind of funny because she kept saying things like “if your babies are less than 36 weeks…” and I kept interrupting her and saying “yes, they will be…” Given that I didn’t appear to be in labor, she was very confused as to why the babies would be coming so soon.

At 10pm my nurse rushed in and said it was time to go have the babies. My doctor had another patient in labor, but she was progressing slowly, so my doctor wanted to go ahead and do my c-section while she waited on the other patient. It was a little bothersome that she was just going to squeeze my c-section into her schedule since she had some time to kill, but we didn’t really have time to sit and think about it.

They brought me into the OR and gave me my epidural while waiting on the doctor and getting the room set up. As soon as she walked into the room things started going FAST. They had paged the neonatologist and someone was on their way to get Luke, but the doctor was ready to go from the moment she sat down. She asked where everyone was and says “I’M ABOUT TO START CUTTING!” They hurried Luke into the room and he barely made it into his chair next to me before she started. The neonatologist came as soon as she was paged, but didn’t make it in before Alli was born. She came in as they were bringing Alli off to the other room to get cleaned up and checked out. Less than a minute later Dani was born. Both girls cried immediately but they were rushed off before I was able to hold them. I saw them as they passed by me and Luke went with the doctor and Dani to the other room.

They brought the girls back a little while later and put them on my chest for a few minutes each. It was so surreal because they were still working on closing me up and suddenly the babies were back in the room and they placed Dani on top of me. I was holding her and talking to her and then someone says “so do you want your other baby now?” Oh….that’s right…I have 2…weird.

The girls were then brought to the level 2 NICU and Luke and my family were able to spend some time with them there while I was in recovery. I was wheeled in briefly to see them on my way to my room.

Here are some pictures from that night. They were somehow short on carts that night, so the girls rode together to the NICU. Apparently that is pretty unusual because the hospital treats each baby as a completely separate patient – they really weren’t supposed to be put that close together.