Our twins just turned one year old. I guess it’s about time that I write down and process their birth and surrounding events. This is the next part in the series. Here is the link if you want to start at Part I.
So Thanksgiving happened. Then my birthday was on Friday so Kraft took me to watch Mockingjay: Part I at Alamo Drafthouse and we enjoyed a nice little afternoon just the two of us. I had been feeling pretty run down and I was definitely huge but I warded off those end-of-pregnancy-misery feelings. I was sure I still had many weeks left so I wasn’t allowing myself to slip into that almost-depression right before babies are born.
We had prepared nothing. Zero. Nada. And while on our lunch/movie date we had come up with a plan for how we were going to tackle the get-baby-stuff-ready tasks. In fact, we were going to start the very next day. Saturday.
“Yeah, sure,” God said.
That night seemed like any other. I got as comfortable as I could in my pillow fort. Then, like clockwork, like every one of my other pregnancy’s, almost to the minute, my water broke at 3am. I immediately shot awake and knew exactly what it was. I shook Kraft awake and then proceeded to remain paralyzed with fear for the next few hours. Kraft jumped up and started packing a bag (no, I didn’t have the hospital bag packed). He called the doctor and handed me the phone to talk to him. He buzzed around doing everything he needed to do. The camera, his laptop, some clothes, some snacks. He kept asking me what I wanted to pack and I’m pretty sure I never answered him. He just did his best. I remember sitting on the edge of our bed saying over and over that it was too early. They were too early. This couldn’t be happening. This shouldn’t be happening.
My parents live about 50 minutes away with no traffic. My dad was at our house in 35 minutes flat. I don’t even want to think about how fast he was driving. My mom followed at a more reasonable speed. It was really surreal going into labor prematurely. I felt like I was floating. I was having some contractions but I honestly couldn’t even feel the pain because I kept trying to remember where the babies were at. “I think weeks ago the doctor said if they were born they would not have to be on ventilators. How big are they going to be? Is everything formed? Will they be missing anything?” It was as if my mind had been filled with cotton. I couldn’t remember what the latest BabyCenter email said. Would they be the size of a cantaloupe or a butternut squash or was it spaghetti squash? I just kept letting people lead me around because I couldn’t quite comprehend what was going on.
On the way to the hospital the contractions started to get a bit stronger. Just enough to snap me into some sense of myself. The pain pulled me out of the surreal. I think the cold helped, too. The walk from the car to the hospital was freezing. As we walked, I remember a man walking in the opposite direction as us wishing us luck and telling us that he had just had a baby. Kraft is a champ and knows that I don’t want to talk to anyone while I’m in labor and he takes over all small talk of well-meaning strangers and nurses.
We went up to L&D and got settled into our room. I was immediately hooked up to the monitors just about an hour before shift change. We really liked the nurse we got. She was so kind and patient and funny and talkative. But she was a wreck and kept making mistakes. (I completely understand how hard her job is and I’m sure it was just a bad day but we all really needed it to be shift change.) It hit 7am and we got a new nurse who was definitely a seasoned L&D nurse. Not so chatty but she knew her stuff and was quick and efficient and confident. I was good with that. And so we sat. And waited.
[…] the most painful part of my labor and delivery with the twins was getting my IV put in by that first nurse. She tried at least four times, if not more. My arms were covered in bruises the next day from all […]