The Birth Story - Part 1

*Update* The babies are actually 4 MONTHS old! I began recording their birth story when they were a month, but still haven't finished it!

The girls have been here for almost a month, but I just haven't been able to take the time to write out their birth story. It's not traumatic in any way, it just takes time and energy that I haven't had. I decided that today I had better just do it before I forget!

38 weeks. This is 3 days before the babies arrived!

I was set to be induced on Wednesday, September 10th. If you remember from my post at 36 weeks, this was a week later than originally planned due to the abundance of twins expected the first two weeks of September.  I was beyond miserable and by the night of September 8th, I was at an ultimate low. I was in pain EVERYWHERE. I couldn't get comfortable in any position and my emotions were all over the place. Rather than vent on Facebook (cuz that is a slippery slope) I logged on to my BabyCenter group online. The group was all moms expecting twins or already delivered twins so I figured that was a good place to vent and look for some encouragement. They've all either already gone through it, are going through it, or will go through it.  Anyways, I typed my heart out and clicked "Post".  Re-reading my entry later, I noticed that instead of typing "I feel like I'm letting everyone down" I had typed something similar to "everyone" but my phone auto corrected
it to "Beyonce". So the sentence read like this: "I feel like I'm letting Beyonce down".  It made a bunch of other women's day to say the least and I cried I was laughing so hard. Before that I had just been crying, so cry/laughing was a great improvement.

 Getting back on track, I went to bed around 11pm on Monday night and could not get comfortable. I was achy all over. My hubby came to bed at midnight and I still wasn't asleep so I got up out of bed and went to the kitchen for a snack. I hadn't had dinner as I wasn't feeling all that great. I had a piece of bread with peanut butter and headed to the recliner in the living room.  I may have dozed off and on, but ultimately ended up back in bed at around 1:30.  I was having crampy pain (just like menstrual cramps) that was constant. No contractions. I'd had a few false alarms where I'd start timing contractions for a few hours and then they would just stop. So disappointing and disheartening. I was up and out of bed quite a bit through the night with the unrelenting pain (and the need to pee every 40 minutes). I was having bloody show, but still no contractions so I didn't really think I was in labour. By 5am, I was having irregular contractions, but the pain felt so different from my past two labours. I was having pain all the time and then it would get stronger with a contraction and then ease off to just the "regular" pain again. I also noticed some bright red blood and started to get concerned that maybe something wasn't right. I told my husband that I thought we should go to the hospital just to get checked out. I would feel better knowing the babies were still doing ok. We called his parents to let them know the plans and were on our way to the hospital around 6:30am.  Both our kids were still sleeping so Auntie J came up to be here until Lita (Grandma) could come. It was now Tuesday, Sept. 9th and it was Mason's first day of Kindergarten.

We loaded up the van with our gear and bags, just in case. We parked in the parkade and I walked into the hospital and up to the 3rd floor Labour & Delivery. I had been holding my emotions in check, but when we got there, my friend was (who is an L&D nurse) was there and I lost it. I burst into tears and my fear that had been just under the surface came gushing out. She took us to the back and hooked me up to the monitors (as I'm so familiar with from all those non-stress tests). Both babies looked great and were doing fine. My doctor would be by to do her rounds soon so they just called her to let her know I was there. So, I just layed low for a awhile. JP ran back out to the van to put more money in the parking meter (we'd only paid for an hour). My contractions started to come a little more regularly and by the time my doctor came, I was having fairly decent contractions about 3 minutes apart. I still didn't grasp that I was in labour. It still felt different.

My doctor came in at 8:30am and talked to me and checked things down below. I was a solid 4cm dilated. I asked her if I was going home and she said, "No, you're in labour. You're having these babies today". That's when it sunk in! I was having the babies today. TODAY! September 9th! My doctor was excited. I was a bit dazed. Things started rolling. I needed an IV started with antibiotics as I had tested positive for Group B strep a few weeks back.

JP had forgotten his wallet at home so since we were staying, he decided to head home to get it. I said it wasn't a big deal as I had my wallet, but he was pretty concerned and needed to re-plug the meter again (this time all day) so he headed home to do that.

This is me hanging out by myself while in labour. 

Since Dr. M (my OB) wasn't on call, Dr. M came in to see me. I hadn't met her before, but I'd heard good things about her so that was comforting. She came in to see me and see how things were progressing. I think it was about 10:30am by now.  She checked and I was 7cm dilated! 7!! When did that happen? My contractions weren't that overwhelming and I was breathing through them quite well, but I really didn't think I would have been that far already! She said it was time to get my epidural in place and then she would rupture my membranes to get things moving a bit faster. JP wasn't back yet so I asked if we could wait. I said I'd text him, which I did. This is the message I sent him:
You need to come back now. I'm 7cm dilated and they want to do my epidural and break my water soon. I asked them to wait for you.

His reply:
Omw. (on my way)

15 minute later he still wasn't back so I sent him another text.
YOU BETTER GET HERE SOON!

Apparently he was on his way up.

To be continued...