One Week to the Day

Week 24 Day 4

As of 7 minutes ago (10:30AM) my girls are officially one week old. That's a big deal for someone born at 23 1/2 weeks. While a part of me celebrates such a large milestone, another part of me is dealing with racing and intrusive thoughts that are far too close to the reality I experienced exactly one week ago. I've been told this will happen, as their birth was very traumatic - and one of the best ways to work through them is to distract yourself. So, here I am. Getting the thoughts out. I apologize if anything that follows is a bit graphic - I don't know any other way right now to clear my mind.

Everything started at around 1AM on 01/31/2019. The last day of 2019 - a year that has had ups and downs for me. Loss of some important people in my life, new opportunities with work, a new job, and finally - a pregnancy that stuck. Overall, 2019 was a fairly decent year and one that I was and still am immensely grateful to have experienced. My favorite part, despite the pain sometimes, was the pregnancy. I got to experience what it felt like to have not one, but two little babies inside of me. I got to experience the ultrasounds, the growth, the kicks, the rolls. Despite how everything went down - I am very grateful to have experienced those amazing milestones and feelings that come with being pregnant with your babies. Those are feelings I will never forget. I look back now at all the times I said, "I will NOT miss being pregnant" - I miss it every day. Pregnancy was easy. This shit - this is hard.

I woke up with really bad stomach and back pain. Back pain was nothing new to me - I had it starting at around 14 weeks because Valerie was positioned in such a way that when we would sleep at night, she would put pressure on my muscles in the perfect amount to make me uncomfortable. Every night at around 2AM, I was down on my couch and watching Bravo for about 2 hours while my back got a little break and didn't hurt anymore. On 12/31/2019, at 1:45AM, I was pacing the dark labor and delivery room, which felt more like a cave in the darkness than a welcoming space to deliver a child. I asked for some medicine to relieve gas - that's what I thought it was! I had been in a hospital bed for 48 hours at that point and I assumed, trapped gas. Made sense. But the medicine wasn't working and the pain wasn't going away. The bottom of my belly was hard as a rock and felt heavy - I later learned this was because Bria decided to drop down into my lower abdomen, whereas previously she was always up under my ribs. Ironically, hours before, I was taken off the contraction monitor as I hadn't had any contractions in nearly 24 hours. The ultrasounds showed two babies just hanging out, strong heartbeats, no issues. I requested to be put back on the monitor and sure enough, those were not gas pains.

It was a long night of sleep in 20 minute increments. Every couple of hours they would come in to do fetal doppler measurements - which were always fine. I was checked again around 6AM - still 1cm dilated. The pain began to grow worse to the point where I started to recall every sitcom I had ever watched that included someone going into labor and tried my best to imitate Lamaze breathing techniques (no idea if I did them correctly or not). I was checked again - 3cm dilated. At this point nurses and doctors started to administer various steroids and IVs that were meant to slow labor and hopefully allow me to hold the girls in for a bit longer. None of it worked. After one of the IVs made me start throwing up, I was checked again - fully dilated. Valerie was transverse in my cervical canal. The doctor yelled, "Do not bear down!!!"  I would scream in pain with every contraction, and plead, "Please help me...please help me" to the doctors and nurses who - at this point - were flooding into the room. They discussed C-Section vs. vaginal delivery and I screamed, "C-Section!!!!" and that was it. I feel a bit bad for everyone who was on the labor and delivery floor that day because I. Was. Screaming.  Every scream was comprised of pain like I have never felt in my life, and a fear that I cannot even begin to describe. I'm sure everyone on that floor - and maybe outside of that floor - heard me.

The OR was cold and bright. It was organized chaos with people shouting, "I need a spinal!" and me shouting from behind an oxygen mask, "My spinal! Where is my spinal!" The oxygen mask wasn't working and so I had nurses on my right fussing with the machine to get it to work appropriately. I heard another person ask, "Would you like to use a D-blade?"  Someone else screaming, "There isn't enough time!!"  They grabbed me by my arms and legs and put me on the operating table and it was in that moment that my body released a tidal wave of liquid. My water broke. I felt something warm being placed on my stomach as the yelling continued all around me. I cried behind my mask for fear of both my life and my girls'. Suddenly, a masked woman appeared over me and said, "You will go to sleep shortly and we will take excellent care of you and your girls." It was lights out after that.

I did not receive any spinal block, I was only put under general anesthesia. Recovery was long. I wanted to ask what happened - but at the same time, I didn't want to know. Thankfully, both girls were able to be intubated upon being born and they were down in the NICU waiting to meet me, and begin our journey in the world together in a way that none of us ever imagined.

I have frequently asked, "Why us?" with all of this. Why did this happen? What happened? Was this avoidable? I have been confused, in denial (I thought for the longest time I was in a nightmare and this wasn't real), angry, and finally I have reached the point of acceptance. This happened. It was not a dream. I did nothing wrong (even though sometimes those thoughts creep in). This was most likely, unavoidable. The "Why" is yet to come. I am holding firm onto my faith through everything, knowing that one day, I will know "Why". But for now, we just continue to pray and work through each day as its own adventure.

The girls are strong. A week ago we were told they would not survive. A week ago we were asked if we wanted to discontinue care. A week ago we made the decision to continue care and see what my little girls could do. A week later, here we are. God is good. Miracles happen every day. Science is amazing. 

Please continue to keep us all in your prayers. Yes, we are celebrating one week today but the journey is going to be long and hard and exhausting on us all. Your prayers and support continue to lift us up in our moments of doubt. We appreciate every single one of you <3