The birth of Evie & Jackson

I decided to take the time to get this typed up while it was still fresh... the birth of Evelynn Brooke and Jackson Alexander!

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This story begins long before 11/22/06. It actually begins at 21 weeks when my first real preterm labor episode started. We had a scary several weeks, between 21 and 28, on bedrest and medication to stop preterm labor. I had weekly appts with my perinatologist (my ob had handed over fulltime care at 13 weeks)and at 28 weeks 4 days my dr checks my cervix and informs dh & i that i need to be admitted to the hospital until i deliver. You see, before i was 3 cm dilated on the outside but just 1 cm on the inside. At this appt i was a full 3 cm throughout and my cervix was very thin.

I was admitted about 4pm that day and was contracting - hard. As soon as i was hooked up to monitors they realised i was in full on labor. They quickly started an IV, put in a catheter and started the awful "mag". Over the next 5 hours i had several boluses of mag. I also was given indocin. At some point my dr checked me and i had dilated to 4cm and effaced some more. They moved me from ante-partum to an actual LDR room. By the grace of God and the miracles of science they managed to get my labor under control. It was Friday evening and I was 28w4d. I had my first steroid shot at noon that day. The goal at this point was to get me to noon Sunday, to give the steroid shots time to work. I continued to contract the entire weekend but my cervix behaved and we got to Sunday. My dr later told me he was afraid to leave the hospital because he was certain i would deliver that weekend. My husband stayed with me the entire time and one of my sisters kept our girls with her at her house.

Sunday at 12:20pm my dr ordered to stop the mag. It had been successful at getting me to our initial goal, but was having a bad affect on me. The dr said at this point it would do more harm than good. I continued the indocin and was also started back on nifedipine.

Over the next almost 2 weeks I had several more incidents of labor...after 4 days in LDR i was deemed "reasonably stable" and moved bakc to ante partum. Contractions continued, never actually stopped. but usually they were braxton hicks. I learned quickly the best way to keep them from really hurting was to saturate myself with as much water as i could tolerate, keep my bladder EMPTY and stay off my back.

On 11/21/06, after 11 long days in the hospital, i started to feel "different". All along my nurses had told me if i felt different or the contractions changed i needed to let them know immediatley. I let my nurse know about the different feeling i was having - more pressure on my cervix, a change in the contraction pressure. She honestly brushed me off and said it was normal, babies moving around, blahblahblah. It was 9pm. Her shift was over at 11pm. I told her a few more times in those 2 hours and she never took me seriously. At 11pm my new nurse came in and i told her what was going on. She hooked me up and we saw some very regular contractions on the monitor. After 20 minutes she called my dr and was told to give me some stadol to see if relacing would help. (i was fully hydrated, had an empty bladder and was not on my back). The stadol defintley helped me relax but did nothing to ease the timing/frequency of my contractions. I was 5 cm dilated at this point and 100% effaced. A few hours later it was decided I was defintley in labor and because the medications to stop my labor had had such a bad effect on me the previous 12 days, it was decided we'd go ahead and have some babies. I was moved to a LDR room.

I called my husband, my sisters, my mom... noone knew how long it would be, but by this point i was 6cm dilated and my dr wanted me to go ahead and get the epidural because waiting for the pain to get worse may be too late. (and if they had to do a csection i would have to be knocked out, which i didnt want.) So i got the epidural about 5:30am on 11/22/06.

I labored throughout the day, resting, chatting with dh and occasionally my mom & her best friend. My contractions continued but werent as strong as before. I was okay with however long it took. I figured the longer it took, the better for the babies.

About 6pm the dr on call from my peri's office came in. This woman is amazing to me. I have always been "start struck" by her, as she is considered the top maternal fetal specialist in Tennessee. Before moving their practice to another hospital, she had been the Director of MFM at Vanderbilt, Director of OB Intensive Care and Director of a dept specialising in Diabetic moms to be.

Suffice it to say, I was very happy to see her. I trusted all 3 of the dr's in the practice, had a good relationship with all 3, but this one - well, even the other 2 dr's would tell you that she's the BEST. I couldnt think of anyone id rather have deliver my babies than her.

She checked me and I was 8 cm dilated, but the contractions just werent strong enough. Baby A's head was "right there" but would move up if pushed on. My Dr decided to do a little pitocin to get the contractions a little stronger and see from there. She had to leave for about 15 minutes and told them to wait until she called to start the pitocin - she didnt want to risk not being there.

A little bit later they got the orders to start the pitocin. It defintley picked things up right away. Because i had the epdiural alread I had no pain. DH and I used this time to focus and relax a little. We talked, he relaxed me, encouraged me to rest. We couldnt believe we were about to meet our babies.

Soon after, maybe 45 minutes after the pitocin was started, I felt the urge to push. We waited a few more contractions, to be sure it was real. It was! Things happened very quickly after that. I was checked, ready to go - a full 10cm. The nurse made eye contact with me and said "She's ready!" (in reference to Evie, our baby A, being ready to deliver). I started to cry. She was ready!

I was moved to the operating room, moved to the operating table. Baby A was head down and ready. Baby B (Jackson) was footling breech. The plan was to deliver baby A and then the dr would do a breech extraction of Baby B. The sound of this scared me, but again - i fully trusted my dr.

Once things were ready to go in the operating room the said i could push when i wanted. I immediatley had that urge... 1 contraction with 4 pushes later and Evelynn Brooke was born. It was 9:39 pm on 11/22/06. She weighed 3 lbs 7 1/4 oz and was 15 inches long. The dr handed Evie off to her nicu team and started working on Baby B. 3 minutes later, with only a tiny push from me, and Jackson Alexander was born. It was 9:42 pm on 11/22/06. He weighed 3 lbs 8 1/4 oz and was 15 1/2 inches long. After Jackson was born I reached down and touches his precious little head. I couldnt believe how much hair he had! Then we noticed he was peeing on the dr lol. It was realy funny The dr handed him off to his NICU team and he promptly peed on one of the crew! The dr finished up with me as i watched my babies being taken care of.

The babies were aready to be moved to the NICU and they let me hold Evie for about 30 seconds. Then i held Jackson for about 10 seconds. I couldnt believe how beautiful they both were!! and how *tiny*.

They were moved to the NICu, dh went with them. After the dr wasd done with me i was moved back to my room. A few minutes later my mom's best friend came in with my girls. It was such a wonderful sight, to see my girls. Mikayla is almost 10 and Harley is 7 1/2. They were such a sight for sore eyes They were very excited about their brother and sister being born and Mikayla declared she wasnt leaving the hospital without seeing them lol.

DH came in a little bit later with their birth weight/length info and their little hats and a crib card for each baby. At this point it was just a "waiot a few hours" ganme for the Neonatologist to come tell us we could see the babies.

Dh and I decided the girls would stay with usand everyone else went on home. The girls stretched out on a big couch and went to sleep and i fell asleep in the hospital bed. DH made a few phone calls to spread the word of the birth of our twins.

About midnight or so the neonatologist came in and told us the babies looked good for being so early. And we could go see them and so could our girls

My nurse got me up and did the neccesary post partum stuff with me to get me out of the LDR room, had dh take all our stuff to the post partum room, then we were ready to head to the NICU.

I cant even describe how amazing it was to see my little babies. They were so small, but so perfect. We were all about to touch both babies.

That was 10 days ago. The twins have gone through all the typical NICU stuff and are doing really well considering!! As of today Jackson is 3 lbs 3 3/4 oz and Evie is 3 lbs 3 1/4 oz. He is taking 28 mL of breastmilk every 3 hours and she is taking 27 mL. Both babies are off their cannulas and doing well on room air We are able to hold and kangaroo care both babies. Im hoping they will be home by Christmas (35 weeks gestation) but understand it could be a little longer.

They get sweeter everysingleday. I just cant believe they are ours and are so perfect. I miss them so badly when im not at the hospital but i know they are where they need to be. That doesnt make it hurt any less tho.

I keep a blog with daily updates and lots of pictures if you are interested in seeing my little sweeties.
http://evieandjackson.blogspot.com