Once I hit 37 weeks, we were all wondering and anticipating the day the girls would arrive. I was so happy to have hit the 37 week mark and knew the babies would be in good health if they were born. The weekend came and went and I got excited thinking they might be 4th of July babies! Monday night, after fireworks and a day of celebrating, we all went to bed exhausted. I woke up at 2:30 after having several contractions in my sleep that had woken me up just enough to notice them and then go back to sleep. I didn't go back to sleep after 2:30am, however, as labor came on and I began to get more uncomfortable. I still wasn't sure if this was it because both of my previous labors began with my water breaking. At 3:30am I decided to wake Jon up and get to the hospital after having a couple of bad contractions and not wanting to have the babies at home or in the car. While he got dressed, I lay down on the bed to make sure they wouldn't go away by relaxing and had a massive contraction a few minutes later. This was it!
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| 37 Weeks 4 Days. In Labor! |
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| Post Epidural Smile |
We got to the hospital at 4:30am and found that I was dilated to an 8 and 80% effaced. I couldn't believe I was already that far and made sure they knew I wanted an epidural (FAST!) so that the doctor could try to turn Baby B (Eloise) after Pearl was born. By 7am I was at 10cm and ready to deliver so they wheeled me into the OR and Jon got to put on his fancy, white scrubs. We waited for about 40 minutes for the other doctor to arrive to make sure they had 2 doctors in the room to assist in the deliveries.
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| Scrubbed in and ready to go! |
After 2 contractions and 5 pushes, Pearl was born at 7:43am. It was a beautiful moment and I was overcome with joy seeing our little girl for the first time! I held her for a couple of seconds and they took her away while the doctors prepared to turn Baby B. This may be graphic but one doctor had his arm inside grabbing her legs and pushing them up while the other doctor had his hands on the outside pushing the head down. They were able to get her into a pike position but only for a second and then her head moved back up. They tried again and this time her bag of waters broke, her heart rate dropped and they knew they needed to get her out as fast as possible. The doctor said, "We're going to have to get her out the other way" and I assumed he meant they'd pull her out breech. I realized I was wrong when they started scrambling to prepare the operating table and picked up the pace to get me ready. In tears, I was moved to the table and strapped down and the anesthesiologist upped my dosage on the epidural but I was still able to feel much of the first half of the c-section. By the time they were stitching me up, I was heavily drugged and nearly asleep. Relief set in when I finally heard Eloise crying. They let me meet her for a second before whisking her away to the nursery for some help with her breathing.
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| Pearl's Weight (exactly the same as her sister, Eloise's) |
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| Eloise's CPAP (she had this for only a couple of hours) |
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| Pearl's first bath |
When my surgery was done, they wheeled me to the hallway where an x-ray was taken of my abdomen to make sure they hadn't forgotten any tools inside me in all the rush.
The recovery was quite difficult for the first day but it's getting much easier. We stayed in the hospital for 4 days before going home with both girls (yay!). Both girls have jaundice but they're doing better and only Eloise has had to have bili lights for the last few days. They have changed so much already in the few days they've been here and although we can still tell them apart, it's getting more difficult to pick out differences.
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| Eloise |
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| Pearl |
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| Eloise (left) and Pearl (right) |
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| Eloise |
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| Going Home! Pearl (left) and Eloise (right) |
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| Eloise on bili lights (we call her our glow worm!) |
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| Bathing Beauties, catching some rays to get rid of jaundice. |
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| Pearl in the sun. She still had jaundice but not enough for lights. |
They're so beautiful and I can't imagine only having one baby. They are nursing great and I'm so sad to think they'll be growing so fast and won't be our tiny babies for long. I am tandem nursing and am so lucky that they're good at it! It certainly makes life easier to keep them on the same schedule.
Jonah and Sophie were quite excited to see their new sisters and are very sweet to them. Sophie loves to help and gives them lots of kisses and Jonah loves to look at them and make sure they're OK. He learned to pet their heads today while they cried during diaper changes. He takes his big brother duties very seriously. Neither of them can tell the girls apart yet but I think they will in time.
My mom was able to stay and help with the kids while we were in the hospital and for a couple of days at home and she was AMAZING. Our kids are full of energy and I'm sure she got her workout in each day and was exhausted when she finally left this morning. Thank you, Mom! You are so wonderful and we miss you!
It's hard to pick which pictures to share with you since we've taken a million. The one thing that helps is the fact I don't want to edit them all, otherwise, I'd be posting a lot more!
Sophie had jaundice and we ended up having her under some "bili-lights" for two nights to lower her biliruben levels. Good news, though! Today after having her foot pricked, yet again, her levels were such that we no longer have to have her under the lights and we no longer have to take her to get tested! We didn't get her picture under the lights but just so you can all see what they're like, I've included a picture of Jonah when he was under them. The contraption is a suitcase with UV lights in it. It really is the most annoying thing because you have to cover their eyes and try to get them to calm down without being bundled up or covered with anything but a diaper.
