Hello! Sorry it has taken me so long to complete this and that I haven't really been around much. The last few months have been pretty eventful. Warning: this is extremely long and not for the faint at heart... it ended up being a pretty tramatic experience.

So, anyhow, I think the last I had really posted was before my 33.5 week check-up. My doctor ended up taking me off of work at this appointment because of the symptoms I was having. At 34 weeks, 1 day I ended up going to L&D in early labor. When I was checked, I was about 3 cm dialated and 50% effaced. My OB said at that point he wouldn't do anything to stop labor, but my body decided to wait. This continued for the next 4 weeks... I would have several hours of regular contractions and then they would just stop. I was scheduled to be induced at 38 weeks 1 day (August 10th), but woke up at 2 am on August 9th with contractions once again. After 2 hours of contractions every 4-7 minutes apart I called my OB again who said to go on into L&D again. When I got there I was 4 cm dialated and 100% effaced, but once again my contractions were slowing down. The doctor said if I wanted to, I could stay and they could augment my labor with some pitocin and break my water. I figured since we were already there, might as well get the party started (LOL).

So around 8 am they started a pitocin drip. They had to keep uping the dose to regulate my contractions. At about 9:30 am, the resident OB came in and broke my water (which the second bag of waters broke about 15 minutes later on its own). At this point I was 6 cm dialated. After about 45 minutes of hard contractions, I had had enough and was ready for the epidural, so my friend Frank was called in to place the epidural.

All of the family showed up in the meantime because we thought the babies would be there any moment... boy were we wrong! They continued to up the pitocin to keep contractions coming, but even once the pitocin was topped out, my contractions weren't staying regular and weren't very strong. I was still slowly progressing, so the OB said to drop the pitocin and then re-introduce it hoping that would "jump-start" my contractions again.

Around 8 pm, they checked my progress again, and I was still only between 7 and 8 cm. I was really beginning to tire because I had only had 2 hours of sleep the night before. I decided that I would try to get some sleep so I turned down the lights and tried to go to sleep. This was a pointless effort though. Somewhere around 9 pm, the new anesthesiologist let my epidural run out! I had paged him when the first alarm went off signaling that I had 20 minutes remaining before it ran out. It took him an hour and a half before he showed up! Needless to say, this was one horrible time. He finally showed up and gave me more meds, so I was waiting for the next 30 minutes for it to take effect... it never did. My pain had compounded so much that the epidural couldn't catch up. Well then the anesthesiologist tried another med that would offer temporary relief. It did help, but only for 30 minutes at a time. This continued until about 3 am (on the 10th) when I finally made it to 10 cm!!!! So, after 4 weeks of early labor and 25 hours of active labor, it was finally time to push! I started pushing at 3:20 am, and pushed for 2 hours (still continuing to lose pain relief every 30 minutes). At this point my pain relief had ran out again and I was exhausted. My OB said I should have progressed further than I had by now (I was only at a +1 station) and he didn't think that the boys were going to fit through my pelvis. At this point we really had no other option other than to have a c-section.

I was fine with this because I just wanted my boys to be here so we went to the OR. All of the trouble I had had with pain relief up to this point should have been a precursor to what was coming. After I had been prepped, the doctor came in and everything was in place to begin the c-sec, but when he started the incision I quickly informed him that I could still feel him cutting, so they gave me more medication (or maybe a different type). This is when things started going downhill. As a little history, anytime I've ever been under anesthesia, my blood pressure bottoms which happened this time as well. When they proceeded with the c-sec everything was spinning and I was extremely confused... my vision was very messed up and I started having trouble breathing. I remember hearing Hunter crying after he was delivered and I asked where my husband was. The last thing I remember was my husband sitting down next to me holding both boys and one of the nurses taking a picture. The boys were both born at 6:07 am on August 10th. Hunter Mathew weighed 5 lbs 15 oz and had apgars of 9 and 9, and Isaac Nathaniel weighed 6 lbs 7 oz and had apgars of 9 and 9.

The next thing I remember was waking up in recovery. I guess after both boys were delivered, I coded and the hurried my husband out of the room and to the nursery with the boys. Because my uterus had been stretched so far and contracted for so long, it didn't have the strength to contract down in order to stop the bleeding. The doctor had administered several blood clotting meds which none worked, and in a last ditch effort used a new procedure where they put a stitch in the uterus to get it to contract. I ended up getting 3 units of blood because I had bled so much.

Despite all the trouble it took to get my boys here, we are all healthy now and doing well! It is completely amazing how much love you can have for these two little blessings. Both boys are nursing great and growing like crazy. At 1 week old they had each regained all they had lost plus 2 oz. They go back to the pediatrician in about a week; I'm guessing that they've each put on 1.5 lbs or more because they are getting rolly-polly.

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Deanna