The Big Day
After clearing off the car from the first snowfall of the season we got to the hospital at 6 am on Wednesday, October 24th, to be induced. I had been having contractions off and on for the past 3 weeks and I was already dilated to a 4 but since I made it to 37 1/2 weeks the doctor and I decided to induce. The last month or two was pretty rough I couldn't be on my feet much and was very uncomfortable, if not in pain, most of the time - so I was excited and ready to be done being pregnant!
The nurses got me all hooked up and ready to go but the doctor was in a C-section so she couldn't break my water yet, but the anisthesiologist came and did my epidural which seemed fine at first until they had me sit up for a few minutes after and then I could feel I was going to pass out. So I told them I was going to pass out and the nurse kept saying "keep talking, stay with us", so I tried but I was pretty out of it. My blood pressure had dropped really low, so they stopped the pitosin and the epidural so that hopefully I didn't progress any further until they knew what was going on. This continued for the next 4 hours as they tried to figure out what was going on with me. I was in and out but I could hear people talking but didn't have the strength to saying anything. They think that somehow the epidural got into my blood stream but they didn't know for sure. It was a little scary but I finally came out of it and they gave me a new epidural around 2:00, it worked much better other than wearing off right before the babies were born, but they gave a big dose right before so I wasn't in much pain. Around 5:00 pm Baby A was crowning so they wheeled me into the OR to deliver. I was pretty nervous everything was happening so fast and I was worried about deliverying the second baby and the possibility of having a C-section. There were tons of people in the room, my OB plus another one, the anesthesiologist, and a team of nurses for each baby. But after just 2 pushes Baby A (Liam) was born. Then they did an ultrasound to see where B was and had me push. After 3 or 4 pushes, and with the doctor pulling, there was a foot, and Baby B (Dash) was born feet first doing the splits! It was a crazy but amazing experience. They were born 3 minutes apart and everything went perfectly!
One last twin belly shot
All hooked up
Babies' heart rates
Luke all suited up in the OR, right before the delivery.
Grandma Williams getting her suit on.
The two teams of nurses with each of the new babies
Welcome to the world Liam and Dash!
Two little bundles
Grandma Talley holding Dash and Grandma Williams holding Liam
Grandpas and babies
Proud parents
There really were 2 babies in me!
This picture is fuzzy but I love Livvy's expression! When she first came to see them she looked at the 2 babies and asked "where's the other ones?" I'm still not sure how many she thought there were going to be!
Precious! Proud Big Sisters
Aunt Jeni and Dash
Trying to feed Liam
Gabrie and Liam
Dash
Grandpa and the boys
I love snuggling with them, it is so fun having 2!
Dash having his tests.
We have more pictures on Grandma's camera, that we'll do in another post)
After their first baths and tests. The nurses put a letter A sticker on Liam's hat and B on Dash's, it was very cute!
Luke and the nurses surprised me by bringing them back with name tags when we hadn't decided for sure on their names, but they stuck!
"Baby A" Liam
"Baby B" Dash
Wide-eyed Dash
Bum to bum
Granny and the babies, she is one proud Great Grandma!
On the second day in the hospital, Thursday, Liam would kind of grunt with each breath so the nurse took him to the nursery to check him out. He had some fluid in his lungs (which I think is pretty common) and wasn't waking to eat and his blood sugar was really low so they wanted to watch him closely and keep him an extra day. So on Friday Dash and I were released but luckily we were allowed to room-in. That night Liam's oxygen dropped so they took him to the NICU ): I still am not sure he really needed to be there, we got different opinions from different doctors. All of his tests and labs were fine but they started him on an antibiotic just in case and their policy is that once they start a baby on an antibiotic then he has to stay until its done which is 48 hrs. The NICU doctor said that he was just having a hard time "transitioning" and that he was more like a preterm baby and Dash was more like a full term. They put him under the lights even though he wasn't that jaundice (Dash was actually worse and we had to do blood tests for 3 three days to check it) but they said they might as well since he was already there. So here he is with his shades, what a cutie! It was sad to so see him all hooked up to the machines and with his IV in his head):
I would go feed him every 3 hours (when he would wake up) and we got special permission to bring Dash in since they were twins and to give the babies some brother time
Holding hands! I love this one, it is so sweet!
Sunday night Liam got his last dose of his antibiotic and then they watched him over night to make sure all his numbers stayed good. So we thought we'd get to take him home Monday, but on Monday the doctor said we could take him home Tuesday. Luckily Luke asked if there was any way he could come home that day and the doctor said "well there is just some things that have to be done first, like we need his carseat and you need to do a training." We said we already had the carseat and would do the training then, so she said "ok, I guess thats fine" So they had him sit in his carseat for 2 hours to make sure his oxygen levels didn't drop and they went over CPR with us. Then we packed everything up from our 6 day stay and took the babies home!
Liam and Dash
Once we got home Liam really perked up, I think he just didn't like being away from us and being in the NICU (:
