Announcing: Savannah Joy and Emma Grace!

Here is the whole story (well, I'll try to give the condensed version, but I'm using this for my own records, so I don't want to leave anything out) about the amazing first few days with our Savannah and Emma!

On Friday, the 16th, I went in for my 12th doctor's visit and fetal heartrate monitoring session. It was the last appointment I even had scheduled, and, six weeks before when the receptionist was scheduling all of these appointments, I was SURE that there was no way I'd be at that last appointment . . surely the babies would be born before then. But, there I was, at 38 weeks, struggling once again to get the babies to stay on the monitors. At the end of the appointment, I was in tears of frustration, and my doc and I decided it was time for them to come out and to induce the next day.

Jeremy, Clara and I went to the Puyallup Spring Fair that night and had a special time as a family of three. People at the fair kept asking how far along I was, and were amazed when I responded that I would be induced the next day with twins.

At 7:00 the next morning, Jeremy and I headed down to TG. After doing all the paperwork (which is actually all on the computer now), getting an ultrasound done to see the position and relative sizes of the babies (they were projected at that point to be 7 lb. and 7 lb, 5 oz, I think?) we actually started the pitocin drip around 10:30 a.m. By that time, I was antsy and ready to get the show on the road. I figured out a way to stand up with the monitors still hooked to me, and I thought, "Ok, pitocin is going .. . just wait for the pain for 1/2 hour or so and we'll have these babies by early afternoon!" Well, no.

Contractions were slow to come, and those babies stayed true to form and would not stay on the monitors unless I was not only in bed, but fairly reclined in bed. Family members showed up, and we all just hung out and watched TV and talked. I got frustrated at how slow I thought things were going. Around 2:30, the nurse said that my doc was on her way over to break my water, and, if I wanted an epidural, I should probably get one now because the anesthesiologist would be in a C-Section for a while. So, I got an epidural before I really felt any contraction pain . . kinda nice. Dr. Kelly came in and broke my water, and then we just waited a little more.

By around 6:45 p.m., I was at a 9 and got to be wheeled down to the O.R. My impressions of that room were cold and drab. And crowded. We waited about a 1/2 hour while everyone got everything set up . . . I was uncontrollably shivering the whole time, so I got some blankets. My Dr. came in around 7:30 and had her "game face" on and we started pushing.

Now, with Clara, my epidural made me COMPLETELY NUMB for the birth . . I pushed for an hour and felt pretty much nothing at all. My epidural must not have been as strong with these two because I felt a lot of pressure, pain, and tearing while I was pushing. I'm glad it didn't last very long. At one point, I turned to my mom and just said, "Mommy, this hurts" which broke her heart. I was also having a hard time getting my breath in between pushing because my nose got all stuffed in that cold, dry room.

Anyway, we (wait, why am I saying "we?" I mean "I!") got Emma out at 7:51 p.m. and she was completely gray and still and not taking that important first breath. Everyone got very serious and started running around to get oxygen on her and then they whisked her away to the NICU. Jeremy and my mom did a good job of telling me everything was ok, even though they really didn't know if it was, because I had to concentrate on the task at hand: getting Savannah out. My doc actually got pretty serious about that, too because she told me later that she could see Savannah's cord pretty close to her face and didn't know if it was getting wrapped around her or not. A few hard pushes and she was out at 8:00 p.m., as red as a tomato.

Apparantly, within the last 24 hours possibly, the twins got "twin to twin transfusion" which is where one twin hogs all the blood and nutrients and leaves the other with none. They watch for that very closely around 20-24 weeks, and it rarely is a problem this late in the pregnancy. My doc was pretty shocked, I think, because she had been so thorough in monitoring them twice a week the whole time, and they were always within 3-4 ounces of each other, and had the same amount of fluid around them. The NICU doc called it "acute transfusion" or something like that. Either way, Emma spent the first 18 hours in the NICE and had a blood transfusion at 1 hour of life.

Their stats: Emma was 6 lb., 2 oz and 18 inches long, and Savannah was 6 lb., 11 oz (same size as Clara!) and 19 inches long. Emma surprised all the NICU nurses and doctors and kicked around all night, ate formula for them, and was just ready to come see Mama by 2:30 the next afternoon. What a great testimony it was of God's healing power, as Jeremy was very open about praying down there by her bed and talking about that with the docs and nurses. Savannah was very lethargic for the first few days, probably due to too much blood, and the pediatrician the next day was concerned about the size of her eyes and wanted us to see an opthamologist, so that got us all nervous. But, later in the week when we saw him again, he was not concerned anymore and cancelled that appointment. Emma ended up at a quick cardiologist appointment later that week because the pediatrician heard a heart murmur and wanted it checked out . . but, after a nerve-wracking 20 minute ultrasound (that she slept soundly through, of course) they found two teeny-tiny holes in her little heart that will, most likely, close up on their own and we'll see them when she is a year old to make sure. These two little ones gave us a few scares in that first week, but they just refuse to have any problems, thank you very much!

There is so much more to say about them,, but that will have to be the next post: about their first few weeks at home. So far, they are doing so, so well. Here are just a few pictures of the first week or so: Still in the O.R., holding Savannah
Emma in the NICU

Clara coming to visit at the hospital. Holding Savannah, since Emma was still in NICU

One of my favorite pics so far: sleeping head to head here at home

The first moment I got to hold both of them, 18 hours after they were born. So sweet.