On Friday, 4/5/13, I was taken off work due to my blood pressure. I enjoyed the weekend and relaxed as much as possible, but still enjoyed Gentry's first birthday and breakfast with my uncle from Colorado Springs.
On Monday, 4/8/13, I returned to the doctors office for a follow-up to check my blood pressure again. This time Dr. Beal looked me square in the eye and said "I'm sending you over to the hospital, so sit tight and they'll get your admit paperwork together before you head over there." Well I had a sneaking suspicion that this would happen, and thankfully that morning I had started packing my bags and the babies bags. A short time later Dustin and I walked across the parking garage and ALL THE WAY to the admission desk. They have me sign a few things and they put on my hospital bracelet (woah, that made it official). Then they proceeded to make me wait for a transporter to come wheel me up to my room. I argued with them that I had just walked over from across the way and that surely I could walk the 50 yards to the elevator. They made me wait. Finally we get upstairs and the nurse comes to get me all checked in and Dustin went back to work for a little bit.
I'll fast forward through the next 5 days. It was a lot of tv watching, blood pressure checking, visiting with wonderful friends, enjoying the goodies people brought me, oh and going back-and-forth with the food services people who knew far less about (gestational) diabetes than the average 6 year old. They proceeded to bring me the wrong things every time. The food wasn't terrible though, I must say. So while it's 4 months late, thanks to everyone who brought me gifts and came to visit. You helped those 5 days pass quickly!
Friday, April 12th, Dr. Beal stopped by for his usual daily drop-in and informed me that he would not be on call this weekend but that it would be Dr. Gena Gray should anything happen. I knew right then and there that I would be having the babies that weekend. Dustin came up at lunch to bring me a few things (he had been going home in the evenings and sleeping at home so that he could go to work and save his time off for later). I informed Dustin that I needed him to stay the night with me that night, Friday night, since it was the weekend he didn't push too hard to sleep in his comfy bed instead of on the ever-so-comfortable "couch" in the room. Throughout the afternoon my blood pressure began to rise. They read it a few times at 160+/90+ so they checked it a few more times and after a few 170+/90+ around 11pm they sent me to the labor and delivery area so that they could more closely monitor my BP and more importantly monitor the babies more closely. At one point my blood pressure was 194/something. They insisted that I lay down, relax, and try to get my BP down. Which I did over the course of about an hour, only for it to start going right back up.
On Saturday, 4/13/13 in the 4am hour, someone opens the door to my room and flips on the light. It's Dr. Gray, and she says "well, it's time to deliver these babies!". I say "in the next few hours?" she says "in the next 20 minutes, or as soon as we can get an O.R.". So I look at Dustin, and I start to cry. I was worried about the babies, I was 34 weeks 2 days (and some hours). Dustin immediately begins calling family, and the nurses swoop in and quickly start prepping me for surgery. (Note: they forgot to have me take off my t-shirt. Therefore they had to end up cutting it off in the O.R...I miss my Aaron Watson t-shirt!) The anesthesiologist has Dustin go get our camera from the other room, and they take me back to the O.R. and I can hear and see them counting all of the instruments and everything. The anesthesiologist, whom I swear told me his name was MacGyver (turns out it's not that but something close), he had me wrapped in a warm blanket and the epidural going in no time. He was so comforting and I am so glad he was there. The table they have you lay on is about ummm 6 iches wide, and they strapped my arms down "to remind me they don't need my help" said the nurse. Anyway Dr. MacGyver was there working on my oxygen mask, and walked Dustin through the process and told him to stand up and look just in time to see Emma Lee born at 5:11am, followed by Avery Ann at 5:12am. Dr. MacGyver also had my DSLR camera and was shooting pictures of EVERYTHING, it was so awesome, because I don't hardly remember a thing. Because...
After they delivered the girls, and the swooped them up and took them to the NICU after I got to see them for 1.2 seconds, Dustin went with them as we had previously discussed, while they stapled me back up. The problem was then that they could not get the bleeding to stop. Dr. Grey had already "left the building" so they had to call her back in. They had to open me back up and insert this balloon to stop the bleeding. Meanwhile I'm losing a lot of blood. The bleeding still doesn't stop after the balloon, so they take be back to the L&D room, give me 4 units of blood, and get me fixed up to go down to the radiology department where they did a procedure called an Angioseal. On my way to radiology, I saw all of my family in the hallway. Apparently I was as white as the sheet I was laying on, and my lips had a bit of a blue tint. So in radiology, basically they went through my femoral artery and put a blocker in there to stop the main blood flow to the uterus. Thankfully that worked. Later on, Dr. Grey told Dustin that they think the balloon worked, but since they had already scheduled the procedure in Radiology, they went ahead with it for safe measure. If those didn't work, it would have been a hysterectomy. So as Tricia told Dr. Grey, thanks for saving my uterus! So they get me back into my room to recover, and turn on the monitors so I can see the babies in the NICU. Everyone kept telling me me how beautiful they are, as my family and a few friends had all gotten to go see them at this point.
So that night I stayed in the L&D area, still heavily medicated. I think they kept drugging me up all day. The next morning, I felt like I had been ran over by a Mack truck. They tried to feed me solid food for lunch, and let's just say all of my food processing parts were not working properly yet. That was not a pretty day. Finally that evening (Sunday evening, approximately 38 hours post delivery) I felt good enough to ride in a wheel chair down to the NICU to officially meet my babies. I was instantly in love, and instantly felt a lot better. Mrs. Betty was working that night, and asked me if I wanted to hold them. I'm pretty sure I just sat there and wept, holding Emma first, my first born. All 5lbs 7oz of pure joy right there in my arms. Next was Miss Avery's turn, and my heart felt full.
So this is my quick run down of what happened, but if you ask my husband, my family, or my friends, you'll hear a much different (a little more dramatic) version of the story. :)
Even though I know this all ends okay, it's hard to read. I'm so glad you and both girls are happy and healthy! Love you, friend.
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