September 6, 2011...

our family became complete:)

Went off the meds on Sunday at 11 am...at 10:50 on Tues we were scheduling my c-section. I'd say Dr. P knows what he's talking about.

The birth story...
Monday night I started having timeable contrax. Specifically, I had 24 in two hours. I remember thinking surely this is not right...these can't all be contrax. So, I remember deciding to tell my nurse that I had 20 in two hours, thinking that sounded a bit more reasonable, lol. I already knew that I wasn't going to hospital that night, because I was SO afraid they'd just fill me full of meds and send me home. About 9:30 I took a Tylenol PM which put me in that haze, but I still continued to wake from the contrax. I think I finally fell asleep about midnight, but was up every 1 1/2 hours to pee. As the night went on, I kept getting more and more uncomfortablE. I had alot of pelvic pressure and also alot of pressure in my butt, weirdly enough.

Towards morning, I had to make the decision to go to triage or not. I SO did not want to be one of those girls that goes for every little thing. Dan woke up about 8:30, and I was still debating what to do. At about 8:45 I just said "I think I need you to take me to the hospital." Surprisingly, lol, he didn't roll his eyes, assuming it was a false alarm. It was like we both just knew.

Once on L & D, I was in line behind a woman who had been sent up from her OB office for high blood pressure. When it was my turn, I think I just said "I'm just not feeling right." It sounded so wimpy, lol, but it was true.

They got me hooked up to monitor where I discovered that yes indeed my contrax count had been right the night before, as I was still contracting every TWO minutes. Know wonder I didn't feel right!!

The nurse basically said that whether they would give me meds to stop contrax or not would depend on dilation. That really bummed me out, b/c Dr. S couldn't even REACH my cervix on Friday. Well, turns out I was dilated to and 75% effaced. This was about 10:15. Holy crap!

So, they called down to Dr. S who told them to book the OR for 11 am. HOLY CRAP!! I've never seen nurses move so quickly, lol:) In the end, I have no idea what time the c-section actually began, but Avery Quinn was born at 12:01, and her brother, Connor Daniel, just a minute later at 12:02.

Prior to the drama of the OR, I did feel a pang of regret that I hadn't said good-bye to Sophie. I mean, I'd said goodbye to her when we got to day care, but I didn't get a chance to really say good bye to our little family of three. I cried.

We had such great care. Each baby had a team of 5 doctors/nurses taking care of them, and I had several taking care of me. Avery immediately needed some help in the breathing dept, and was taken to the NICU almost immediately. Connor did well initially and they even brought him in the room with us, but he starting "singing" so the nurse had NICU come do an eval, and off he went too...

They are staying next to each other in the NICU, and doing better each time I see them. Right now, they are on IV's only. All C Paps and cannulas were turned off today and both seem to be tolerating well. Once we get past the respiratory issues, the next hurdle is making sure they can maintain their temp, and then lastly, making sure they are feeding ok.

I've started pumping and am managing to get a bit of colustrum each time.

I feel like I know them already. we had so many u/s towards the end, and it got to the point where I knew who was moving (although never really figured out what body part was moving, lol). It's different to know them as outside babies. Yesterday was traumatic for them of course, and they are so sleepy...not the happy go luckily constantly moving babes that we inside of me so recently. I didn't get to really hold Avery until about 8 hours after she was born. Then, I got lucky and they let me do skin to skin with her. Fabulous:)

For now, Avery has brown hair and Connor has blonde-strawberry blonde. I definately think he's going to look like Dan or Sophie. They look similar to Sophie, but they REALLY resemble each other. Sort of like a male/female version of each other.

Some pics...
Avery

Connor

Dan hanging out with Connor (Avery had already been whisked away)

Brother/sister on their birthday:)