DYLAN
Dylan and Charlotte: 1 year old
My mother used to always tell us the story of our birth on our birthdays. Sort of like the fifth grade basketball game my brother Mikie still watches on occasion, we all liked hearing our birth stories. (So those of you who are not charlotte or dylan probably don't want to read this VERY long story). But here goes:January 18, 2006
8am Wake up and hobble to bathroom...although it has probably only been about an hour since the alst time I was in the bathroom.
11 am My mother come and picks me up to take me to the doctor because since i'm on bedrest I can't really drive, and Andrew has a meeting that day he can't miss. I go to have my 'stress test'--they check the heart rates og baby A and Baby B to make sure the babies aren't in stress. They often have trouble differentiating between the two heartrates because they are so close. This time they were having trouble getting a consistent reading on baby B (Charlotte) and so they stuck what sounded like a mini bull horn near my stomach. Both babies always liked to hand on the right side of me, but when she turned on that horn they practically jumped across me and out of my skin. The nurse looked at me and said "well at least you know they aren't deaf."
12:15 ish. I go downstairs to have my ultrasound. The sonographer is a nice woman I have had a few times before (the sonographer could make or break my day based on the way she read the screen)...in fact I think she was the one who wrote "Sugar and Spice and everything nice---Two Girls!!" when we asked her to put the gender in a sealed envelope. She takes the measurements, and as she is taking them I can tell that Baby A (Dylan) hasn't grown much if at all since the last time I had an ultrasound about 9 days before. Even writing this I can remember that sinking feeling in my stomach because I knew that if she fell below the 10th percentile they'd consider it 'failure to thrive' and we'd need to deliver immediately. The very nice sonographer looked at me and said "I'm sorry sweetie but she's below the tenth percentile." They measured baby A at 2lb, 15oz. and Baby B at about 4lb... and I knew I'd be meeting them soon.
1pm: The perinatologist tells me to go home, pack my stuff, and wait for my obgyn to call. He has a very sweet and kind voice… I have learned to recognize this voice. It is the “we think things are probably going to be ok, but we know you are really worried, and frankly, we’re a little worried too.” It is much better than the “this could be really awful” voice, but it still scares me.
I go home and actually get on my computer and keep working! I tell the assistant buyer that I won’t be online later because I’ll probably be “giving birth”… she emails me back to get the hell off the computer. Given that this was the last hour of work I gave to Macy’s, in retrospect I should have just said to hell with it several weeks prior since I was on disability anyway. Man, if only I could have stored up some of those hours of laying on my side watching TV and reading!
1:30ish My OB calls me and says that of all the reasons that we were going to have to deliver, she thinks this is the best one. I don't remember exactly what she said after that, but I know that the other reasons would have been that one of them was in distress, that I went into labor (which would have been bad because D was footling breech), that I became toxic from pre-eclampsia... anyway, the important thing is that she couldn't have said a more perfect thing to me. She then says "So how's 5pm for you?" Works for me.
I call Andrew and tell him to get ready, that the babies are coming today. I can hear the stress in his voice. He gets off the phone and I call him right back. I ask him to be positive, that I know
he's worried but that I need him to sound happy, because it really is a happy day (at least we hope it is). He comes home 20 minutes later with a big smile on his face.
A little before 5pm they take me up to the delivery room, and andrew is told to wait outside until they come to get him. My mom waits in the waiting room. The delivery room is FREEZING. The crowd gets bigger as people come in. One of the nurses says to me "you're too small to be having twins!" and I know she means well, but I'm so worried about their sizes already that her comment crushes me. At the end there were at least 14 people in the delivery room--3 obgyns, 2 neonatologists, 4 NICU nurses to take and test the girls, 2 nurses to take the girls on the 'hand off' to the NICU, the anestheseologist and his nurse, me, and eventually Andrew. They waited until they were really ready to go to bring Andrew in, so much so that they joked that he probably thought that they had forgotten him (he did). They bring him in, and laugh because the shoe covers they gave him don't fit over his huge shoes.
Somewhere about 5pm my OBGYN comes into the operating room. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this, but she's a total bad ass. She’s not only smart, successful, etc., she’s also beautiful. She’s tall, thin, with amazing eyes, and when she comes in in her scrubs it’s like she’s the new hot doctor on Grey’s Anatomy (btw, i'm getting a little down on Grey's w/o the Grey/McDreamy tension it just isn't as good. And I have to say, I love that they don’t hire teenagers to play these roles, but doesn’t Pompeo look a tad old to be an intern?) Anyway, she comes in and says "This is a good thing. It's time" with a smile. She also says "Can you see I'm wearing heels?" and she is wearing these very tall heels (covered w/ those wraps!) She says “I'm going out after this and having a drink. And tonight I’ll be getting sleep because I won’t be up worrying about you!” I LOVE my obgyn.
At one point I say to the anestheseologist "Will you tell me when they start cutting?" and he says "oh, they started awhile ago." I can feel myself being pulled as they make the incision larger (ask Andrew about this part...yuck!) and then as they get close to delivery I can feel them yanking around inside me. My OB says "Turns out we're not going to pull out Baby A first, so Baby B is now Baby A." Out comes Charlotte at 5:20pm, I breathe a sigh of relief as I hear her cry and the doctor shows me her little head. Then out comes Dylan at 5:21pm. It felt like she took longer to cry and I was panicked (though they both passed their apgars w/ flying colors). When she does start to scream, she is a FORCE. The nurses are all laughing, saying "is that big sound coming from that tiny baby?" I get to see the girls briefly. Then they are taken to the NICU and Andrew follows. I have to stick around and get sewn up.
One of the weirdest things was passing the torch of ‘patient’ to my daughters. Once they were out of me THEY became the patients, and honestly I felt helpless. At least before I was sort of the guardian of their health. My mom says that in the NICU there were ALL these people crowded around Charlotte because her oxygen saturation levels weren't high enough at first, while little, teeny, tiny Dylan was basically by herself in the little isolette.I then went to the c-section recovery room for a few hours. Then they wheeled me into the NICU and I was able to hold a very bundled up Dylan for a few seconds. The whole thing is a bit of a blur. Then they take me out because the girls need more tests.
I sit in the hospital room in a morphine daze while Andrew and my mother eat Pasta Pomodoro. But I’m happy..I’m really out of it, but all is generally good. Looking back I can see why hospitals encourage babies to stay in the room with the parents—it is very weird to go from carrying babies with you EVERYWHERE to not knowing what they are doing (which in the case of the girls was either having tests taken or sleeping. I don’t even really know if they were fed anything honestly in those first few days before my milk came in … I should have asked but my guess is that they weren’t…but it feels weird not to know.
I do know that the on-call ped was ready and waiting. His name was Matt, he looked a bit like Noah Wyle, and he was there from the time they were delivered until 6:30/7am when I came in to see them the next day. I know he stayed longer than his shift to monitor Dylan and Charlotte, and I love him for that.
I have a few other random memories.
--I remember the next day, before the morphine wore off, thinking recovery would be no big deal, and asking if I could go outside to “take a short walk.” The nurses looked at me like “honey, you just wait a few hours and see how you feel then” with smirks on their faces (nice ones, but smirks nonetheless).
--I remember that the worst part of the WHOLE surgery was not being able to pee 24 hours after the surgery…no joke, it SUCKED. Next time I will ask them to get that damn catheter out ASAP no matter how painful it is to walk to the bathroom.
--About two days after delivery I remember hobbling to the NICU past the c-section recovery room. A jubilant father walked out, looked at me and said “Almost ready to deliver?” And I looked at him and said “Uh, delivered a few days ago.” A doctor walked out right past him out of the c-section recovery room and smiled and said “He’ll understand in a few days, don’t worry.” ---And sure enough a few days later on the way to the NICU I saw him helping his wife—who still looked pregnant too—hobble down the hall. Hah!
--I remember leaving the hospital in tears on Sun. I knew this was how it would probably happen, but it was still extremely tough. I just focused on how it would feel to someday leave with them. I swear that to this day when I see people leave hospitals with newborns for a split second I think they are stealing their own babies against hospital wishes.
--Andrew and I went to lunch when we left the hospital...we were both dazed. I ran into a section mate on the street and he asked me what I had been up to--I said "I just gave birth to two babies on Wed" and he looked at me like I was on crack (although he must have been thinking "man has she put on some LBs since graduation")
--I remember driving to the NICU by myself on Sunday…the doctor said I could drive as soon as I got off vicodin, so I stopped on Sat morning I think. That drive was not a pleasant one.
The thing is, as wonderful as having a baby (or babies) is, I'm not sure with the first one you even realize HOW wonderful it is going to be. At least I didn't, maybe because I was so scared. It's like I didn't even know how much I would love them. When I first had to sit at home and pump while they were in the NICU they told me to look at pictures of them to stimulate hormones while doing it. I'd just sit there and sob because I couldn't tell them apart. Now I look back at the SAME pictures, and 90% of the time I think "oh that is totally Charlotte...I can tell from her expression."
And there you go Dylan and Charlotte, that is the story of your birthday. I love you more than I ever thought possible. May I tell it to you again and again for the next 60 years.
ps. This year on their birthday the girls went to music class, played at the park, and ate cupcakes--for the first time!! I've been trying to post some videos but i'm having trouble so will do later (thus the hold up and the long delay in posts).
pps. AndI have to give credit where it is due for the ADORABLE "1" sweatshirts..birthday presents from my sister Roey. The dresses below (...and hats...and shoes...and jackets) are Grandma Peggy gifts she has bought the girls for one reason or another (mostly it is the "I couldn't help myself excuse--God help her when they learn to actually ask for things). In general, you can pretty much assume that the girls would be naked if it weren't for grandparents and my sister. And we love them for it!! 
No comments:
Post a Comment