Its been a while.....The babies are here!

So the last time I posted, I was just 35 weeks. That was on a Tuesday. On that day, I ended up at the hospital because I wasn't feeling the babies move very much. I went in and they said that everything was ok and that the babies looked great. Baby A had stayed head down and Baby B was now breech. Ugh! After they were satisfied with the babies movement, I got to come home. I was so discouraged at this point. I just wanted my babies safe.

The rest of the week went well until Friday night hit. My contractions picked up and were about 5-7 min apart. We went to the hospital and stayed overnight. We thought we were going to have the babies that night. The contractions slowed down, but never stopped. They wern't making me progress much. When I was admitted at about 10pm they said that I was about 3 cm dialated. At 5am, they said I was only 3 1/2 cm. The contractions wern't making me dialate so they sent me home again.

We went home and just relaxed on Saturday. Saturday night I went to bed early because we didn't sleep at all on Friday night and were up with Joey all day Saturday. On Sunday morning, I woke up at 1am with contractions that were pretty strong. I got up and went to the living room and tried to get more comfortable to see if I could go back to sleep. I ended up going back to sleep until about 3am when the contractions woke me up because they were so bad. I tried to stretch and breathe through them but that didn't help. I tried a hot shower and that didn't help either. At 5am, we ended up calling Mom and Dad and telling them that they needed to watch Joey because I was going back to the hospital.

We got to the hospital at about 6am. When they checked me, I was 4cm. At 1030, I was 4 1/2. They checked me again at 230pm and I was 5cm. That was the end of my progression for a while. My contractions were doing the same thing. They were there, but not making me dialate anymore. They said that what progression I had done wasn't enough. I was in tears. They told me that since I had an ultrasound scheduled for Monday, they wanted me to stay and just have it and we would see from there. I went for my ultrasound on Monday at 1030am. The boys looked great and were both estimated at 6lb 1oz. I was elated that they were so big! They also did a BPP (biophysical profile) on the babies. Baby B did great and passed everything quickly, but Baby A didn't pass. He didn't practice breathing like they wanted him to. Dr Rempe came in and checked me at noon on Monday and she said that I was only 4cm. (She said that they difference in my dialation could just be different people measuring it.) She wanted the house dr to do another BPP on Baby A when she came in later that night. The dr came in and did the BPP and again, Baby A didn't pass. Dr Rockamann came in and spoke with us about our options. She said that she could let us just wait and deliver whenever, but she saw that the baby not passing the BPP twice in one day was a good enough reason to induce me. I was elated. I wanted to see the babies and to also know that they were both safe. She checked me at 945 and I was at 4 1/2.

At 1115, she started the pitocin to induce my labor. The contractions picked up right away. They let me labor until I decided that I needed to have something to help with the pain. At 115am on Tuesday, I asked for the epidural. Within 10 minutes, the anisthesiologist came in and was setting up for it. As soon as it was in, I was in no pain at all. The most annoying part of the night was the nurse. She kept "losing" the babies on the monitors and was taking literally 15-20 min each hour finding them again.

They checked me at 5am and I was 5cm and my cervix was thin. I was getting frustrated because I didn't feel like I was progressing any. They were increasing my pitocin every 30 min. Between increasing that every 30 min, having to reposition myself every hour, and the nurse taking 15-20 min finding the babies again on the monitors, I didn't sleep at all.

At 815am, I noticed that it felt like there was moisture between my legs. I called the nurse and she checked and my water was leaking. The went ahead and broke it the rest of the way. The contractions picked up after this. at 915, I was at 5 1/2 and the head was much lower than it was an hour before. They checked me at 1030 and I was 8cm and 100% thinned out and at 0 or +1 station. Yay for progress!!! I told them about 11 that I was feeling like I had to push!! They checked me at 1105 and I was 10cm and the head was almost out.

At that point in time, they moved me to the OR. (for twins, they have you deliver in the OR just to be safe.) As soon as I got in the OR and moved to the table, I told them that I had to push. One contraction later, Johnathan Elmer Fickas was born at 1130am. He came out screaming and looking wonderful. I couldn't believe that he was so beautiful. He went over and was being checked out by the nurses and the dr was trying to rotate Baby B around. She tried and tried and couldn't get him to turn around to be head down. She ended up pulling him out breach 28 min later. Jonah Scott Fickas was born at 1158am. I had vowed to have these boys by noon and I was right!

The placenta was not wanting to come out. She gave it a half an hour to come out on its own and then she had to try to get it out herself. It ended up coming out in pieces which is not good. She ended up having to scrape the bits of the placenta out with a 4x4 gauze pad. That hurt like no one's business. All was well though. Jonah was just as healthy as his brother. Johnathan weighed in at 5lb 9oz and Jonah was 6lb 2oz! Big babies for 36 weekers. They went right back to the room with me. No interventions were needed. I was so tired that I fell asleep trying to nurse and while people were talking to me. They all understood though.

We were transferred to our postpardum room and things were still going great. I had a few visitors, but mostly family. The next few days were filled with nurses, doctors, visitors and trying to get a little bit of sleep. The boys were so healthy that no one could believe that they were no interventions needed! They went home with me on Thursday, 48 hrs after they were born.

It has been an adjustement getting used to twin newborns and a toddler. Joey is so great with his brothers. He loves them so much (sometimes a little bit too much) He does try to steal their pacifiers, but what do you expect. I am so grateful that I have three very healthy boys! God has certainly blessed me! I will post pictures soon. TTFN