My husband and I welcomed our twin boys Arrow & Rhodes into the world on September 9th, 2020 at 30 weeks and 4 days.
Thankfully they are both healthy and doing well growing and learning how to breathe and eat in the NICU!
The way they got here was a bit of a whirlwind, so let’s jump in!
To start this birth story I need to back up a few weeks before the day of the boys actual birth.
The Before
At 27 weeks I went to my general checkup and ultrasound. My doctor at that appointment told me that baby B was falling behind in growth. She said that it was super common in twin pregnancies and she recommended for me to return to maternal/fetal medicine (who I had already seen earlier on in pregnancy because I was having twins) to see if they could give more information. She also informed me that most likely this meant I would deliver early.
Two weeks later I ended up getting an appointment. In the ultrasound, it was discovered that baby B was not having as good blood flow from the placenta. The doctor said that he was getting what he needed, but not what he wanted (which is why he was small). She confirmed that it most likely would be an early delivery, but how early was up to baby B. She had me go ahead and get steroid shots to help the babies lungs develop in case they came super early. Also, during that visit, my blood pressure was pretty high, so she had me go over to triage at labor & delivery. Once there they took my blood pressure and everything was totally fine. I was able to go home. I had what many refer to as “white coat syndrome” because I was nervous about the appointment. I had a follow up Ultrasound for just a few days later.
When I went to my next appointment Baby B had slightly changed his blood flow even more. Now there was some, but not consistent reverse blood flow. The doctor scheduled me for the next day to see if it was still happening. The next day he was now having consistent reverse blood flow to the placenta. With this big of a change in just one day, the doctor told me to head on over to labor & delivery, I was having these babies today!
As to why this occurred with Baby B, they said it all has to do with the development of the placenta, and his was just not made to last as long.
The Delivery
Todd and I quickly got checked into labor and delivery. I had eaten breakfast earlier that morning, so the plan was to wait a few more hours to make sure the food had cleared my stomach before I went into surgery. I remember thinking that I was already so hungry and so thirsty, how in the world would I be able to survive waiting (the hunger went away after I was in surgery!)
They hooked me up to the monitors and prepped me for surgery. As I was laying there Todd got up because he had a weird feeling, and went to look at the heartbeat monitor, he told me that the heartbeat on Baby B was dropping, I tried to play it off saying that Baby B probably moved and the monitor wasn’t picking it up well anymore (this seemed to be common). However, the next thing I knew my nurse came rushing in the room and had me lay over on my side, and then had me get on my hands and knees. Doing so we were able to bring Baby B’s heart rate back up, however my c-section was no longer going to wait! They did not want that to happen again. The doctor also came in at some point during the craziness and was explaining the risks and everything they have to tell you before you go into a c-section.
So next thing I knew I was going into the OR. Todd had to wait until I got my spinal till he could come in. The nurse I had was so amazing, she held on to me while the gave me the spinal. I thought for sure the spinal was going to be super painful, but surprisingly it wasn’t. I became numb super fast. While they were prepping me in the OR Baby B’s heart rate began to drop again, so they started to work quickly. By the time Todd came in the room they were already operating! The nurses were so amazing, they took my phone and took pictures and they also used Todd’s phone to play music. They placed the phone right next to my ear as Bethel’s Peace album played. The song Dancing on the Waves was a super special song to me all throughout pregnancy, and it was the first song that played as I was in surgery. Surprisingly I stayed super calm the whole time, not sure if I was in shock, or if I knew I just needed to be calm so that everything could go smoothly!
At 2:42PM Arrow James was born and at 2:43PM Rhodes Judah was born! Because they were born at only 30 weeks and 4 days, I was unable to hold them at birth. Each baby had a full team of people to take care of them (there were a lot of people in the OR!). They took them to the side and wrapped them in plastic wrap to stay warm and took their vitals and stats. Todd was able to go over and see each one and take pictures. They wheeled them by me as they were taking them to the NICU in their boxes, I really wasn’t able to see them though, even though they tried to show me. I was stable and had minimal bleeding, so Todd went with them to the NICU. They finished stitching and cleaning me up and I was then wheeled into recovery.
The whole procedure, from being wheeled in to wheeled out was 24 minutes, and that was with two babies! Everyone told me earlier that I had the best surgeon of the practice, and I truly believe that!
Recovery
I stayed in recovery for an hour while a nurse took my vitals. While I was there I started to get itchy. The itchiness is the only side effect I had from the spinal so even though it was annoying, I was thankful I wasn’t experiencing nausea or anything else. Todd returned back to me in recovery and he showed me pictures of the boys (the first time I got a glimpse at them) and told me that they were both doing great.
After an hour I was moved to the recovery floor to my own room. Todd then was able to go home quickly and get our hospital bags and a few last minute items that we didn’t pack.
We had the best nurses in recovery. They took excellent care of me. During this time they taught me how to use the pump so I could take colostrum to the boys.
Around 7 that evening, the nurse said I had been in recovery long enough, that if I felt up to it I could go see the boys in the NICU! Of course I was dying to see them, so I slowly sat up and moved into a wheelchair. I was definitely a bit dizzy, so I had to take it very slow. Todd wheeled me up there and I got to meet my boys for the first time ever! It was hard to see what they looked like because they had all their equipment on them and I wasn’t able to stand up, but it was still better than not seeing them at all! I ended up starting to feel slightly nauseous from being up and about, so I told Todd I needed to leave and we went back to our room.
I continued to be itchy all through the night and barely slept at all. The itchiness kept me awake, but I also think my mind was catching up to all that happened that day. I was pretty much coming down off of an adrenaline high. I had my doctor’s appointment at 10:45AM and by 2:45PM the boys were here! That was a pretty fast moving day!
We ended up staying 3 nights so we could be close to the boys. I will talk more about getting to hold them and our NICU journey in a future post, but the next few days were more of the same: visiting them, pumping, and recovering.
Thankfully my c-section recovery has been fairly easy on me. The next day I was able to get up and walk. Overall I thought recovery would be way worse!
It was a different hospital experience than most; we didn’t have a baby in our room so we were able to get some sleep, however the pumping schedule kept us both from getting a good night’s rest.
When we did end up leaving the hospital it was probably the hardest day. Going to the hospital to have babies and leaving without them was very difficult. Add that on to all the pregnancy postpartum emotions, and you can imagine it was a very tear-filled day. However, we knew that they were where they needed to be and they were in great hands (shout out to the awesome NICU nurses!). On the way home we decided to stop by Starbucks to get a treat to cheer us up. Todd told them that we were leaving the hospital and we had just had twins. They surprised us with writing Mom & Dad on our cups, which was the first time we had really thought of ourselves as official parents. It was just what we needed to cheer us up a bit.
If I had to pick how Arrow and Rhodes came into the world, I would have probably have changed a few things around, however, now that they are here, we feel so blessed that we got to meet them early, their birth is a testament to how God always has the perfect plan. It’s amazing to watch them grow, and we are so thankful that God got them here safely! If we wouldn’t have been hooked up to the monitor we wouldn’t have known about Rhode’s heartbeat dropping. The ending could have been totally different, and we are so thankful that God was watching over our boys.
“A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come, but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.” John 16:21
-Kasey
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