Seven Years a Mom

I can't believe it was seven years ago already. On the day the twins were born, I was 35 weeks and 2 days pregnant. I hadn't seen their father since shortly after I found out I was pregnant, and my mom and step-dad were taking me to my appointments. 

I didn't want to go alone because my appointments were always exceptionally long and tiresome. Often, they were also emotional for one reason or another. For example, I had always been terrified of all needles until the pain of injections was put into perspective by the Rhogam shot I had to have at twenty weeks. To be fair, I'm sure that it can be given reasonably.

Anyway, I was at the hospital, in Denver, with my mom. It was frigid outside and snowy. It was February 16th, and I was in for a routine appointment. Because I was carrying twins, I was having routine appointments every week. I remember talking to a counselor about what I was planning to do after the twins were born. One of the babies had hiccups.

After we talked to the counselor, I went on about my usual appointment business. Blood pressure, a urine sample, and temperature were taken and I was hooked up to an NST machine. In my two pregnancies since then, I've not been subjected to this. 

NST stands for Non-Stress Test. In case you've never had one, they strap hard, plastic disks the size of the bottom of a beer stein to your belly; one for each baby and one extra to monitor contractions. If you're small and pregnant with twins, that covers a lot of belly. Then, you lay down like that, heavy with baby weighing down on your inferior vena cava, for at least half an hour while a machine prints a tape that makes no sense to you, and a doctor determines if the lines on the tape are acceptable. 

This process always took longer than 30 minutes for me because they couldn't manage to keep the monitor paddles on both babies for long enough. Babies move. If a nurse couldn't get it right, they'd send me to the labor and delivery unit to have someone sit with me with the plastic paddles on my belly for another 30 minutes. All the while, I thought this was something they did to all pregnant women. I only recently learned that only high risk pregnancies are subjected to such frustration. 

On the day the twins were born, I was sent to labor and delivery and I thought nothing of it. I still had a month to go, I had no recognizable contractions, the twins were moving as they should be, and I had been sent to labor and delivery for no real reason before. 

Then, some unlucky woman brought in a tray with various tools for starting an IV. I remember it very clearly. She brought it to my left side, between my bed and my lovely view out the bank of windows. It was one of those metal trays on a stand with wheels. I could see the swabs, a rubber tournicate, an IV needle and medical tape. 

I asked, "what's that for?"

She said, "just in case."

The details of what happened after that aren't so clear. I lost my mind and told the woman I wouldn't consent to whatever they were planning to do because I had no reason to believe anything needed to be done. I cried and panicked and ranted to my mom. How dare they?!

They sent my doctor in.

He explained that the NST had shown signs of fetal distress and he recommended a Caesarian to avoid any further trouble. 

Before that day, I had made plans for how I wanted my delivery to go. I knew how to pack a hospital bag. I wanted a natural, water birth. I was excited because the birthing suites had jacuzzi bath tubs. 

I wasn't prepared. I didn't really understand what I was walking into. I hadn't planned on seeing the twins that day. I didn't have a hospital bag, or my cell phone. I hadn't even bought car seats yet. 

I'm thankful my mom was there. She was my voice of reason, and convinced me that it was probably the best thing to do. I'm not sure I could have made that decision on my own. I was a weeping mess. 

Then, I saw the anesthesiologist, who was a nice woman with short hair and lovely bedside manner. I was so thankful for her presence and peace of mind in my panic. She sat by my side and explained how the spinal anesthetic would be administered and how I would feel. 

A nurse ran an IV in my arm and I was wheeled into an operating theater. It was bright white and sterile... And kind of terrifying. 

To receive a spinal you have to curl your back as though you're hugging a pillow with your whole body. That's quite a feat when you're 35 weeks pregnant with twins. It's enormously uncomfortable and difficult to achieve. Once you're in that position, they swab your back and give you a shot of local anesthetic. After checking for numbness you receive the spinal anesthetic. Then, they lay you down immediately because you're about to lose feeling from your diaphragm down.

That whole process went off without a hitch. But the feeling that followed was the strangest I had ever known. If you've ever had something fall on your diaphragm and "had the wind knocked out of you", you have some idea what this feels like. You're breathing but you don't feel like you're breathing. It's as though you're about to suffocate. Combine that with a creeping lack of feeling throughout your entire lower body and you get the picture.

Of course, I had already been crying previous to this, but the experience of the spinal was especially stressful still. It felt something like a panic attack. The thought did cross my mind that this was not how I wanted to welcome my children into the world. Thankfully, my anesthesiologist was incredible and very patient with my emotional upheaval.

There was a big fabric screen between my head and my belly. It was that strange surgical blue-green and hoisted by a metal frame with clips. I couldn't see anything but my mom was sitting by my shoulder. I wondered, aloud, whether she was going to look. 

She had been in a similar room with me once before, when I was getting stitches in my head after a car accident. I recalled her expression of discomfort with that situation when she told me she wasn't going to be looking. I think she may even have said something to the effect that she didn't need to see any more of my insides.

I don't remember what the incision felt like. I don't remember if I felt that it all. But the feeling of having babies pulled from my womb certainly trumped the weirdness of spinal anesthesia. Today, having experienced it a couple of times more, I realize it can be compared to removing a Band-Aid. Because of the anesthesia, there was no pain, but the pressure of having something pulled from my body felt much like pulling a Band-Aid from your skin but multiplied. It was actually almost nauseating.

I don't remember my daughters crying. I didn't see them until they were swaddled and brought to my side. Their wrinkly little faces were just... unreal. I hadn't been expecting to be a mom that day. Besides I wasn't the sort of woman who inherently loved babies. They were premature, tiny, and not particularly cute, and I honestly didn't fall in love with them immediately. 

They were taken to the NICU (neo-natal Intensive Care Unit) and I didn't see them for a while. When I got there, one was under a lamp for jaundice and the other was hooked up to a feeding tube, but both were in open bassinets, sleeping. Together, they weighed about as much as an average, normal-size baby. 

Over the course of the next few days, I received another Rhogam shot because my daughters' blood tested Rh positive, I had the worst gas pain I have ever experienced and what I thought would be the worst bathroom experience, which has since been put to shame by my son's delivery. C was spitting up basically all of her food, so the hospital staff tube fed her while I watched, which was upsetting. I wanted to sleep, but I couldn't. I had no idea what to do with two babies. 

My mom was there through the whole recovery period, unless she was out fetching food taking a break. Still, it was unnerving, not having any idea how to handle my own babies. I had never changed a diaper. And what should I do when they're both fussing? The four of us, two adults and two babies, are now stuck in this single hospital room together and only one of us has relevant experience... and it's not me!

I cried. I'm not sure how many separate times I cried. 

In the hospital, the staff encouraged me to feed them a special, high-calorie, jarred formula. These little girls needed to gain weight, and quick. I tried breastfeeding, but couldn't get them to latch, now that they had already been given the bottle in the NICU. I admit, I was also far too emotional to listen to the lactation consultants for one more friggin' minute. One said, "do this", then another said, "no, do that". I told them not to come back.

Some of my family members chipped in and bought a couple of simple car seats and a playpen. The hospital staff let us take home the clothes the girls were wearing. A friend of mine donated a bag full of her daughter's baby clothes. I went home with a hand pump and two, tiny babies who needed to be fed every couple of hours, refused to latch and could only use a bottle. 

I gave up breast feeding immediately. And, unfortunately, I felt worthless because of it. Don't ever let something like this make you feel worthless. Yes, I breastfed my other two children. Yes, it was gratifying and empowering. But formula feeding is not bad. I think it was just one more thing I didn't get to have go my way. I didn't have a water birth, or a natural birth at all. I didn't have my babies anywhere near when I expected to. I didn't get to pick car seats or clothes. I didn't have a partner there, I had my mom instead. I didn't get cloth diapers. I didn't get to breastfeed.

I did everything I could to keep it together through it all, but breastfeeding was the last straw and I began to hate myself.

Take heart. I don't feel that way anymore. I have two, still tiny, seven-year-old girls for whom I do the absolute best I can. I love them, though I can't quite say when that feeling took hold. I'm proud of them, and I'm proud of myself for mothering them, even when I couldn't give them what I felt was best, and even when I had no idea what I was doing... Or how we were going to get by.

I am thankful for the calm, quiet life we live now.