I just called the night nurse and got good news - Margot gained 40 grams - no more losing weight for her! She is now 2 lbs, 10 oz, and David is 3 lbs, 2 oz (these weights are lower than their birth weights, but that is normal)! Hooray.
I decided to start this blog to keep everyone updated on how the twins are doing. The past week has been pretty crazy for our family!
The background story:
Everything had been going really well with my twin pregnancy until my ankles and feet started swelling. A lot. It finally got to the point where I couldn't fit into the size 11 shoes my mom had bought me (I usually wear a 9.5) and could barely make it down the stairs in the morning (feet couldn't bend for the steps). I called the doctor's office and made an appointment to see him on Friday afternoon with the thought that he would see how miserable I was and put me on bedrest for the rest of my pregnancy. I did not want to do this, but it was getting so hard for me to go to work. I figured I could work from home on a laptop.
Friday afternoon I picked my sister up at her apartment and headed to my dad's office for a quick lunch before my appointment. When Martha and I got to the doctor's office, the first thing they did was take my blood pressure. The nurse said immediately that I needed to lay down on my left side and that she was going to go get another nurse to check and make sure she heard my pressure right. Uh oh. This was not good. Another nurse came in, and then the doctor did, too. He told me my blood pressure was high enough that I needed to go be "observed" in the hospital. Martha and I walked over to the labor and delivery area of the hospital for the "observation".
They hooked me up to two monitors for the babies' heart rates and had a blood pressure cuff on my arm that went off every hour. Yes, every hour. We were in there for 5 HOURS. My blood pressure never came down, so I was admitted to the hospital. Martha called Bubba (who was in Manhattan for the evening with some friends) to tell him that I was in the hospital. At this point, we assumed I'd be heading home the next day. We were wrong. Once they got me in my room, they told me that I had severe pre-eclampsia, and the only cure was delivering the babies. Martha and I immediately thought, great, I'll be in here for a month or two. Not so. My blood pressure was so high (190/105!) that the health risks to me (seizure, stroke) were very real. They told me the babies would be delivered in 48 hours - after I had the two rounds of steroids to help develop their lugs - or earlier.
Panic! I was only at 29 weeks! What would this mean for my twins?! My mom and dad arrived at the hospital to help me cope with all this news and change. Bubba arrived shortly after - surprise! We had told him not to come because we didn't realize how serious this all was - and didn't want to ruin his trip with our friends who had flown in from Charlotte. However, he had left Manhattan as soon as I was admitted. When he arrived, I cried tears of joy to have him there, and we got down to the business of discussing baby names. We were supposed to have 10 more weeks to discuss this stuff!
I spent the next 48 hours with wonderful nurses adjusting my baby monitors and taking my blood pressures around the clock. Fortunately, nothing happened to cause me to have to deliver the babies before the steroid treatments were complete. We had the c-section scheduled for 8am Monday morning. I called/e-mailed work to let them know that I wouldn't be back for a while and started to prepare myself for having these babies.
Monday morning came, and I was so excited to meet my babies (although worried about how they would do being so young). Bubba and Dad got dressed up in their scrubs (they would both be in the delivery room with me), and the nurse took me into the delivery room to get my spinal block. Bubba and Dad joined me, and the fun began. David was born first - at 8:54am, followed one minute later by his sister Margot. A boy and a girl! I was so excited to find out their genders. Bubba went with them to the NICU, and dad stayed with me for the rest of the surgery. They rolled each baby by me on the way out so I could at least see them. They were beautiful.
I spent a couple of hours in the recovery room and then got wheeled in to the NICU to get a better look at my babies. They were all covered in wires and tubes, but they looked so wonderful to me. David was 3 lbs, 7 oz, and Margot was 2 lbs, 11 oz. Such tiny little babies!
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