Sam and Henry are here!

justlld

Hi, everybody,

  Samuel Christopher and Henry Michael were born at 35 weeks on 6/24.  My blood pressure had been elevated, so I was on modified bed rest. My water broke at 4:00 am Saturday, 6/23, so we headed to labor and delivery.  I wasn't really having contractions on my own, so they started pitocin at about 10:30.  Unfortunately, they didn't have a wireless monitor for twins, so my movement was pretty limited from that point on.  Also, I had no idea how much I was dilated, since they didn't want to check too much.  The contractions got pretty bad around noon, so, since I had to have an epidural anyway, we decided to go ahead and have that placed.  That was definitely one of the hardest parts of labor since the doctor hit a nerve in my leg.  Trying to hold still while my leg was burning and twitching was really hard.  I spent most of the day sleeping, and it was really weird to not be able to move my legs much.  DH and a nurse definitely had to lift me to roll me over.   I was 7 cm dilated at 11:30.  Finally, at 5 am Sunday, I was able to push.  I ended up pushing for an hour, resting for an hour, and pushing for another hour.  Both babies were head down, and Baby A (Sam) had been really low for awhile, so I was fairly confident that I would be able to have a vaginal delivery.  Unfortunately, Sam was trying to come out sideways, and got stuck.  My OB would have let me continue to push for a little while longer, since neither baby was in distress, but at that point, I was really uncomfortable and ready to be done so we decided to go ahead with the c-section.  The operation was really quick.  Sam was born at 7:16 am, weighing 5 lbs, 2 oz, and measuring 18.5 inches long.  Henry was born at 7:18 am weighing 5 lbs, 2 oz, and measuring 19 inches long.  DH got to cut the cords.  It was kind of cute because he didn't want to leave to go to the nursery while I was getting stitched up because he was worried about me.  The boys needed some breathing help in the beginning, but were both in open cribs in the NICU by the second day.  They spent 10 days as feeder/growers in the NICU.  Our hospital has a really nice program for NICU parents where they let you stay in the hospital while the babies are still patients and give you vouchers for the cafeteria so that you can spend more time with the babies.  Everybody came home together last Thursday. 

I just want to say thank you for all the support and advice on this board.  Good luck to everybody!