Twins Birth Story...

Today is the twins birthday...I want to blog about their birth, then I will also blog about each of them...you will hear from me a lot today!

Here is a brief birth summary, for posterity's sake...

On November 2, 2003, I was 36 weeks pregnant with twins and extremely high risk. My BP had been up, so I was having NST's 2-3 times per week. (A lot of fun with a 2 1/2 year old Zach by my side!) Mom had just flown to CA to be with me until the birth the day before...she was pretty worried about me - I was very, very swollen. My feet had grown an entire size they were so big. It was a Sunday, and I had had it. I wanted them out - was extremely scared that something was going to happen at this point, since we had a stillborn baby (at 18 weeks) in 2002. Felt like we were on borrowed time at this point. We called my visiting teacher's husband over for a priesthood blessing - was told that the doctors would do what needed to be done for the safety of me and the babies.

Fast forward to the next day...I went in for my NST - hooked up to monitors, etc. for an hour. My BP was really high and the babies weren't moving much. They sent me over to L&D to be evaluated. I was stressed out, because I had a doctor's appointment and he had promised to schedule the birth that day. They sent me to L&D instead. I was crying, because I figured they would just send me home again, and I would miss my appointment. A young doctor actually read my chart and saw how high risk I was. By this time, my BP had soared to 205/190. They decided to do an emergency c-section based on that and my past history.

At 4:41 pm, Reagan Michael was born. He was twin A, so the first to make his entrance. He was not crying. We thought that they would be so healthy, since I had made it to almost 37 weeks, considered full-term for twins. He only weighed 3 lbs, 6 oz. and was 15 inches long. So small and scary. We were in shock that he was so little. There was no way that we were off on the due date since these were fertility babies, so there were definite complications with the pregnancy because of my pregnancy induced hypertension.

At 4:43 pm, Emma Elizabeth was born. Twin B - my fiesty little girl! She was crying very weakly. We were asking why they weren't crying much, and all we heard was a flurry of medical personnel checking them over. Emma weighed 4 lbs, 7 oz and was 17 inches long, so she was a little bit bigger, but not much.

I felt a lot of pressure at this point and remember asking if there was another one! Thank heavens, the answer was "no"!

They weighed and measured them, whisked them over for me to see - then took them to the special care nursery. I was sewn up and put in a hospital room on Mag sulfate (nasty stuff) until my BP went down a few days later. I was not allowed to see them except for when a sweet nurse took pity on me and brought them to me on the sly.

I felt bad that they were so small, but the doctor that delivered them said that she knew we had made the right decision because their weights were so different, it was obvious that they were in trouble. We are so thankful that our doctors made the decision to take them that day.

I was released from the hospital 5 days later, Emma came home at 10 days old and Reagan joined us at 3 weeks old. On to the joys of having twins!