End of an old chapter - beginning of the new.

Well, I’m sitting here staring at a blank sheet of (electronic) paper, and I’m really not quite sure where to begin. First, I should probably mention that the biggest reason I haven’t written in so long is that I needed some space and distance to gain perspective. I finally hit a point where I lost my fighten’ juice, and everything was just too intense to write about (especially given that I’m Scandinavian AND from North Dakota – we don’t really “do” feelings). I don’t feel quite like the normal Lisa yet, however, I think I’ve been able to process a lot of it, and I finally felt the need to write about it and move on from that chapter.

Well let’s see, I think I’m just going to start writing and see where it takes me. We left off at the hospital in a state where I was approaching “Biggest Loser” material (Approaching? Ok, I WAS Biggest Loser material). I mean, Shamu would have slipped me some Dexetrim. As I was approaching my 33rd week, things were just getting out of hand. I had to go to the bathroom every hour, I couldn’t eat anything, I was on the monitor a large portion of the day, I was getting four shots of Terb a day, I wasn’t sleeping, I could barely roll over at this point. Well, on Wednesday of that week, I was innocently enjoying my crispy chicken salad that Bridget and Rachel so kindly brought from Red Robin, when I started keeling over in pain. And so things began. The doctor came and checked my cervix (sidenote: how has no one told me that checking the cervix for dilation is right up there on the pain scale with labor? I mean really – I’ve never read it anywhere. I’m here to tell you, it’s painful, because you know what – your cervix? Not so close to the outside of your body). Anyway, I was dilating and my contractions were getting closer and closer together and so much more painful. Since I was still only 33 weeks along, they decided to put me on Magnesium Sulfate in one last ditch effort to stop these guys from being born. This is the drug that I was terrified of since being admitted into the hospital. They were always dangling it in front of me as a threat, and I think my fear of this drug is most of the reason that I kept my legs closed for as long as I did. So it’s at this point that I go into a drug-induced stupor, which I wouldn’t emerge from until Saturday morning. On Thursday, they decided that the Magnesium was not slowing my labor, so they took me off of it (thank god – not a fun drug, that one). All day Thursday, I was on some crazy pain medication where I would blurt out random things like “summer solstice” for no apparent reason. That was quite enjoyable for Aaron. On Thursday night, they put me on morphine, and in the wee hours of Friday morning I was finally rolled over to the Labor and Delivery wing. I was kind of sad to see my lil hospital home go (not that I was coherent enough to articulate this). Later in the morning, I got my first epidural (whoa, I didn’t know about that process beforehand either, thank goodness). I say first, because it didn’t take. I had been on bedrest so long that my ligaments had softened (at least that’s what I think they were trying to tell me – it was kind of like Charlie Brown’s teacher talking at that point with all the drugs). So, they went back in and gave me a second one. Later in the morning my mom arrived from North Dakota (Aaron's parents had driven up from Portland the day before and patiently stayed with us the whole time!). So, basically, I spent Friday with my head lolling from side to side using all of my energy NOT to spurt out random things (have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone when you were right on the verge of sleeping – you think you are saying things that make sense, but really they don’t? It was like that from Wednesday night until Saturday morning.) Finally, at about 3:30 that afternoon, they decided it was time. So Aaron and my mom suited up in their gowns, and I was wheeled into the operating room, where they proceeded to put me on this ITTY BITTY table. ME? Not so itty bitty. If I moved and inch to the right or left, I would have rolled off. How in heaven’s name could they expect me to stay on this thing??

 

By this time, I was like let’s rock n roll people! Push? Alrighty – no problem, let’s do this. I had been building up to this moment since February. All of the horrible sickness, pain, hospital stay, fatigue, contractions – they all came to the surface. And after my very first push, the nurse told me that Baby A was going to have dark hair. Yeah. It was crazy. I was in a tunnel of labor. I saw my doctor and nurse in front of me, and I heard Aaron behind me. <Side story: I am blind as a bat, and I was wearing my glasses through this whole ordeal (like I’m going to put in my contacts…). Well, my oxygen mask kept messing up my glasses, and the nurse tried to yank off my glasses. I was like, 'pfff, think again sister -- take my oxygen instead.' I may be going through this drugged beyond recognition, but I most certainly will not be doing all of this work without being able to see the fruits of my labor (pun intended). We compromised and I only wore the oxygen in between pushes. > If you are wondering, Aaron was most certainly not allowed anywhere but behind my head. Once you see something you can’t unsee it, and frankly, I didn’t want to risk it. And I certainly didn’t want to see it – I even closed my eyes during that part of the birthing video we were forced to watch (if I had my way, I wouldn’t have even watched one – it’s not like I could have turned back if I saw something scary). Hell, I didn’t even look to see what the damage was when I was healing. I just let the stitches fall out and prayed that everything would come out ok. My motto for my Garden for Jesus was ‘ignorance is bliss’. Anyway, so I’m focused on pushing and getting oxygen from my mask thingie. And BAM! I think it was like 8 pushes later, at 4:09 pm, out pops Baby A, who shall from this point forward be known as William. People were still filing into the operating room! They suddenly sprung into action. In the end we had 13 people in the OR, one team for each of the babies and one team for me. And man alive, Will’s head looked like an eggplant. I mean, the shape of his head was not earthly. If someone could have recorded my brain, it would have went something like this: “Did that just come out of me? His heartrate! It’s soaring, is he ok? Whoa, his head – is it supposed to be shaped that way? I’m so tired. I can’t believe I just pushed a human being out of my hooha. Are we sure he’s ok? His heart rate is continuing to go up. I worked so hard for you!” And so on and so forth. And then I ended with, “Focus Lisa, we have to do this again.” And I was back. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, they had suctioned Baby B, so he was close, and I gave a big push and out he came a tumblin’ out four minutes later. From here on out he will be known as Oliver. And because William paved the way, Oliver was actually doing alright, so I got to hold him for about three seconds before he was taken away. Both babies were briskly wheeled up to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) with papa Aaron as their escort. Thankfully they also allowed my mom to be in the delivery room, so she was able to stay with me while I hemorrhaged and was then stitched up (the worst part of the actual delivery, btw). It was awful, the doctor kept being like, ‘can I have another stitch?’. In the end, I’m not quite sure how many were in the lady parts (remember, I wanted nothing to do with that area, even during the healing process), but I will say that it was end to end. Good times. So, I will also tell you about one more thing that people did not prepare me for (my goal here is to debunk childbirth): the ‘massage’ on my belly afterward. Seriously people, my big belly was suddenly empty, and they proceed to kneed my uterus like yesterday’s baked bread. It was horrendous! I was in the recovery room and one of the nurses was kneeding away, and I innocently said, “I’m pretty nauseous, is it alright if we wait until I get my anti-nausea medication to proceed [with sitting on my stomach]?” Well, the girl didn’t listen, so I puked. And what a bizarre feeling that was. Suddenly my organs had so much room to maneuver that they were sloshing all around trying to figure out where their real home was. Couple of questions to answer for those who haven’t yet have children (I know you’re wondering, because I did, and people have asked me. Guys, please close your ears.): Do you poop on the table? Why yes, yes you do. I will caveat this by saying that #1 you don’t know that you’re doing it and #2 you could care less because you just want this whole ordeal to be over. Does it hurt when they come out? For me, no, not too bad. I had had two epidurals though, and enough pain medication for a two-ton horse me. When the doctor told me to push, I pushed. Do you tear? I tore from here until Sunday. Do you know when you’re delivering the placenta? Nope, I had no idea when or where. In fact, given how big my stomach still was after the birth, I had some concerns that they might have missed one. Let’s see, what other juicy details don’t people talk about… Did I get mad at Aaron and yell in the delivery room? In fact, quite the opposite. I was actually quite calm through it all (given the amount of drugs I’d had over the last 72 hours, I don’t know how I could have been any different ), and all I heard was him in my ear giving me encouragement. Aww – right from a Hallmark movie, ain’t it.

After I delivered, it was at this point that I suddenly lost all of my fighting juice. My pregnancy had been so awful, from throwing up out the top and peeing out the bottom (simultaneously) in the first trimester, the nausea and discomfort in the second trimester, to the bedrest, to the drugs, to the discomfort, to the pain, to the discomfort, and back to the pain again. And I had fought so darn hard to keep those babies inside as long as possible, that suddenly I ran out. This was just the beginning actually of an incredibly difficult time for me that I’m only now, two and a half months later, starting to come out of. My babies were promptly taken to the NICU right after they were born, and I was able to be wheeled by their beds after I delivered, but that was the extent of it. I didn’t see them again until Saturday. I wasn’t taking care of them – someone else (far more qualified) was. And you know what the worst part was? I was ok with it. I was ok with the fact that nurses were the ones taking care of them all day long, I was ok with the fact that I was in my own hospital bed and they were upstairs away from me, I was ok with having Aaron be the one to change their diapers and take their temperature, I was ok with not seeing them until the next day. I felt so pained with guilt for feeling that way, but I had lost my fight, and to be brutally honest, I was also worried that I would carry bitterness toward them for everything they had taken from me. They took my life, my body (we’ll see if I have the courage to post a picture of the mess that my belly has become), my mind, my sleep, my normalcy, my home, my husband. And these being my first, I really didn’t understand what they were going to give me in return. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to separate my pregnancy from them as people. These kids were mine? They didn’t feel like mine. They didn’t feel like they were anyone else’s, but they didn’t feel like mine. I wasn’t even able to hold them for the first time until Day 3, and then I was only able to hold each of them for an hour each day (split with Aaron). Hell, I could only look at them by peeking under the quilt that covered their incubators. I thought this was the time of bonding, beauty and bunnies. And instead, my kids were hooked up to breathing machines (I didn’t even know what a CPAP machine was before then!), under Bili lights, and filled with IVs.

I remember one day walking in and finding Oliver with an IV in his head and another day he had a pik line that started at his hand and went all the way up his arm and down alongside his heart. Here I was recovering from being on my side and having contraction-stopping drugs pumped into my system for two months – the exhaustion, the hormones, and the emotions. I remember my muscles shaking after I had been standing at Oliver’s incubator for about five minutes, because I had been on bedrest for so long. And here my babies were all alone in their incubator houses using all of their energy just to breathe and finish developing, and I didn’t have the energy or mental capacity to be their mom. I was still checked out, and the associated guilt was just a bomb sitting in my belly. How do I navigate through everything and figure out how to make these babies mine? I can’t even stand long enough to take their temperature and change their diapers without taking a break to sit, how am I supposed to be their mom. And compared to many of the kids in the NICU, our kids were doing really well!  We have good friends who had twins that were born at 24 1/2 weeks and had to watch our kids come and go - I can't imagine what that must have felt like.  Thankfully, I have been able to wade my way through most of this, but it has not been easy, and it happened incredibly slowly. So slowly that I’m not even sure of what the turning point was. It was just that suddenly I woke up one day, and I realized that I was, indeed their mom, and everything had been worth it.

Ugh, heavy stuff, let’s move on. After I was discharged from the hospital (AMAZING day), I got into a routine, for the next month, of going up to the hospital every day for their care times (temp, diaper, feeding). MEANWHILE, I still looked pregnant. Really pregnant. Yeah. I still looked 9 months pregnant, buuutt there wasn’t a baby in there. I remember walking through the hospital one day on my way up to visit them and someone passed by me and said congratulations on expecting. I awkwardly smiled and said thanks, while thinking, thanks douchebag. I was actually feeling pretty good about being able to cut my own toenails for the first time that morning. But let’s face it, my stomach is an utter mess. My good friend Bridget came over one morning about a week after I delivered, and I asked to see her belly, as I was horrified about my own. I was hoping that it would give me inspiration… something to look forward to… something to work toward. So she showed me her belly, and I was like, ‘Wow! That looks fantastic! You can’t even tell you had a baby’. Now, I should mention that Bridget is extremely slender and a runner anyway, so she worked hard for it, however, I was most interested in what happened to her skin, not what was under the skin. And it looked fantastic! So firm and tight. So, I was like, ‘Well, here’s where I’m starting from’ and innocently lifted up my shirt. She gasped in horror and was like, ‘umm, yeaaaa, I never looked like that.’ Crestfallen. Not that I should have been terribly surprised. I mean, I was heeyooge. Remember the gorilla people?? We measured my belly a week before I gave birth, and I was measuring to be 52 weeks pregnant (that’s one calendar year for those who aren’t paying attention). I am re-defining the term muffin top. Seriously, I even have muffin top in my underwear.

Let’s bring these babies home!

Finally!! After a total of 77 days of hospital stay for us (7 weeks for me, 4 weeks for the boys), we were finally free!!

Sayonara Swedish Medical Center – we are moving back to the Schlichting Haus. My dad was there for the homecoming, which made it extra special. Let the mayhem and sleep deprivation begin!! The schedule was this: 7:00 – 7:45: William eats; 7:45 – 8:30: Oliver eats; 8:30 – 9:00: Lisa pumps. One hour break, then it started all over again. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Remember, at this point, I’m still a total mess, and only getting 1-2 hours of sleep at a time is not helping the situation. Fast-forward: I get mastitis – in BOTH boobs. Fever, achy, the whole bit. And I was out of the game – someone up above was watching out for us, though, because Aaron’s saintly father was staying with us, and he and Aaron were up all night long caring for the babies, while I pumped, and pumped, and pumped and pumped to try to unclog ducts and get rid of the infection. Meanwhile, we were going through 16 bottles a day, 60 washcloths a day, 140 diapers a week. Like I said – mayhem!! Finally, once I hit my due date on October 17^th, we started moving to a four hour schedule instead of three, and I stopped pumping. Though controversial for some, ultimately, it was best for our family. I had officially gone off the deep end at this point, spending most of my days crying, hoping a good child fairy would come and take the kids away (bring them back when they are in college or at least until they can hold their own bottles), and the schedule was just not maintainable. The kids had been receiving supplemental formula for calories anyway, and I had pumped enough to last us through a few more weeks. You can look at the pictures here of the first couple weeks of them being home to see my progression from bad to worse… Once the breast-feeding hormones were through my system, things started to turn around a little bit. I didn’t want to give away my kids anymore (phew); I started going on walks; I was able to get out of the house by myself with both of them. It is still incredibly difficult, and I still kind of want to die because of exhaustion (so does Aaron), but I don’t feel debilitated any longer. I remember the first day that I was all by myself, taking care of the twins, I was able to go on a walk, give them both a bath, take a bath myself and get dinner on the table, oh and do two loads of laundry, a dishwasher load, 8 bottles and 8 diaper changes. Mmmmyeaaaaaaa, that only happened once, but it happened, and I couldn’t have been more proud of myself. Now, I try to have one outing every day – unless I’m giving them a bath. That counts as an outing for how hard it is and how much they hate it.

Alrighty, I think that wraps up this chapter. Tune in for cute and cuddly baby things from here on out. ;)  Here are a few photos for your viewing pleasure (for some reason Oliver is always on the right when they're together).