Not Your Fantasy-Land Birthing Experience

From the Twin-Daddy:

In films and television, childbirth is like a chick-action movie.  A thin-faced starlet is covered with sweat, and her hair is carefully tousled so that it looks disordered but still oh-so good.   Covered with sweat, she screams and grunts with all the frenzy of impending motherhood.  “PUSH!! PUSH!! PUSH!!”  The only thing typically missing is power chords on an electric guitar in time with the pushes.

After her supreme act of womanly creation, a beautiful child covered in a mild amount of goop comes out screaming, and everyone cries as she hugs the baby.  They go home the next day and la-la-la.

Living la Vida Twins

You probably won’t get to hold your twin babies when they are born.  Twins often come early, and our boys were whisked away into the competent hands of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) which is usually called the “NEE-q”.

Even coming in at great fighting weights, our boys have trouble figuring out eating and breathing.  They were started with the bubbling CPAP machines to help their breathing and came off those after 24 hours.  The sucking reflex arrives at around the 34 week mark, and our boys are still learning how this stuff works.

The Tough Stuff

Dominic is having what the NICU staff refers to as “episodes” or “de-Sats” when his oxygen levels drop below acceptable levels.  He’s done this several times while Mary and I were there, and I’ll be very serious when I tell you it isn’t fun as a parent.  The monitors will beep in an ever more insistent tone and flash red.  As a know-nothing parent, all you know is that the red flashing light scares the hell out of you.  Fortunately, the nurses will sit him up and smack him on the back to remind him that he needs to take a breath and that pops him out of it.

As the parent of a preemie, there is a certain amount of helplessness you are going to have to accept in the situation, and you have to trust in the talent of the NICU staff.  Both my children are closely monitored, and professionals are there to help them at a moment’s notice when they need it.  They are also proactive about it as well.  Dominic has been given a slightly higher oxygen mix, and he seems to be doing well with it.  They are also putting him on antibiotics as a precaution and looking at chest X-rays and labs to see if they can find a root cause.

Mommy Update

When we arrived at the hospital after Mary’s water broke at around 3:30 AM Sunday morning, her blood pressure was high, and the perinatologist requested tests for preeclampsia. This was fortunate, as Mary had developed sudden-onset severe preeclampsia. It causes very high blood pressure and other complications like seizures. Fortunately, the cure is to not be pregnant, and delivering the twins by C-section provided us with a handy solution. A day on magnesium sulfate (to prevent seizures) and loopy Mary was making phone calls that would rival anyone who ever drank and dialed.

At present, Mary’s preeclampsia is putting up another fight with her, and seeing Dominic having a few troubles isn’t making her blood pressure any better.  The doctors have not liked watching her blood pressure numbers climb all day and decided to keep her for another night.  They have also put her on blood pressure medication and asked her to use the wheelchair when she visits the boys in the NICU.

The Good

The high blood pressure is still part of the preeclampsia, and this isn’t unusual.  Medication should get this under control, and it should go away as Mary’s body continues to figure out she isn’t pregnant.  We expect her to go home tomorrow.

Our boys reach 35 weeks tomorrow, and every day they get stronger.  Dominic, despite his troubles, is gaining weight, and they are weaning him off of the IV.  Even if eating is exhausting for both boys, the NICU staff is ensuring they get fed by using little tubes up their nose.  One meal is a bottle feeding, and the next is a very relaxing slow pump directly into the tummy while the little boy sleeps.  (They have a special machine that pumps the food very slowly.)

Mary is now producing a bit of colostrum at every pumping, and I run the syringe down to the NICU for the boys. They alternate who gets the yummy mom-made treat.

Flexible

Throughout this process we have had to be flexible, and we’re still learning and trying to adapt as we go. Our boys have a very, very good chance of coming through this just fine, and we’re very thankful for modern medicine.  We have had some great moments, and some moments that I’m certain will haunt my dreams.

Tip #1: Put weight on your kids as fast as possible because you don’t know when they will arrive.

Tip #2: Locate the best NICU in your area, and know how to find it.  (Ask your OB-GYN and your perinatologist.)  If you are delivering early, you may want to choose this hospital as the place to have your kids.  You don’t want to be a mom who delivers at one hospital only to have her kids transferred to the better hospital.  Best to keep all the family under one roof.

Tip #3: If you are a dad, be ready to help your wife through the home stretch.  If you can help her by doing things like cleaning the parts for the breast pump, helping her walk to the potty, holding her hand, or feeding her ice chips, her life is going to be much better.  She is going to be aching and groggy, but she will also have people running in and out of her room all day and night.  These people are going to be chattering at her a mile-a-minute in coded phrases that a woman on drugs may not easily follow.  If you are there, you can correct any misinformation on the spot, help her remember details, and fill out paperwork.

Where We Are Now

The boys are progressing, and things are moving forward.  We’re hitting some bumps, but the boys are still doing pretty well.  Mary will probably come home tomorrow which will put us in what I have been thinking of as NICU Limbo with both babies born, both parents at home, but our little guys still in the NICU.  There is no reason to think we’re headed towards anything but a happy ending.  Still, if you have a spare bit of time, send a positive wish or two towards our boys – especially for Dominic’s breathing – because they still need a little encouragement right now.