I’ve come back to write this 100 times, and each time, I just can’t bring myself to. I’m still having a hard time even now. It’s actually hard to recall all the details. I still think my brain is trying to protect myself – I’m still in the fight or flight from the trauma of it all… on top of all the trauma we endured before their birth. But their birth story is so incredibly important, and I know the longer I push it, the more I may forget. While I still feel fear and panic when I think back to that last week in June, I also think of how Amazing God is, and how he met me right there in that delivery room. I don’t think I’ve ever understood the magnitude of his love for my husband and me until the birth of my sons. I am still coping with the hard feelings… Having the beautiful, redemptive birth I thought I was entitled to after losing our first, our precious baby girl, and having to deliver her still just days before Christmas.
On June 23, Ryan and I got in the car to head to Nashville for my girlfriend’s wedding. I was just shy of 27 weeks pregnant and 30+ pounds heavier and starting to feel super uncomfortable. The belly was bellying and the boys were constantly moving (An amazing blessing considering I didn’t really get to feel kicks before losing our girl). We had just spent the week in Florida with Ryan’s family and had encountered a little scare with Baby A (Ford) when on the last day of vacation, I wasn’t feeling his routine movement pattern. At certain times of the day, I could expect to feel a ton of kicks from Ford, especially if I lay on the side he was closest to. After two hours of not feeling a single movement for him, even while laying on “his” side, I told Ryan we had to get to a hospital immediately.
If there’s anything you take away from this story, let it be this: If you are expecting and in your third trimester and your baby’s movement pattern changes in ANY way (decreases or drastically increases) GO TO THE HOSPITAL IMMEDIATELY.
I actually journaled on this hospital trip the day after it happened so I will link that here if you want to read more but long story short, they monitored me and the babies in the hospital for a few hours. When Ford started moving again they released me. I wish I would have asked them to check for infection or do a cervical exam, but I didn’t. Cut to, two days later, we fly back to Indy and get right in the car to head to Nashville. I remember telling Ryan I was done traveling after this trip until after the babies were here LOLOLOLOLOL
We got in Friday afternoon and had a wonderful night at the welcome party with all our friends. I felt completely fine except that I was exhausted but chalked it up to all the traveling and being in a car for five hours pregnant with twins. That night I did experience super loose stool. Again, didn’t think anything of it until the next day and I’m sorry I’m sharing this with you EXCEPT this can be a sign of preterm labor. Which it was for me. The next morning when I went to the bathroom, in addition to loose stool, I noticed a significant change in cervical mucus. Meaning there was a lot more present than there ever had been in this pregnancy so far. Again, RED FLAG. I called my OBGYN immediately. She was a little concerned but said these things can be normal in twin pregnancies, especially entering the 3rd trimester. More importantly, since I wasn’t experiencing any cramping, pain, or bleeding, she told me to get off my feet rest, and monitor my symptoms. If they got any worse, and if any pain or cramping occurred to get to the hospital immediately. Sure enough two hours later, as Ryan and I were walking back from lunch to start getting ready for the wedding, I started noticing light cramps, very similar to period cramps. I knew immediately I was in trouble but I was trying not to panic. Because they were pretty light at first I decided to lie down for a bit and see if they would go away. I think I knew I was in trouble at this point, but your first reaction, or mine anyway, was to talk myself out of it. Because there was no way, NO WAY, I could deal with anything happening to me or my babies. Especially after what it took to get pregnant with them. And because we had already lost a child. Within an hour of lying down, the cramps only intensified. And in that moment, a floodgate of tears burst open. Sobbing I told Ryan he had to call for our car and to get me to the emergency room. Disclaimer: because of the scare we experienced in Florida that we were unprepared for, we had a plan and knew which hospital to go to in case anything were to happen in Nashville. Thank God we did this. After 15 minutes in the car, I was standing at the Emergency OBGYN check-in desk at Ascension Saint Thomas Midtown bent over and still fully sobbing, this time from the pain of the cramps, which were actually full-blown contractions.
We were taken to a room immediately and seen by the sweetest resident who, after a blindingly painful cervical exam, confirmed I was 1 centimeter dilated. From there they would run what felt like 100 different tests while drawing endless amounts of blood. I’ve never been so f***ing scared in my life but all the while it NEVER occurred to me that I would have to deliver there in that hospital away from our entire support system and home. I could go on, and on about what happened between June 23 and 27th, the day I would have to deliver my boys, but I’m the kind of gal who will skip to the end of the book because I can’t take it and need to know what happens.
After the first 24 hours in the emergency wing, the doctors confirmed I was in fact, in pre-term labor and there was no reversing it – trust us, they tried everything. By the grace of God, we were able to get the steroid for the twins' lungs because they were so premature, and we were able to keep them in until I reached 27 weeks gestation exactly. If you didn’t already know this, 40 weeks is full term for pregnancy. This meant I was 13 weeks early. The difference between just 26 weeks and 27 weeks is critical. However, 26 weeks is considered viable, meaning the babies have a chance at surviving outside the womb. When it was clear there was no turning back or getting me safely to Indiana in time to deliver the boys, the head of fetal medicine came in to confirm that I would be delivering within days, if not hours and that “...we should prepare for our boys to stay the next 6 months in the NICU should they survive.” She said the chances of survival at 27 weeks were good. Still, they weren’t sure what they were dealing with, as in what caused the pre-term labor, and that risks of infection were high this premature.
When I tell you that all I had brought to Nashville with me was the two dresses I needed for wedding festivities, heels, a makeup bag, and the outfit I traveled in, I mean that is literally all I had with me. We were supposed to be there for 48 hours, and this doctor just told me we wouldn’t be leaving for SIX MONTHS. I swear to God, sitting in that hospital bed at that moment transported me right back to the hospital bed I sat in, trying to process that I was delivering MK – yet again, my entire world flipped on its axis, and I was pleading with God to let my baby(s) LIVE. Only this time, there was real HOPE AND an insane amount of FEAR. With MaryKate, I knew she was gone, so there was really only heartache and disbelief.
On June 27th at 6:45 (15 minutes before shift change – SO SORRY TO MY NURSES AND DOCTORS), I woke up to blinding and SEARING hot pain. I genuinely don’t even know how to describe that pain, and knew that Baby A (Ford) was ready to enter the world; I could feel him in my birth canal. At 7:30, after pushing with everything I had, my sweet baby Ford came into the world at 2 pounds 2 ounces with the thickest head of dark hair, just like his daddy. When he crowned, the doctors asked me if I wanted to feel him, of course I did, and when I reached down, that’s all I could feel – so much hair! After a minute or two, one of the nurses came up to me, holding Ford so I could see my baby. But within a minute she was scrambling to hand him off to the NICU doctor who walked out the door with him into the next OR room where they would work on intubating him.
Now it was time for Baby B (Duke) only Duke was now breeched. He flipped from head down to feet down when Ford made his way out. I was TERRIFIED of having a vaginal delivery AND a C-section for very obvious reasons. Again, let’s just cut to the end. I did have to have both. After another hour of pushing both Duke and I started to d-stat, and we would have to do a c-section to get him out. Turns out the cord was wrapped around his legs and his neck from flipping after Ford left. Because I was only 27 weeks along, the doctors at first kept insisting that I’d have to have a classical c-section, meaning the incision would involve a long, vertical incision being made in the midline of the abdomen. This means my ability to ever have a vaginal birth again would be off the table indefinitely, and I’d have a completely obvious scar in the middle of my abdomen. I cried my EYES out when they told me this and begged them to do a transverse c-section – primarily so that I could have a chance at vaginal births in the future should we ever have that opportunity. After a lot of back and forth, they obliged.
Duke's birth was extremely traumatic. They couldn’t get him out for quite some time because of the cord issue(s). The entire operating room went silent at one point, and that’s when Ryan and I really started to panic. I also started to slip in and out of consciousness at this point. The stress, two hours of pushing, the c-section on top of a vaginal delivery I was NOT prepared for mentally and the fear of losing him/something was wrong. When I came to, he was out. But they handed him immediately to the NICU doctor and they got to work on intubating him. I had to yell out, “Can I please see my baby” and they just held him up really quickly, let Ryan take a picture and by the time he was done they were carting him out of the room. My stomach still drops to this day when I think about being back on that operating table and strangers taking my babies from me the moment they were delivered without a word or any sort of communication on what to expect or if they were okay or not.
I was out again moments after that. The next thing I remember was waking up in the recovery room. It would be almost a full 24 hours before I would see my babies again who were taken directly to the NICU. Ryan would see them hours sooner while waiting for me to wake.
For the next 85 days, almost 3 months exactly, our boys would be in the NICU at AST. I will get into the details in a later post on NICU life and our experience. But for now, I just want to say it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever endured. Mainly because three weeks into our stay, again, hours away from home, my husband would have to return home to Indiana for work/football season. If you don’t understand NFL life, specifically preseason camp, it will be hard for you to understand why he had to leave and would only be able to visit us twice in the remaining two months of our NICU stay but that is what happened. It drove me to my absolute breaking point time and time again. But I showed up every single day minus two days (missed one for my baby shower and one because we had to move houses back in Indiana). I showed up every day and held each one of my boys and by the grace of God was able to feed them my breast milk exclusively, and I know that made ALL the difference in their recovery. Duke and Ford encountered many trials during their NICU stay. I’m not ready to talk about most of them and may never be. But the only thing that matters is they overcame every single one of their obstacles and they are here today, healthy and beautiful as ever. They’re the toughest two guys I know, and that’s saying something considering who their dad is.
All in all, we have our miracle baby boys. They are miracles in every way from the time that BOTH of them stuck during implantation via IVF and that both of them survived their very early and traumatic entrance into the world that required the first 3 months of their life to be hospitalized in intensive care. I recently was asked if I ever caught up in the “why me” with all we’ve been through, especially their birth. The answer is no, not anymore. At first, I did. I was so angry at God again for the situation we were in, delivering my two boys 13 weeks early. But it has also occurred to me that my baby boys are alive. We actually witnessed others in the NICU who lost their child, and it immediately put everything into perspective. Instead of focusing on what I didn’t get or how I thought/dreamed things should go – at the end of the day, but body did exactly what it was supposed to and THANK GOD it warned me and went into action when something was off. Had my body not gone into pre-term labor, the boys probably wouldn’t be here today.
I had a UTI (which I had absolutely zero symptoms of) that spread to Ford’s bloodstream and caused a high slow leak in his water. Therefore, signaling it was time to deliver. Because we discovered this early, we were able to get Ford antibiotics immediately and treat the infection before it spread and created severe health problems and potentially death. Most importantly, I believe with all my heart we were destined to be in the hands of the nurses and doctors at AST. I don’t fully understand why. I just know we were meant to be there.
I’m so grateful to be sitting here three months after coming home with the boys – so six months after they were born but 3 months adjusted, looking at these perfect miracles. They have been worth every ounce of pain and sacrifice in conceiving them and getting them here. So while this story is never easy to tell or talk about the details, It’s one of the best chapters yet.
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