Kogan Twins: The twins arrive!

It's funny that I published my last post when I was 27 weeks, 3 days. Turns out I would go into labor that night (though I would not know it till the next morning!). Throughout the past MONTH of hospital stays and bedrest, I had contractions all the time. Some days were good, others were bad. Overall I was really getting used to having contractions, although I still HATED them (they didn't hurt, but they stressed me out!).

So that night, I was having more contractions than normal. I told the nurse, who told the resident. I told her that they were on the stronger side, and that they were much more frequent than normal. I eventually managed to sleep a little bit, although not very well. The resident was apparently monitoring the contractions, and apparently not concerned enough to do anything about them.

The next morning the contractions were still there. During morning rounds, I told the doctors about it (and started crying a little… clearly I knew something was wrong even before anything was confirmed). One of the residents checked me and found that I was now 5-6 cm dilated, so they said they would be sending me back to labor and delivery. That was pretty upsetting, but I was still hopeful that they could put me back on the drugs and stop the contractions, and I could buy a few more days or weeks. Boris arrived (after being at work for about an hour), and they checked me again and I was 7cm dilated. At that point, waiting wasn't really an option -- I could either try for a vaginal delivery or go straight to a c-section. Vaginal delivery would have been ideal because I would get to labor and buy some more time (as the doctors said, if the labor stalled, we could potentially buy another day or two), but baby B, in typical babyB fashion, was faced the wrong way. Plus, I was told that at that point, if my water broke we would have to have a c-section and it would be a true emergency, which would have sucked.

So off we went to the OR. Not a pleasant experience overall.

Some highlights from the OR:
- The nurses attempting to give me an IV failed multiple times (I was pretty used to this… I think I got stuck around 50 times in the previous month). At one point they tried to console me by assuring me that they had gotten the IV in, but that my vein had burst. Yea, that makes it better (I still have a bruise over my entire left hand).
- The epidural/spinal was not nearly as bad as everyone made it out to be. Overall, I think this experience has made me a lot tougher!
- Being awake during the surgery is super gross. The best line was from the doctor saying, "Christina, you're going to feel some pressure as we put your uterus back in." Um, what? WHY IS IT OUT?! Obviously I didn't really know what the procedure would entail!

The actual best part of the surgery was when they came out (obviously). Amelia came out, and we heard lots of commotion, "baby out!" "Confirm gender!" etc. But then we heard her cry. And it was the perfect little cry -- the cry of a baby that might be tiny, but was ready for this world. When Boris and I heard it we looked at each other and immediately started crying ourselves. We had spent the previous month worrying about these kids without ever meeting them, and now they were here, just on the other side of the curtain. I can't really even express how amazing that little cry sounded, although all the moms and dads out there probably do in fact understand. Then we waited for the next baby. We heard the same commotion, "baby out!" "confirm gender!" "Girl!", but then we didn't hear a cry. I kept asking, "Is she okay??" and the general consensus seemed to be yes, although I still never heard her cry (apparently she did, I just didn't hear it).

The babies were whisked away pretty quickly and I was left to be stitched up. Boris offered to stay with me but I wanted him with the babies. So they stitched me up and I went to recovery. The worst part was that because the babies were in the NICU and I was physically incapable of moving, I didn't get to see them until I had recovered enough to get into a wheelchair. I failed my first "dangle" test (i.e. dangle your feet off the side of the bed) when I got sick, and later threw up my gatorade lunch, so I didn't get to go see them until late that night. But when I did, it was pretty amazing. They were so little, but they were doing really well. Breathing on their own (yay steroids!), on 21% oxygen (same as room air), and generally behaving.

Mere minutes old:

The next four days was a bit of a blur. Learning to pump, getting wheeled to the NICU as often and for as long as possible, and trying to recover. I was discharged four days later, and got to go home and sleep in my bed for the first time in a month. It was pretty glorious, although having to wake up in the middle of the night to pump is pretty shitty. I know it's hard for all new moms who have to feed their new babies at night, but pumping is really the worst. All the work, and none of the fun. I don't get to look at my baby when I pump… I play candy crush. Not really what I want to be doing in the middle of the night.

Having the girls being in the NICU has been a real roller coaster. At the beginning they were doing so so well. They were NICU rock stars. I had high hopes that all the advice I had heard about there being ups and downs would not apply to our little girls, they would just get bigger and better every day and never have any slips. That lasted for a few days, then they started stressing me out constantly. Both of them forget to breathe on a regular basis. Apparently that's normal for preemies, but oh my god, so stressful for parents. You sit next to your kid and all of a sudden alarm bells are going off and nurses are running over to startle them into breathing again. All you have to do to bring them out of it is rub their back usually, but it's stressful to be there when it happens! Amelia also had some digestion issues where she wasn't digesting her milk (fed through a tube) and was instead giving back some gross green crap. She also couldn't poop on her own. Eventually they decided that her high-pressure nasal cannula might be upsetting her stomach by pushing too much air into it, so they switched it out for a different one, which seemed to work. Alexis has been consistently a little healthier, and getting fatter just a little faster. Both have gained weight from when they were born though, which is great progress for only a week. They are also already up to 15ml of breast milk every 3 hours. A "full feed" for their age is 20ml. They are so close! Once they are up to full feeds, they theoretically don't need any of the nutritional supplement that they get through an IV.

Overall, they are making good progress. I've gotten to hold Alexis 3 times, and Amelia once (for an hour each). Now that Amelia isn't dropping her heart rate as often, hopefully I'll get to hold her more. They are so so so so so cute. We love them so much. They don't even look that tiny to me anymore. They just look perfect!

Day 2 (2/21)