Meet November and August! They were born in October.
Here is their birth story.
…
Two and a half weeks ago I fell down the rabbit hole the stairs. I don’t know how it happened. I was feeling out of sorts the whole day and I went to bed early, my head all muddled. Andy thought it was odd. I just thought that I was tired and pregnant. I got up to make the long trek to the bathroom a while later and on the second to last step downstairs, I twisted my ankle and fell, landing on my side. I think I screamed, and Andy definitely yelled as he ran down the stairs after me. When he asked me if I was okay all I could think was, “How did I get here?” He helped me up to a sitting position and I felt a warm gush. I sat there in a pool of my own tears, hoping it wasn’t blood. My waters had never broken before.
All I could say was: “Oh my god.” and “I’m not ready!” and “I hope the babies are okay!”
Andy kept reassuring me that they were, and that he was more concerned about my ankle than any thing else. I couldn’t care less about my ankle (which was fine), I was about to give birth to TWO BABIES OMG. I was so full of adrenaline that I just sat there, teeth chattering, while I tried to figure out if I wanted to stand up. And then, after Andy helped me up, I stood there, teeth chattering, wondering if I should maybe start moving. It was weird, going into labor at night. I’d always been woken up early in the morning. “Should we call your doctor?” Andy asked. “What should we do?” It was a lot to decide. Going to the hospital seemed like the next logical step. Andy went to go wake up the boys, we’d put them to bed an hour or so before. He also called our friends Andy and Meg; Meg was to meet us at the hospital.
She walked me in as Andy went to find parking. “Did you cut your hair?” I asked her as the people at the front desk helped me into a wheelchair. They laughed because priorities and wheeled me to a tiny room because triage. Some faceless person asked me if I was sure if my water had *actually* broken. The puddle I left in the wheelchair answered their question.
40 minutes after we arrived at the hospital, I was pushing out a baby. But before that happened my kids and husband showed up to the tiny room and I moaned awhile. My kids asked, now fully awake: “Why is she making noises like that?” Meg talked to them about their moaning mama and what it all meant while I continued moaning.
“The last time she got like this, it didn’t take long,” Andy said as he pushed my back with all of his strength. No one took him seriously. THEY WOULD SOON LEARN. The plan was a caesarian, but they took too fucking long. Right before they wheeled my bed out of the room I said, “I feel like I have to poop.” A resounding UH OH. They wheeled me faster while I yelled, “I’m pushing!” Some faceless individuals threw some stuff at Andy to put on while we raced down a hallway. I couldn’t stop pushing. “Don’t push!” They told me. Not pushing was not an option. I couldn’t NOT push. I was pushing.
“Help!” I cried. “I’m pushing!”
“Don’t push!”
I was pushing. 40 minutes after we arrived at the hospital, I was pushing out a baby. I was shocked when Nova crowned, because I didn’t actually expect to give birth so quickly.
“Head!” I yelled. “HEAD!”
A couple of faceless chatting nurses rushed over to my spread legs and grabbed the baby shooting out from between them. Told ya, I thought smugly. And then maybe, c-section my ass. I barely got to whisper hello to Nova before they took him away (I didn’t see him again for a day and a half. It makes me want to cry thinking about it).
“I guess we’re doing this vaginally,” said my doctor who was not my doctor. I almost did a fist pump. She and a faceless person pushed down on my stomach for a bit to try to turn Gus, but it didn’t take. He was still coming out feet first, and I was feeling like I just HAD to push again. Since he was so much bigger than Nova they were afraid he’d get stuck, so emergency c-section it was. She told me that I would have to be put under and that Andy would have to leave the room. Both of our faces fell. But I kept pushing and yelling, “Help!” until I blacked out.
When I woke up what felt like 2 seconds later, Andy was there to welcome me. “Are they gonna do it?” I asked in a scratchy voice. Andy said, “They already did it.” and I said, “Oh right, that makes sense.”
Meg had taken the boys to her house to sleep and so it was me and Andy and Gus. Gus had been born 20 minutes after Nova, but after midnight so they had different birthdays (and maybe even different signs)! “That’s so cool!” one of the faceless nurses was saying. I couldn’t help but laugh but I sobered up quickly, when I was told that Andy and I couldn’t visit Nova in the NICU (low birth weight) since we both had nasty colds that wouldn’t quit. It was horrible to be separated from him. One of the nurses from the NICU was a sweetheart and brought Andy and I pictures of him so that we could see how he was doing.
With my last two deliveries I was able to leave the hospital rather promptly, and that wasn’t going to happen this time around. I hated being in the hospital, hated being separated from my kids and husband, hated eating hospital food, hated having my blood pressure taken every five seconds (it was worryingly high), but luckily I didn’t have to worry too much about my c-section incision. I was moving around pretty well after a couple of days to everyone’s surprise, including my own. Some of the nurses winced sympathetically for me when they heard that I’d had both a vaginal birth and a caesarian, but I’m glad my original birth plan wasn’t a total wash. I got to deliver one of them naturally, and that makes me happy.
When Nova was finally transferred to my room I was overjoyed.
One of the nurses asked me, “How can you tell them apart?” And I just stared at her. They look like brothers, but they don’t look identical to me. Which is kind of a relief because now I don’t have to worry about mixing them up.
You know what? Let’s just fast forward to us all being home. Here we are, courtesy of my MIL who, along with Andy’s stepdad, just left after a week here:
RIO IS KILLING ME IN THIS PICTURE!!! Ahem.
The twins are here. THEY’RE FINALLY HERE. I’m so happy to be home and so grateful to all of our wonderful friends and family who have watched our kids and made us delicious food. And speaking of food…I’m off to eat some more while the babes are still sleeping.
Pretty in PDX 