The girls are officially a month old and I figured it was time to get to writing this post.. mainly for myself to share with the girls when they are older and to remember all the little details. Everyone cares about these things, right?! 🙂

At 28 weeks, we planned when, God willing, the girls would make their entrance into this world; 38 weeks. I just needed to make it to 38 weeks with them and all would be good (or so I thought!). We would have someone here for Magnolia – versus trying to scramble, and the girls would be fully baked… We put May 21 on the calendar and my doctor made sure he could make it (on his day off) to deliver the girls. If you’re new here, Magnolia’s birth didn’t go quite as planned and basically anything that could go wrong, did so he knew that I was a little apprehensive about this delivery. Even though it would be a planned C-Section (based on my previous delivery), I knew I’d feel better if he delivered the twins and because he’s been such a huge part of our fertility story, I really wanted him to be the one to tell us the genders of the babies!

I wasn’t SUPER surprised that I made it to 38 weeks… I feel like, while my body doesn’t do a good job of making babies, it does does do a good job of holding them in. With Magnolia, I made it to 40 weeks and she certainly didn’t want to come out – and with my miscarriages, I never miscarried on my own at home (meaning, we found out each time at the Ultrasound that the babies didn’t have a heart beat but my body didn’t want to let them go still…). I was anxious they didn’t come early because things don’t usually go as planned for us but I was so thankful that we made it to May 21. Less stress, I thought since my in-laws would be here with Magnolia and I thought it would be a peaceful delivery as planned and we could focus on the babies…

Fast forward to May 21 and we were getting all prepped for about 2 hours before actually going into the OR. My doc came in about 20 minutes before we headed into the OR to chat, ask if we had questions and to ask ONE last time what our predictions were for genders. We literally said (for the millionth time) that we’d be completely shocked if they were both girls (clearly, we have that intuition – ha!). He laughed and said he had no clue what we were having – and didn’t even have a feeling leaning a certain way! Anyway – I headed into the OR to get prepped and Logan waited in the other room until they were ready for him….

This is where things started to a little “out of the ordinary” for us… Imagine that! The anesthesiologist did my spinal tap in 2 different places, and we thought all was starting to go normal. After a few minutes, they checked me and while my legs were tingly, I could still feel the pricks up my sides. They waited a little longer, and kept checking me and were shocked every time I said, “Yes, I feel a prick”. They would test up my legs and stomach area and told me to let them know when I could feel it and it was pretty quickly, I felt it. They would tilt me basically on my head for a few minutes to see if that helped get it flowing down but I still felt all the test pricks. At this point, the anesthesiologist made it very apparent that this wasn’t the “normal” and that I should have been numb a while ago. She said they couldn’t do another spinal (their original thought) because my legs were tingly and numb so they wouldn’t be able to do another. Their only option would be to put me out completely – she got to my level and started explaning things to me (keep in mind, Logan was still out in the other room waiting to be brought in) and I couldn’t help but start to cry. I was scared, nervous, and thinking “why is this happening?!” Side note – my epidural did not work with Magnolia no matter how many times they flushed it and they believe it was placed wrong and that was the reason why but it’s odd this would happen with the spinal as well now! This is where i’m SO THANKFUL my doctor was there!

My doctor got to my level and explained to me that he had about 3 inches from my incision to work with that was numb – and that he believed he could do it and get the babies out with that amount of space. He said he knew I didn’t want to be put under (if I was put under, Logan couldnt come in to the delivery either and neither would be with our babies until they woke me up well after they stitched me back up) and that he didn’t necessarily want me to be put under either because that would get in the babies blood stream. I could tell the anthesiologist wasn’t happy with the option because there was literally 3 inches for my doctor to work with – but let me listen to my options. I knew my doctor and trusted him so I said, let’s give it a try. He had said if at any point, I felt anything then they’d knock me out immediately. He started the procedure and Logan was finally let in the room. He said later on that he knew something wasn’t right since it was taking so long! He was immediately pulled over to my face by the anesthesiologist who said “dad, here’s what’s going on..” and she said to let her know if I feel discomfort at all because she can give me something that wouldn’t affect the babies.. Logan’s comment was “don’t be superwoman! Let her know ASAP”

Baby A was pulled out pretty quickly and we heard a “Baby A is a… GIRL” and I said “a girl?!”. They brought her over to where I could see her while they cleaned her a little bit and in the mean time, the doctor started getting Baby B ready to come out. He was trying to deliver her “on call” which is where a baby is delivered outside of the womb in their sack still. It’s considered good luck and rare to have it done. We have pictures of Baby B in her sack still but as he was going to pull her out out, she had other plans, of course! 🙂 Still so neat to see in the pictures. My doctor started to laugh at this point and said “Baby B is a…. GIRL” and I looked at Logan who was laughing. Of course, 2 girls! We were literally both STUNNED like How?!?! Logan went into Daddy mode and helped immediately. Baby A (Annabelle) was crying so hard until Baby B (Clementine) came out and made one cry which caused Baby A to immediately calm down. Sweetest thing ever since it was their first time hearing each other. Annabelle was 6 lbs 13 oz 19 inches and Clementine was 5 lbs 14 oz 19 inches. Such little peanuts compared to Magnolia at 8 lbs 12 oz!

I could definitely feel a lot of tugging before the girls were born but afterwards, it was pretty bad. And my doctor immediately asked the CRNA to give me a shot in my shoulder and I knew something wasn’t right. I could also hear them saying “2200 ccs” or so I thought that’s what I heard and I couldn’t focus a ton on the girls because I had been crying previously, my eyes were itchy, I couldn’t breathe with my mask on and I knew something wasn’t right. I asked Logan “is everything ok?” and he said “Yeah, I think so!” as he held Baby A to my face. My doctor heard me ask and immediately said “Kristi, you’ve lost a lot of blood.

At least double of what you should have lost. Baby B’s placenta was attached abnormally and in a weird spot so it’s taking a lot more to get it out. You’re going to feel a lot of uncomfortable tugging because we can’t get it” He later, explained that he had to physically scrape it with his nail to try to get it to come off even which then caused it to bleed profusely. Once they got me stitched up, he explained that I would most likely need a blood transfusion because of the amount of blood lost and they’d be checking my hemoglobin ASAP. At this point, I thought “of course… heaven forbid, it be a normal, routine delivery!” He headed out afterwards and said he’d be back the next day later in the afternoon to check on me.

I got back to my room – which was almost like a “suite” it was so big thanks to having 2 babies!- and they began checking my levels as well as checking my bleeding to make sure I wasn’t hemorrhaging due to the blood issue at delivery. They monitored me very closely and once they got my numbers back, they were shocked with how low they were. They said when I started the day my hemoglobin was at almost 13 (10 or higher is normal range) but at this point, it was down to 6.

They wanted to do another blood draw later that day to check the levels and make sure they began to climb before making a decision for the blood transfusion. The nurse said she was stunned they were waiting because she had never seen numbers this low and with higher numbers, they do a transfusion. Due to the all of the liquids they gave me, they needed to make sure it was safe to do the transfusion as well…

Fast forward to a few hours later and the nurses wanted me to get up and start moving, if I could so they could get the catheter out of me. I thought all was well but the first time I stood, I wasn’t dizzy or light headed but had an immediate terrible cramping in my chest near my heart. As soon as I said that, they had me sit down right away and said they would try a little later… We tried again a little later and it was horrible again.

As soon as I sat down, (TMI) there was a gush of blood and the nurse called the doctor worried again about hemorhaging and was concerned with the chest cramping. The doctor on call thought that maybe I jsut needed more time to relax after everything that happened and said to keep the catheter in over night until they could figure out what was going on… REAL comforting at this point, huh?!

A new nurse checked in on me later that night and had me try to get up and move around again. Thankfully, this time, I was able to move, slowly, but without chest cramps. They said they got my levels back again and they had increased to 7.5 and the doctor was waiting to decide what the next step would be and we’d find out in the morning. The next morning, early, my doctor surprised us to check on me and the babies and explained they would do an iron transfusion instead (apparently at a level that none of the nurses had seen before because it was so much! And a 3.5 hour drip that they triple checked with my doctor the amount before setting it up) in hopes of increasing my levels up to a 9.

He said it would take months to get back to normal due to the amount of blood that was lost. He also said he was really nervous about me all day/night and kept checking my test results all night to make sure all was OK. He explained what happened again with the placenta and said they’d never seen that before (not a shock for all who know me!) and were really worried with so much blood lost. He also said he could tell I was a lot more sensitive/feeling a lot of it based on the way my body was reacting during the delivery and especially with removing the placenta…

Y’all… I swear I’m not meant to give birth! Ha! I can say that now but my goodness, both this delivery and Magnolia’s were ROUGH. My doctor kept checking on us throughout the day and actually was able to set up my discharge for Sunday AM so that I didn’t have to wait for a doctor all day the next day to go home. So we’d only have to wait for the pediatrician before being discharged for the babies (thankfully she came in at 7 am Sunday!). I was surprised he allowed us to go home on time but he said he’d still check my levels and assuming all is good after the iron transfusion, he didn’t see a need to stay any longer. He knew how worried I was about being away from Magnolia (since it was the first time ever) and didn’t want to keep me longer than necessary!

I can’t even tell you how good to feels to be done being pregnant and delivering! I am 4 weeks post partum now and while my stomach is still insanely sensitive – not even where the incision is but my excess skin, etc – it feels good to be done with some of the recovery. I’m looking forward to week 6 when I can be released to lift Magnolia again and I guess to start working out…. 🙂 We’ll see when that happens though! The craziest thing though? I don’t know that I feel like that was my last time being pregnant?!?!?! I know people say you just know when it is… but I didn’t feel that way during my pregnancy at all or even now? Ask me again in 29 minutes though because I’m sure my answer will change! Ha! But it’s too soon to tell… we need to survive the twin newborn stage first, right?! Because it’s not for the faint hearted that’s for sure!

I can’t wait to share all of our adventures with our 3 girls – and hope you’ll follow along our craziness! Now, if I can just get myself dressed and out of the house with all 3, right?!