And out they came

This post is about 8 days overdue but well, who can blame me, I've pretty much had my hands full.
Anyway, the news is not that babies are here. I've been asked by numerous people to blog about what it was like to deliver the two babies. So here goes, for as long as they stay asleep that is.

Last Monday was my birthday. I'd prayed very hard that the babies would not make an appearance on my birthday because that would mean, for the rest of my life, I'd have to share my birthday with them and I'll never be able to go away for my birthday again. Yes, selfish, but I'm a person first, a mommy second. :)

Anyway, in the evening, we saw the Ob-gyn for the last time and he had scheduled the bubs to be taken out on Friday the 29th. He also said that I could finally stop taking my anti-contraction medication. So, I happily skipped the next dose and went on my way. I was a little bit angsty though because I knew that if the babies were born on Friday, I'd end up getting slapped with the 7% GST and I was pissed off enough with the hike as is. But at the same time, I knew that if it was really going to just happen on Friday, then there was a reason for that and resigned myself to it.

Tuesday, the 26th, at 4 in the morning, I woke up because my belly felt like it had seized up like a rock. It wasn't exactly painful but it woke me up. On and off, from that point on, it would harden like a rock. I thought, not a problem, Braxton Hicks and since I was off the meds, it was going to be more frequent anyway. When I finally got out of bed, I figured, I'd let the Ob-gyn know that the BH contractions were being rather pesky. I also knew he was going to be in surgery so I pottered around the house while waiting for him to get back to me.

At that point, I knew something wasn't quite right. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I was pretty much in a daze. Not quite all there. I'd stare blankly at the computer screen, talk in a flat monotone to my mother who rang and just take very long to compute things. When the nurse finally got back to me, she told me to head in to get a contraction reading taken. Taking no chances. Even then, the constant contractions were annoying the heck out of me. They still didn't hurt, but it made me walk or stand or sit funny.

Packrat joked on the way to the hospital that maybe today (meaning Tuesday) was the day. I was uncomfortable enough not to care and wondered what I could have for lunch. When I got to the labour ward and they strapped me up, I realised that the discomfort was pretty frequent now and with the chart, we saw that they were indeed hefty contractions that sent the squiggly line spiking Everest-Patagonia heights. Packrat also realised that he could foretell the contractions and pissed me off by setting his mobile to a countdown timer and counting down to me and grinning like a loon when he got it right. That's why men don't do the baby thing, they'll be pretty much focusing on the wrong thing. Well, one thing he did prove was that these spikes aka contractions were about 2-3 minutes apart. Still at this point, no pain, just discomfort.

By the time my Ob-gyn came round, I was fidgeting a whole lot because by the time I got over the discomfort of one, another one was round the corner. My Ob-gyn's eyes bugged when he looked at the monitor and announced that the contractions were a minute a part. In my mind, I was like, "er yah, tell me something I don't know." Anyhow, he looked at the clock and said that the babies were telling us they were ready to see the world and it was not much point waiting till Friday. He didn't think they were going to allow us to wait anyway. And he drained the blood from Packrat's face by telling him that he'd be a father in under an hour's time.

Me? I was zen. I was like ok, whatever. Let's just get it over with.

Everything happened very quickly and Packrat got dragged off to get gowned. I felt extremely disconnected from everyone clucking around me. I think it was the first time I saw my Ob-gyn look anxious. Pre-op prep happened very quickly and apparently, I went past go, collected $200 and was in the OT all in one breath. Even though I wasn't sedated yet, it really felt all surreal, with all these men in green fussing all over me.

I met the anaesthetist first because the man had to make sure I couldn't feel anything from chest down. Well, I didn't want to feel anything chest down, anyway so that was just as well. The most inappropriate thought I had at that point was "hmmm, I think the guy's gay. Wait till Packrat comes in and I'll ask him!" Yes, I was supposed to be worrying about my babies and should have been savouring my last moments of freedom but I was wondering about the sexual orientation of my anaesthetist.

I think without a doubt, the epidural was the most frightening part of the surgery. Trying to curl into a foetal position is incredibly difficult when there are two full term foetuses in the way. And when they tell you not to move? Seriously, haven't they not learnt anything after the gazillion years in med school? When you tell a person not to move or not to blink, you're just asking for them to move or blink. I knew the epidural kicked in when my leg started to feel like a ten ton weight and invaded with an army of black ants making its way down to my toes. Before they put up the curtain, I could still see my toes but when I told them to move, for the first time in my life, they disobeyed me and stayed limp. I was left marvelling at how horrid my toe nails looked with the nail colour of each of my big toe stripped off and the other four toes still bright purple. Then the curtain came down. Literally.

I started trembling at that point and they thought it was because I was cold but I didn't think so. On hindsight, I think it was the epidural. And when Packrat came in, looking all surgeon like, he mistook it for me being petrified. I don't think I really was but I couldn't say anything because I was trying very hard to not break my teeth with the chattering.

In the middle of all that, my Ob-gyn who had been waiting in the wings and looking all imperious suddenly announced that they were already mid way into the surgery. I was like, "hello, a little warning would have been good." Well, that was what I wanted to say. What I actually said was " uh....*chatter chatter chatter*..huh...."

The most disconcerting thing about having a c-section is when you're actually told that someone is going to shove your belly downwards so that your baby can be birthed and you can actually feel the sensation of someone bearing down on your belly. Gross. But that moment was replaced very quickly by an even more gross moment when over the curtain popped an extremely grey, gooey looking alien like being with blood and goo dripping everywhere. Ladies and gentleman, that was my daughter, Jordan. A split second later, she screamed bloody blue murder so I knew that she was ok. This was repeated two minutes later and in the same unceremonious manner, my son, Evan was presented to me. Goo. Blood. Grey. Alien. Gunk. Yuck. Right. I think that was what was going through my head.

The surgeons in the room constantly asked Packrat to participate, to look up when the babies were being yanked out of my belly, to cut the cord, to see them get cleaned, all of which, he staunchly refused fearing that he might pass out and be left in a puddle on the floor while everyone was busy tending to mother and children. I would have thought it funny but I found it extremely comforting to have him so close to me and didn't want him to move anywhere that was 30 cm from my face. When the babies were presented to us, I held one in one arm and looked at them and thought of all those tv moments where everyone is teary and touched by the life in their arms and all that jazz and realised I was like "these are my children? Ok. At least they're not gooey anymore."

We had a paediatrician come in to check on them and when he announced that they wouldn't need special care, I uttered a prayer of thanks. It was one of the things we had been earnestly praying for, that they wouldn't need special care. Then, Packrat was ushered out with the babies so that the surgeons could stitch me up. It took quite a while for that to happen. On hindsight, of course it was going to take a while. First, they had to stitch up my uterus. Then they had to stitch up my belly. I hoped at that point that my Ob-gyn's needlework was up to standard because I didn't want to look like a piece of botched up cross stitch.

So, basically, that was my adventure with child birth. By the time they wheeled me into my room, I was exhausted and didn't want to see anyone except Packrat. And for no reason, I just cried. I'm guessing much of it was the ebbing of the adrenaline and the shock my system had received but generally, that was the end of the birth experience and the beginning of the parenthood nightmare. :)

Now that I've had a week or so to think about things and look back, I'm thankful for so many things and it really was a delivery that was watched over by angels with all our prayers answered. We had prayed that my children and I wouldn't share a birthday and we don't. We're a day apart and that's kinda cool. We had prayed that the surgery and post op would be uneventful and it was. I was out of hospital 3 days later. I had been antsy that we might not have been able to beat the GST thingy and mercifully, we did. Otherwise, our hefty hospital bill would have been even heftier. Most importantly, we had prayed for a hand of protection on the babies and mercifully, that prayer was the one that was answered in the most obvious of ways. They did not need special care, they weren't born tiny, they didn't have to stay in hospital longer than I would have to and they fed right from the beginning (Evan gave us a few scares but generally, all was good), they had jaundice but a night of photo-therapy got that under control so all in, they really did have angels surrounding them and for all that, I cannot stop being thankful.

Now, they're home and it's a different story for a different blog post. That'll come next. Now, I shall sit back and marvel that I actually managed to finish this post in a day, in between feeding, expressing, eating, feeding, expressing .... you get my gist...

Later now.

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