Wait...WHAT?!?!

Writer's Workshop: Share a moment when you felt overwhelmed.
I'm only supposed to have moments?! I think most of my life I feel overwhelmed about one thing or another. Lol oh well, here goes. But you are getting two moments well, stories, they both lasted more than a moment. Deal. ;)

Wait...WHAT?!?!

January 11th, 2012 Early morning
Having a ultrasound today. I am eight weeks pregnant. We are excited but reserved. I lost a baby on October 16th of this last year at eight weeks. This appointment is to check on the baby and be sure that everything is starting up ok. I'm really nervous. You see, I have had two miscarriages since the birth of my then youngest daughter. One happened in November of 2010 and then again this last October. I'm afraid we aren't meant to have anymore children. My stomach hurts from the anticipation of this visit.

My friend and I talk about what the baby will look like at this stage. I have been canvassing the web finding pictures of 8 week ultrasounds. With my first two children I didn't get a sneak peek inside until 20 or so weeks when they determined the gender. I'm trying really hard not to get my hopes up.
The technician comes in and has me lay back on the table. My friend and I are chit chatting as the image comes up on screen. The technician is only barely getting focused on the correct area of my uterus when something crosses the screen that shouldn't have. A extra "bubble". She is already trying to skim over it.

"WAIT! WHAT?! IS THAT....NO...SURELY IT'S NOT..."




"Twins. There is two in there." The technician answered for me.

"WHA????" I looked at my friend in hopes that she could help me process this information. I was completely shell shocked...

She put her hand on my arm and said calmly because she is always calm like that, so glad I had her with me!, "Sweetie, you are having twins."

"WHA?! BUT! WAIT!" (No, those are not typo's. I wasn't finishing words let alone making complete sentences! The airhead in me comes out in all her shining glory.) "HOW?" At this point I felt almost completely numb from shock. I could not process what was going on around me.

The technician and my friend looked at each other and kinda laughed. Hence my need to clarify, "No, I mean, I know how! But, well, how did this happen? I wasn't taking anything to help with fertility and this doesn't run in my family! I'm so confused!"

Technician: "Sometimes it just happens."

My eyes fill with tears as I look back at my friend and I can see her eyes are filled with tears too. "It is just like your sister in law. She lost one and almost immediately ended up with two."

"Yes, honey, like my sister in law."

"I wish she was still here now."

"Me too, sweetie, me too."

I hurried home to show my husband. Are you ready for this?! His response to the ultrasound picture?! He laughed!!! Are you kidding me?! I was freaking out!!!

And I thought having two children running around was overwhelming! I had two babies inside of me. I was going to be huge! I was going to be doing double everything! Surely God was kidding! This was a cosmic joke of some kind! People with anxiety disorders like me shouldn't be allowed to get pregnant with twins! What was He thinking?! And then the fear set in...twins have a higher risk of miscarriage. I couldn't keep a single baby in, how was I going to make two stick?! Now what?!

I spent the majority of the pregnancy totally spooked about this adventure!


Fast forward to July 14th, 2012
At this point I'm in the hospital due to the preeclampsia. I'm retaining huge amounts of water and have a constant headache that is so painful that I literally want to curl up and die. They have me on pain medication that is ten times stronger than Morphine. I'm a lightweight when it comes to medication so needless to say I was high as a kite...almost all of the time! They had just put in a PCA of the medication for me and I was trying to learn how to administer it frequently enough to keep the pain at bay but not so much that I would tap out and not be allowed more. Early that morning I was having some Braxton hicks but just to be on the safe side they sent me down to L&D triage to be checked out. This was before the night shift nurses got off so I had a nurse I had met before. (At this point I was getting to know a lot of them.) They hooked me up to the contraction monitor but nothing showed up so they gave me the standard talk about Braxton hicks and how at this stage of twin pregnancy it is common for me to be feeling them a lot. They felt like really bad menstrual cramps so I figured it was nothing being that it was nothing like the contractions I felt while in labor with my two girls.

So anyway, throughout the day my stomach would cramp up from time to time and I didn't think much of it. I didn't think much of anything honestly being that the pain killers were still fairly strong in my system.

Late that night the cramping was getting worse and worse. I was timing how long they hurt for and how frequently they were occurring. I kept telling my nurse that it hurt but it was nothing. We went through the same thing this morning and it was nothing. Finally she said enough and sent me downstairs again to be checked. It was hurting pretty bad so I finally agreed.

They get me on the monitors and again, nothing. I have the same triage nurse as I did this morning and she remembered me. She gave me the same talk about Braxton hicks at this stage of pregnancy. She called the dr who was covering for my OB who has just left for vacation. (Which as a side note, before things started getting complicated I had begged my dr to delivery these guys before she left town because something in me seemed to know something would happen while she was gone. Something I will never let her live down. I was soooo right!) The dr on call mentioned to the nurse that it is looking like they should deliver me tomorrow given the number of complications that were beginning to arise. I was floored. I remember turning to my husband and saying, "tomorrow?! It can't be tomorrow! It is too soon! That is not the plan!" My husband basically told me to stop over reacting. Lol.

The nurse came back (intuition or something nudged her) and asked when the last time I had been manually checked was. Given that she hadn't checked me that morning, it had been, well, several weeks. So just to be sure she decides to check me. Up her hand goes. It hurt really bad this time around! It felt like she kept pushing higher and higher! I can hear her muttering, "I feel it but I don't believe it..."

This does not help me stay calm at all. I'm afraid she is about to pull out an alien with massive claws or something! "Feel what?! Believe what?!"

The nurse checks the contraction monitor again, but again, there is nothing showing up, even though I'm in serious pain now! Even with the pain killers in my system! She leaves the curtained off area and finds her head nurse person. Note to all, the curtain isn't soundproof! I catch her saying 8cm but surely she couldn't be talking about me because after all, there were no contractions showing up on the monitor. And it just felt like the menstrual cramps from hell, not contractions! The other nurse comes in and shoves her hand up there too, what was this a meet and greet?! "Hey boss, I left you a surprise inside this patient, go pull it out and see what you think!"

She confirms the nurses suspicions, sure enough I was 8cm and they could feel the bag of water just sitting there. "Call the dr back, these babies are coming tonight!"

WAIT! WHAT?!

Tomorrow is all of a sudden sounding really good! Forget tomorrow! These babies can't come NOW!!!! I'm not ready! No one is here! There was a plan! We. Had. A. Plan. Our plan just flew out the window and took my coping skills with it. There was a reason for the plan. It was to prevent P-A-N-I-C!!

At this point they snagged all nurses on deck that were not working with critical in labor patients to help with me. They threw the locks off the gurney wheels and sent me flying down the hallway to prep me for an emergency C-section.

I had no time to actually process what was happening. I kept telling them to stop, to give me something for the pain(yea, I forgot that part, as soon as they knew it was labor they cut me off the pain meds so now I was feeling full on labor with no work up time AND the excruciating headache from the preeclampsia!), but it seemed like no one heard me! They were telling me things as they were doing them not before.

"I'm cutting your shirt off so we can get the gown on." Yes, yes you are cutting my shirt, thanks for asking me about it first! What if I liked that shirt and wanted to keep it?! I didn't, but what if I did?!

"Here drink this, it's gross but think of it like a shot. Down the hatch." seriously?! I'm dying and you want me to pretend this thing is a shot of whiskey? Give me real whiskey, damn it, this hurts!! "It neutralizes the stomach."

Bzzzz!! WTF? "We have to shave you for surgery." WAIT! I didn't sign on for this! Why are you touching me there with an electric razor?! Why didn't you ask me first?! I'm here too you know! And where is my husband?!...Oh, there he is, in the back corner, out of the way so they could do their job.....the hell with being in the way I need you here with me!

OW!! Seriously?! It hurts! Both babies are breech and Baby A is trying to push his butt out my hoo haw! Drugs! Give me drugs! Anything! Can't you tell I'm dying here?!?! Oh no, have to wait for the blood test results! Oh yea, at some point they pulled my blood to run tests. I've had lab work done at the hospital before and it takes forever to get results back! Do I get pushed to the front of the que because my babies are trying to come out upside down and backwards and no one noticed till now?! I thought being in the hospital was supposed to prevent this emergency thing! They were supposed to notice sooner!

I don't even remember being wheeled from the delivery room into the operating room. They sat me up, "hi doc, nice to see you, I'm dying can you tell? Btw, where is my husband?" What do you mean he can't come in here till I'm prepped?! The hell with that he should be forced to witness the most painful parts! So here I am on the operating table, contractions are making me want to die so I know I must be in transition now. If they don't hurry up this baby is going to push out backwards. My last kid came out in only 3 pushes, count 'em, 3!!! Now I'm supposed to lean over and STAY still! Seriously? I mean, really?! We are contracting hard, even though it still feels like menstrual cramps, my head wants to blow up, literally!, and they are stabbing me with a huge ass needle!

I'm going to die! I'm going to die! "Look doc, it was nice knowing you and all, tell my doc I told her to deliver me before she left! I'm going to die, tell my husband I love him being that you won't let him in!" She had the gall to laugh! Really? You Are Laughing?!

Bless her heart, she took pity on me and came up next to me and rubbed my head to help me through this and reassured me I wasn't going to die. The anesthesiologist had to stab me three times! Finally he got it in! What did my body do with the next contraction to thank him? Farted! Yea! Right in his face! Awesome! How else am I going to be tortured tonight?! Let's add humility to the list! After all, I think my modesty was stripped away as they cut my shirt off and shaved me down. To add insult to injury, when they finally laid me back, oh I felt so much better all of a sudden! He was my knight in shining armor! Forget my husband, he wasn't even there yet! This guy was hot!....do epidural's affect the brain? This guy was totally in the right profession! You provide relief to woman in their darkest hour! Surely I'm not the only pregnant laboring woman to hit on you right?! I told him he was hot like three times. My husband is convinced that if he weren't in the room(yea they finally let him in) I would have asked the guy out! Sad truth is it did cross my mind!

They taped my stomach down, weird is all I can say, but by this point I had stopped caring about it all. The pain had stopped, the rest I would deal with later. Out came my babies one after another which triggered a whole new overwhelming moment, but we won't get into that!