Our Birthing Adventure - Part 1

On Sunday, March 9, 2014 at 5pm, my water broke.  Hubby and I were hoping the babies would come soon since our OB was leaving on vacation, March 12.

We were admitted into BC Women's at 6pm and I was asked if we wanted to proceed with a natural birth or C-section. I really wanted to try to birth naturally so I opted to be induced with Oxytocin by 9pm.  I was only 1 cm dilated when I first arrived. Wilson turned green when he saw the anesthesiologist prepped the epidural stint. By 12:30pm the next day, My OB was on "shift". He recommended I stop since I was only 3-4 cm dilated. To complicate matters, I was experiencing pain in my upper back and neck. Hubby had to massage me during labour since the epidural was only good for the waist down.

So off they wheeled me into the OR. The anesthesiologist told me that I shouldn't feel any pain only pressure points. They brought in hubby to sit next to me and I watched the curtain get put up between us. That's when I felt like I was being outlined. I was pretty sure I knew exactly what was happening. The anesthesiologist quickly told me that hubby would have to leave the room and that I was be put completely under.

My hubby was left out in in the hallway waiting for over an hour. All he saw was doctors and nurses running in and out of the OR.  Apparently because I was completely under, the babies were affected too.  Isabella was not breathing for 5 minutes and Isaac for 12 minutes.  There was a fantastic resuscitation team who breathed for the twins to ensure there was no brain damage.

My OB finally came out to see my hubby to tell him that the twins were fine, but my darling man was only concerned about my well being and asked the doctor, "What about my wife?"

My husband was seated at my side when I was in the recovery room next to the OR.  As I was slowly awakening from the anaesthesia, doctors were coming in and massaging and feeling my uterus to help it contract.  My hubby left for a moment to go to the washroom and when he returned, he was greeted with me screaming (I don't remember any of this) and a doctor manually removing blood clots from my uterus because I was hemorrhaging.  As clots were being removed, blood was spewing out.  My hubby described it as being in a horror movie!

I lost 700mL of blood from the C-section and 600mL from the hemorrhage. I was kept in in ICU for the next day before moving to the Postpartum ward. Needless to say it was a long stay... Sunday to Saturday.