They're he-re!

Sorry for the delay in posting this - it's been a whirlwind and hard to balance our time and take care of ourselves all at once.

Charlotte Doreen Sparks born at 8:21 am, 3lb 8oz, 16 inches long.
Lilah Choriene Sparks born at 8:22 am, 3lb, 16 inches long.

Here's how it went:

At around 6 am on Monday, a nurse came in and shaved my bikini line (how many times in your life will you have someone say, "I'll see you in the morning for your shave"?), wash my belly for 5 straight minutes, and insert an IV into my hand. A little after 7 we left Sean behind in the room and they brought me in to the operating room and had me sit on the table. A variety of people in scrubs and masks started introducing themselves, but unless I had met them before it was hard to differentiate which pair of eyes went with which person.

The anesthesiologist came in and introduced herself and we got started. On my right hand I had a set of IV tubing and a pulse meter, on my right arm I had the blood pressure cuff that was inflating intensely every few minutes, on my belly I had two bands and monitors for the babies heart rates, and then she asked me to do the classic bending forward for the spinal and epidural needle. Now, I'm not claustrophobic, but I was feeling very overwhelmed with all of this gear on and actually already starting to panic a little.

She put in the first shot to numb my spine area, and it burned for a second but was otherwise fine. She went to insert the needle for the spinal and I still wasn't completely numb yet - it hurt so badly that I screamed "F*CK" and nearly jumped off the table. I quickly apologized for swearing, but it was my first response!

My legs got a little weak so when they had everything in, they swiveled me around and had me lay back. My legs almost immediately started feeling the hot tingly sensation as though they had completely fallen asleep and my instinct was to try to shift them and get the circulation back, but of course neither moving or stopping the sensation was a possibility. The tingling was painful and maddening but it did mean that I was numb and it was a common result of the anesthesia. Then it started creeping up too high and my mouth and tongue became numb and I started hearing a metallic echo of every single sound in the room. I couldn't get the noises out of my head and that's when I really started to panic. It was all too much for me to handle all at once and I was in misery. Then the shivering started. I told Sean when he came in at that point that I'd rather be pregnant for the rest of my life than to go through all this again.

Within a few minutes, the drape had been placed just under my chin and I couldn't see them start the cutting, but I did feel the pressure and movement happening. It only took about 5 minutes and they were telling Sean to get his camera ready because the first girl was on her way out. We all held our breath for a moment and then suddenly I heard Sean say, "Oh, there she is!" and we all heard the baby give a strong cry. I said, "Oh, she's crying - that's so great!" because it meant she had some level of lung function all on her own, which was very exciting.

They quickly handed baby A off (who turned out to be the bigger of the two) and reached in for baby B. They told Sean to get ready for the next girl, and sure enough, out came baby B. She gave a small sneeze and was quickly whisked away. The perinatologist then pulled up the umbilical cord and we were all amazed to see that there was just one small loose knot between the cords - not at all the tangled mess we were all anticipating. It was actually pretty amazing that it wasn't worse!

The pediatrician asked if Sean wanted to join him, which had been the plan all along, so he went along with both girls into a side room off the OR where they were weighed and stabilized. Baby A was breathing room air, so they gave her a nasal cannula, but baby B needed a little more help so they put her on a CPAP (more on that later). Before they took the girls back to the NICU, they did wheel the incubators past my gurney so I could see them both, but it was so far away and my angle of view was so awkward that I couldn't see much more than that there was a baby inside.

In the meantime, they took another 30-40 minutes to sew up my uterus in two different layers (in case I wanted to have another pregnancy at some point) and then neatly stitch up the skin. I was moved to a nearby room for pain management and ended up spending several hours in there taking about 10mg of morphine altogether because I was in so much pain. I think the majority of the pain was due to the pitocin they were administering to try to get my uterus contracting back to a smaller size - it's tough on a newly cut uterus to contract that much.

We made a few calls to our parents so that they could relay the information on to everyone else and Sean spent the next few hours going back and forth between me and the NICU, getting updates on the girls and checking on us all. He took such great care of us all!

We made a few calls to all of our parents with the basic information so that they could relay it on to everyone else and eventually the nurses wheeled me in to the NICU to really see my daughters for the first time. They seemed so small and yet so big to have fit into my belly all at once! I was able to touch them briefly and then they brought me back to recover in the room where I'd already spent 50 days.

Later in the afternoon I was able to get into a wheelchair (thank you, Torradol, painkiller of the Gods) and visit the NICU for a longer time. I ended up being able to hold both of the girls at some point and Charlotte even opened her eyes and looked up at me for a few minutes. They were so tiny and light and I could barely make myself give them back.

They were born so early that their bodies didn't have much of a chance to make enough surfactant in their lungs (Here is a link to a site that explains it http://www.curoservice.com/parents_visitors/surfactant/) and so breathing is difficult. Even though they started out doing ok, the more they ask their lungs to work without enough surfactant, the harder it becomes, so they seem like they're going downhill but it is to be expected. On Monday evening, Charlotte was moved to CPAP and now on Tuesday afternoon the nurses are talking about moving Lilah to a ventilator. The good news is that some babies will get through this on their own and start making enough surfactant to move away from breathing assistance. For those that don't, once the baby is on a ventilator the staff can administer artificial surfactant and have the same result.

Charlotte had some high blood sugar when she was born, so they gave her a reduced IV feed until it was back to normal, but that made her a little dehydrated and it was hard for them to find a good vein when they went to change her IV to a new location.

All of this was completely expected and not at all worrisome since we know they'll get past it eventually without any lasting effects. It's just tough, particularly on me, not to be able to hold them and to have to wait until they're awake before reaching in to touch them so that we don't disrupt their rest. But when they do wake up, they sometimes open their swollen little eyes and look right at us and that makes everything else fade away.

Charlotte's facial features are a little more defined because of her larger size, and since they're both so little, right now they just look like squishy baby faces, but some people have said they resemble me. I do know they have Sean's ears, incredibly long feet and fingers, and tiny little rosebud mouths that are simply adorable. The CPAP machines are covering their faces most of the time, so I haven't had a chance to study them closely, but they'll change so much in the coming weeks that it will be fun to see them mature and speculate on who they look like.

In the meantime, we're trying to balance taking care of ourselves (my pain is a big focus) with being around the girls as much we can, so we haven't had many chances to touch base with people, even though we know you're all itching to hear more. We'll continue to post here on the blog with updates. Check out our photo albums to see a little of our adventure!

Hospital pictures

Charlotte and Lilah