A week ago today was one of the worst days of my life up to this point. I know in life you are going to pass obstacles that are going to be hard to overcome. To this point, I have had some rough patches, but this, by far, was the worst. After your baby is born and you hear the cry, it is an instant sigh of relief. In my case, two cries put my mind at ease and tears of pure joy ran down my face. They were here, they were safe, they were alive, my liver problem would officially be over and I would have no more pains and no more medicine. Well, I was wrong. Although the girls were 5 weeks early, we all thought that everything was going to be perfect despite Amelia's small size and the fact that the cord was wrapped around Adalyn's neck at birth. After the girls were born, they both scored a 9/10 on their Apgar test. This is the test that is given right after birth to evaluate if emergency care is needed. In their case, the answer was no.
They were cleaned, their footprints complete, swaddled and put into Aaron's arms and I watched him look at them. Everything was perfect besides the fact I wasn't able to wipe my own tears, hold them, or even give them a name. No one was taken away in an emergency and I was still alive. Everything really was perfect. I was aware of everything going on and my wonderful doctor was talking to me as she was finishing her job. Specifically, I remember her telling me that now my cousin and I had matching Dr. V specials.
After the procedure was over, we went back to the room with the babies. We fed them, took pictures, and sent them to the nursery so I could get some sleep because it was in the one o'clock hour of the morning. I apologize now to my friends for the text message I sent them at 1:41 a.m. that the girls had arrived! I guess time stops when you arrive at the hospital during the night! I didn't get much sleep that night because I was itching like crazy and it was driving my mom crazy. She had stayed with me and sent Aaron home to be with Jayden. She planned on leaving early that morning and then Aaron would come back with Jayden to meet his sisters. At 3 or 5 am I finally took medicine so I would stop itching and it would make me fall asleep. I am sure this was a good thing, but it really make me feel crazy and stupid. I remember talking to Aaron's mom on the phone, I remember someone talking to me about Aaron's social security number for their birth certificates as well as their names (I gave her the wrong social security number and no names for the babies), and I remember some lady talking to me about the girls' newborn pictures. I am sure 6am-8am is a normal time to talk to someone, but not after they took a sleeping pill a few hours prior. Needless to say, I don't think much was accomplished in any of those conversations. I bet I sounded like a zombie. I am also pretty sure a million text messages were coming through my phone of people asking for the names of the girls and all of their stats. I could tell them nothing but weight and length, which I believe I got wrong and just the names baby A and baby B.
On Wednesday morning when I woke up or the nurses woke me up, I can't remember, they told me they would be back at 9:30 in the morning with the babies for me to feed them. Well, 9:30 came around and no babies were back in the room. Something wasn't right.
From what I have heard, Amelia (B, as they called her) had stopped breathing and the doctors were working on her, when one turned around they saw that Adalyn (A) was blue and not breathing either. I am pretty sure that someone shouted "twin A isn't breathing" and someone replied "twin B?", and someone answered "no, twin A!" Adalyn did this five times in a short period, so she had to be tubed and moved to the NICU at St. John's. I guess it was mad chaos in the nursery during this situation and one of my mom's church friends was there to witness the entire emergency. This is not something I would want to see in my entire life. Ever.
I remember a nurse coming to me and saying that our baby A, Adalyn had stopped breathing and was going to be transported. That is when I made everyone leave the room except Aaron--well my Mom stood at the door because she understands nurse talk. I don't. A really nice nurse from St. John's came in along with a neonatologist, Dr. Nimavat, and explained to us what happened to Adalyn to the detail. They told me that they would bring her into my room, so I could say goodbye and explained what I would be seeing when they brought her in. The next thing I knew they wheeled her in my room, on a stretcher, with a breathing tube in her mouth, laying lifeless hooked up to a machine with a million cords in a closed crib. I think this is officially when she got her name. I wanted her to leave me with a name in case she didn't come back. That picture is not what you want to see for anyone, especially your own. It is so hard to understand and so hard to watch your little baby be taken away from you after everything was so perfect just the night before. Aaron rode in an ambulance with her to St. John's so she didn't have to be alone. As for me, I was stuck in bed helpless to the situation.
At this point, I know that Amelia, who still didn't have a name, wouldn't be able to come back to my room because she had to be under the warmer and was hooked up to three different monitors and had IV's in her hand and foot. Only two visitors were able to come back to see her including me, which meant only one person could visit with me. They didn't want us to hold her because of the IV and the feeding tubes, but finally when Aaron came back from being with Adalyn I was able to hold her. I pretty much lost it at that point. One baby away not knowing how she was and what was going on and one tiny baby laying hooked up to what seemed to be a million different things. However, Amelia was in better shape than Adalyn. She was a fighter. She had to fight for space. Had to fight for food and now she proved to be the one that was doing the best at her mere 4 lbs 7 oz weight versus her sister who was almost a pound bigger. This is how she became Amelia, which means fighter. It wasn't until the next day, January 5th, that she officially had a name besides "Sweet Pea".
The doctors thought the girls had infections causing their spells of apnea, so they put both of them on very high doses of antibiotics while running a million blood tests to check for everything under the book. This simply made me sick that something more was wrong than them just being premature. I don't think I slept for two days after this just crying and worrying about the girls. I thought maybe it was my fault they were sick because I was still up on my feet doing things around the house and taking care of everything you do as a mom up until the hour before we went to the hospital. I thought maybe this liver problem had caused them problems. Really, my mind didn't stop and I am sure that contributed to my lack of sleep.
This wasn't supposed to happen. It seemed like it took forever to get any answers from anyone about what was going on. I tried my best to hold it together, of course I cried here and there, and only truly lost it, I mean lost it once because I was so confused, worried, and tired. I'd say Wednesday was the worst day and night for me up to this point in my life. I don't even remember who stayed with me that night. I think it was Aunt Jane and then Aaron came up late. I couldn't be alone, but I didn't want Adalyn to be alone either. It was hard. I think I cried myself to sleep that night because I felt so guilty that both babies had no one with them for the first time in their life, but at the same time, I couldn't be alone.
Things started looking up after a few days, from what I can remember. I feel for anyone who has to go through anything worse than what we did. I have learned from the other babies with Adalyn, that our situation wasn't and isn't the worst, it was just scary because it happened so fast and it was so unexpected. Really, what happened was for the best. There are so many sick little babies at St. John's and I feel so blessed that out of those babies, ours ended up being the healthy one. I met another mom who was on best rest for 6 weeks, had triplets at 30 weeks, and would be staying and visiting her babies until March 16th, which would be the earliest discharge date. She lost feeling in her foot and is living at the Ronald McDonald House because she can't drive over an hour each day to see them. Or even worse the sweet little baby next to Adalyn had her eyes sewn shut today because of a rare skin condition she has. Her parents have to wear gloves to touch her. Now that throws things into perspective for you and makes you thankful for the short stay and worst day you went through. Their nightmares are still continuing and my bad dream is finally ending.
A week later and after a lot of trips to St. John's and Memorial, I packed a bag for sweet girl Adalyn with her coming home outfit. It is half as full as it was when we went to the hospital the first time. It makes me sad that she had to spend her first week of life mostly alone after spending 35 weeks with her sister. It makes me even more sad that poor Amelia, who we thought would be home first, is still at the hospital trying to grow and get strong so she can come home too. I can't wait to have the sisters back together with each other. I know they are going to be happy. I just hope they send that identical twin vibe to each other that identical twins have (just ask a set) and Amelia continues to eat more at each feeding (she ate 50cc for me tonight then nursed and only eats around 40cc for the nurses) and will be home soon. I hate it for her that her stay might be twice as long as Adalyn's. However, I know that she needs to grow and stay warm, but right now I think I am to the point that she would be better off with me than where she is right now. However, that is another story for another day.
Keeping growing sweet pea and sweet girl!! We will be visiting Amelia tomorrow then heading to St. John's to pick Adalyn up and bring her home. I am anxious, excited, nervous, and sad all at the same time. I just hate that little Amelia is still all alone while Adalyn will be home in our arms. At the same time, the third string on my heart has been tugging all week for big boy to be home with us too. I haven't heard his little voice or funny little words since Saturday! Three babies away from home for over a week, just might be too much for one momma to handle but I guess I haven't had three babies at home to compare it to!
Thank you to our friends and family for all of your phone calls, text messages, Facebook messages, and visits to the hospital to check on the girls and me during our rough week. We are really lucky to have so many people who care about us and keep thinking of us. I am sorry if you text or called and I haven't gotten back to you. I know you understand and soon enough I can't wait to talk on the phone to some of my friends. I need that! Thank you to our friends and family who put the girls on their prayer lists at church. A special thanks to my Mom and Aunts who spent hours sitting with me, listening to nurse reports or sitting feeding babies when I couldn't. I know all of the love has helped the girls grow!
