Welcome to the world, Hyrum and Audrianne!

FAIR WARNING: THIS IS A BIRTH STORY - A SOMEWHAT DETAILED BIRTH STORY WRITTEN FOR ME TO REMEMBER. YOU DECIDE IF YOU CAN HANDLE IT OR NOT AND PROCEED WITH CAUTION. :)

IT'S ALSO LONG. Again I wrote it for me - and I'm sharing it with you. But don't feel obligated to read it. :)

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Continuing where my story left off...

My mom flew in the next day on Thursday so she could be here to help watch Abi while we were in the hospital. I know there are many family and friends who would have been happy to help with Abi and I appreciate them for that! That being said, there is a special kind of peace that comes from knowing Abi is with my mother. It was lovely to not worry a bit about Abi so I could focus completely on me and our new babies. I was also glad my mom got to arrive before the delivery so she could see how huge I had grown and really sympathize with me. :) Check out my day-before-delivery self! Wow! I was so uncomfortable and so ready to be done!

Fuzzy, but you get the picture

My feet suffered quite a bit from so many months of swelling - they swelled multiple times but from June on they never shrank fully down.

My poor feet!

For comparison - my feet today on January 9, 2017

Our instructions from the hospital were to eat a "light" breakfast, stop eating by 6:30AM and arrive at the hospital at 8:30AM. So I had a decent breakfast at 6, went back to bed, woke up at 7:30 and we got to the hospital just a little after 8:30AM. Turns out the doctor thought I was coming at 7:30AM - not sure where the miscommunication happened but they were ready and waiting when I arrived.

37 weeks

Do we look tired yet? This is my only experience with birth and delivery but I rather liked walking into the hospital and prepping for delivery while not in labor. I felt pretty happy and able to take everything in as they got us set up in the room. We even got to take these last couple photos.

Our last photo as one-child parents

After lots of signing of paperwork, blood draws, IV's, answering tons of questions about health history, and other things I can't remember now we finally started the pitocin to induce labor at 11AM.

So far, it's still fun and games

While we waited and continued to answer questions (I remember having to answer the health history twice for some silly reason), James painted my toenails. My awesome sister Katie requested he do this so that when I was in pain I could see my beautiful toes and have a little sunshine in my life. About noon we had to sign a consent to deliver... like we had a choice at this point...

Purple toenails!

Right after the pitocin was started, the nurse told me to let her know when I wanted the epidural which left me really confused. I didn't have a clue what the appropriate time was - I didn't want to be a wimp and get it too soon and risk slowing down the labor process, but I didn't want to be stupid and wait too long. I pressed the nurse about when a person should get an epidural and she explained that you have to be able to sit still to get the epidural placed so I should get it put in place before the pain is so bad that I can't quit moving. That was a really great answer for me! I can measure that.

So just before 1PM, we had the epidural placed. It wasn't too bad - I mean, we got pregnant thanks to lots of needles so this was just par for the course. The worst part was having to curl my back over as much as possible. I don't know if you have noticed in my baby bump pictures but my back has been curved backward for months so trying to bend it forward was way difficult. I tried to bend as far as I could and the anesthesiologist kept requesting I bend further and finally I just said, "That's all I've got!" Haha! The nurse then informed him I had twins in there. Sheesh. It's amazing how normally easy things are so hard when you're pregnant. After the epidural, the pain went away, but I got pretty cold and shaky so they brought me warm towels and wrapped me up! I told James that I hadn't been so comfortable since getting pregnant.

Warm blankets from heaven I'm pretty sure

This is just a silly picture of the info board that they filled out for us. James updated it with some humorous lines from our lives, Brian Regan and a few other pop culture things to make me smile.

Our board with James' personal touch

Thanks to the epidural, I felt great most of the day. James and I watched a couple "I Love Lucy" episodes which kept me laughing. Things seemed to crawl! By 3:30PM I was dilated to 4CM+. It was killing me to be going so slow! My contractions had not been regular despite the fact that the nurses kept upping the pitocin. At 6PM, I was only dilated to 5CM still so they placed an internal monitor to watch the contractions more accurately so that they could justify continuing to increase the pitocin dosage and the contractions finally became 2-3 minutes apart.

By this point, my family was also dying. They were making bets on whether the babies would be born that day or the next and what time. I decided the babies wanted to be born on different days so they were waiting until midnight. Mom wisely predicted that it would still be a couple hours since I still felt well enough to text. She was right because the next time the doctor checked me at 7:30PM, I had jumped to 8CM dilated and ten minutes later was super nauseous. Either no one told me, or I forgot that throwing up was a natural part of labor. The doctor was chatting with James and I was getting more and more nauseous and trying to breathe through it and finally had to interrupt the conversation to alert the doctor to my current state. I was sure something was dreadfully wrong but she surprised me by not being surprised at all. She actually seemed satisfied and got me a throw up container. That wasn't the reassurance I wanted because I didn't want to throw up - duh. But I ended up throwing up three times before it was over. This is not fun when you are not allowed to eat or drink anything or get up out of bed because there was no easy way to get the nasty taste out of my mouth. However, I have an amazing husband who got me water to swish and spit and mouthwash and cleaned me up and made me feel better. He also took this great photo that I have debated sharing but seriously, this is part of the story. My family didn't want anymore pictures at this point until I was happy again. Haha! I don't blame them. This was when the fun ended and didn't start again until the babies arrived. My texts also basically ended but my family kept up the fun and James kept me up to speed by reading them to me when I felt good enough to concentrate. I loved having my family "there" to distract me. They're great! I also had a dream that was building in intensity of drinking a Sprite. This became my reward that I kept looking forward to - a Sprite and a nap!

In case you think I look too happy all the time

At 9PM I was dilated to 9.5CM and that's where I stayed for hours! The doctors and nurses checked me multiple times hoping I'd be ready. They wanted to let the babies do as much of the work as possible before I exhausted myself pushing. I appreciate that but sheesh we were so impatient and nothing seemed to be happening. Finally, at about 1AM, the doctor decided I was dilated enough and ready to deliver but she wanted me to be able to feel the urge to push with the contractions which meant we had to take the epidural dosage down for a while until I could feel things happening again. She instructed me to let them know when I felt the urge to push. I was worried about the pain and asked how long it would take to which she said we were aiming to hit a magic point between when the medicine was worn off enough to feel the urge to push but just before the pain got too intense and that it might take about an hour to get to that point. Wrong! All I felt was pain, no urge to push. It got so unbearably uncomfortable by 3AM (two hours later) that I was begging James to go find a nurse and tell her I felt the urge to push even though I didn't really. I just wanted it to be over.

The resident doctor came and checked me about 3:15AM and almost panicked because I guess I was really ready - good thing I lied about pushing I guess? Suddenly everything was in motion and there were a bunch of people in my room tearing the bed apart to wheel me to the operating room. When you have twins, you deliver in the OR even if you do a vaginal delivery just in case they have to switch gears to a cesarean delivery last minute. The resident doctor kept telling me not to push and I kept thinking, not a problem! Ha! Oops. And it wasn't. I never once felt a real urge to push.

When we got to the OR, some of the nurses were preparing me to transfer to the operating table and I just kept thinking, please no. I could hardly move from the pain and at this point, my legs weren't responding well either. Oh yeah, I have neglected to tell this detail; I had gone through several bags of IV fluid (it was five total bags by the end) and my legs were super swollen. I thought they were swollen when I arrived at the hospital but, Wow! were they swollen by delivery time! So, as they're just beginning to ask me to work myself onto the operating table, the doctor arrived and told them to let me stay on the gurney thing I was already on. I could have kissed her just for that!

To set the stage, I was laying in this bed with James on my left holding my hand with a contraband cup of ice chips that the doctor gave us permission to have - I was so parched by this point; it was 3:30AM, I hadn't eaten or drunk anything since 6:30AM and I was pregnant and starving. The doctor and the resident doctor were at the foot of the bed with two nurses or medical students on each side helping to hold my feet in the air because my poor legs were so swollen and numb, I could not physically hold them up. There was also at least one medical person watching the monitor of the heart rates on the babies and two nurses standing by waiting to receive the babies. There were also a couple people on standby outside the room in case it turned into a c-section. I'm not sure how many others were there but this was already a huge crowd.

And while everyone was running around getting ready, I was still laying there dying from pain, I was pretty sure. And to make it worse, I felt like James was not really part of it with me. To be clear, he totally was, but when you're in that situation, you suddenly feel like the husband should be just as involved as you and things get very badly misinterpreted. How can a husband be as involved as the wife at this point anyway, really? There's no good answer to this. Anyway, I kept looking to him for relief while at the same time trying to zone out and ignore the pain. That's when he tried to be helpful; he thought maybe he could distract me from the pain so he says this, "BYU won the game in double overtime!" HAHA! I don't think I even opened my eyes because all I felt was an increase in pain and irritation. I just said, "Shut up! Don't talk to me about anything except this again until it's over!" Haha! Poor James. Husbands cannot win this game. It's not built for them to win it. But now we have our joke portion of the poor husband/wife feud during labor.

Once the heart monitors were set on the babies, they quickly ran through what to do to push the babies out and this is where I failed the whole process. I should have taken the stupid class. I had no idea what to do and it became quite obvious very soon. After the first contraction and pushing I about cried. I couldn't believe how hard it was physically but again, I was so exhausted already. I asked the doctor, "Some people do this for three hours?!" to which she said, "Yes, but you're not going to." She was so good to me! Haha! Every time I pushed I felt like I was going to pass out - I saw circles in my vision and could hardly breathe.

They kept counting to ten to help me know how long to push but I swear they waited for four seconds before they started counting! It was frustrating me - I wanted to stop them and yell something like, "No, we're already at five! Don't you dare say one now!" After a few pushes, they realized how horribly wrong I was pushing and had to correct me. They kept saying to push like I was having a bowel movement but I still had no feeling in any of those muscles at all. I never did. It was awfully confusing and frustrating.

I think it took me 45 minutes of pushing to just learn how to push. At one point, the doctor was really encouraging me to give it my all and I just said, "I can't do it!" and she was so good to push me and tell me I could. I feel like she somehow knew where the line was for me of how far she could push me and when it was time to intervene but I'm getting ahead of myself. They kept telling me to push as hard as I could and not let me breath go until the full ten seconds was up so I told her I felt like I was going to pass out every time I pushed and suddenly I had an oxygen tube placed in my nose. Haha! (Funny story: the next day Abi started counting and I almost had a panic attack. No more counting to ten!)

Between each contraction, James put ice in my mouth because my mouth was SO dry! I could not have done that without the ice - I've never had such dry mouth. All I could think about was how amazing a nice cold Sprite was going to taste!

So let me pause here and say that I didn't take a birthing class for multiple reasons; one, because we waited too long and by then James couldn't go with me because his business travel schedule didn't match the class schedule. Two, because we weren't guaranteed a vaginal delivery and every time I told anyone that I was pregnant with twins and wanted a vaginal delivery I was nearly chewed out. I know I shouldn't care what people think but I guess I do and I worried that I'd go to the birthing class and be laughed out of it because they'd all assume it would be c-section. Three, I was so huge by the end and uncomfortable that I didn't want to do anything but lay on the couch. Keep in mind, during the last couple months of my pregnancy I had one ultrasound tech see how high twin B was in my rib cage and she said, "How are you even breathing?" and the very next week another ultrasound tech saw how low twin A was in my pelvis and said, "I can't believe you are still walking!" When the ultrasound techs who work for the special cases group are amazed, you know something is unusual.

So anyway, back to the story. I had no idea how long I had been pushing. Honestly time did not exist to me. Maybe it was a coping response to the pain but I sort of mentally checked out and my senses didn't process everything like usual. At one point, I recognized that a nurse was moving the heart monitors around and messing with things on my belly and I heard things like, "Oh, that's the girl." I didn't know what was going on but James very lovingly urged me to really try (to which I probably thought, "Yeah, because up to now I've just been lollygagging enjoying the journey"). He seemed urgent in his plea to me to get the baby out right away in this next push. Because I was on the top of my game (sarcasm), I assumed he was purposely sounding urgent to make me think something was up to help me along and that just irritated me a little that I couldn't tell if he was sincere or pulling my leg.

Well, turns out something WAS up. There were two heart monitors strapped to my belly - one to monitor each baby for signs of distress to help them decide if we needed to jump to c-section. At one point, the computer was only registering one heart beat. They thought at first that it was twin B that they couldn't find and so they were adjusting the monitors furiously trying to find the heart beat and discovered that it was actually twin A's heart beat that was missing. And try as the could, they couldn't get the computer to register more than one heart beat. I didn't realize any of this. James could read the faces of the doctors and nurses and knew that we needed to get twin A out NOW. Like I said, I was mentally checked out. The doctor told me she was going to start using the vacuum to help deliver the baby and I was instantly flooded with relief. In my head, I was begging them to just cut the babies out of me and end it, so hearing that she was going to use the vacuum assured me that the end was near. I was also nervous though because having to get help from a vacuum seemed to signal that it was getting complicated.

All the medical people and my husband were cheering me on through the next contraction and I tried so hard but I was so tired! And I was losing my faith in myself. A good friend of mine had sent me a text earlier that week with a quote which became my mantra. It was simply, "She believed she could, so she did." I just kept saying that to myself in my head and sometimes out loud to help me focus on the possibilities and not on giving up, though I desperately wanted to give up. The first contraction with the vacuum didn't work. We rested and I tried to muster energy and power for the next contraction and finally I heard James saying, "He's coming, Heidi!" That is the best motivator, honestly. That's when a husband wins - haha! And finally, I felt the relief of having less inside me, and I heard the crying and I opened my eyes and there was the bloodiest baby I've ever seen. Hehe! James and I both just stared for half a second before I elbowed James and yelled, "Pictures!" Because I think I could only speak in one word sentences by then.

He pulled his phone out and started snapping pictures and we both completely forgot about cutting the cord until they were handing him scissors. Wow! How emotional!

"Want to cut the cord, Dad?"

Now, let me be clear that it can be stupid to research too much before delivery. I am not too crunchy granola-y but I did want to nurse my babies and I did want to have good bonding with my babies and I had read that immediate skin-to-skin helps nursing get off to a good start and having twins and fertility problems are already two strikes against successful nursing so I wanted all the help I could get. When the doctor had asked me earlier in the day if I wanted skin-to-skin after the birth, I enthusiastically said yes! I had read it all, I knew it was the best option. So Yes!

And then they handed my new baby boy to me.

And my first thought was, "What am I supposed to do with him now?" I couldn't move, I was still huge so I couldn't balance him on my stomach. I still had that sinking feeling of not being able to relax because I had to do that all over again. I was happy to see him but honestly, it was not at all what I thought it would be. The crunchy-granola people lied to me. Haha! They told me this would be a magical moment. The nurse took him pretty quickly and I just looked at my hands that were now all bloody and guess what, nobody cared. Everyone was focused on the new baby including James who had left my side to take pictures of our boy getting all cleaned up and also of course focused on twin B. So, my magical skin-to-skin moment was definitely anticlimactic especially because then I felt guilty for not feeling the magic. It's not you, baby boy, it's me. (BTW, you can tell in the picture, it wasn't skin to skin anyway because my skin was not exposed. Just a bloody mess.) :)

Skin-to-skin with Hyrum

James ran back and forth between our boy and me and I was able to ask him if I tore. Again, I had read/heard too much. I had heard that it is better for healing if the body just naturally tears during labor rather than if the doctor cuts it (called an episiotomy) to assist in the delivery because the cut is too clean and can re-open more easily. Don't know if it's true - just something I've heard along the way. Well, because this information had made me so all-knowing (again, sarcasm), I had assigned James to not let the doctor cut me, but just let me tear. So somewhere in this time after twin A was born, I was able to ask James if I tore. He didn't say anything but the look in his wide eyes over the face mask said it all. He told me later that because they were so concerned about the lost heart beat and wanted to get twin A out quickly, the doctor employed both the episiotomy and the vacuum and even with that I still tore a little. And guess what? I am SO glad the doctor did what was needed to deliver my babies healthily. I realized how silly it is to trust the internet over the doctor that is currently in the situation and I was actually so relieved to hear that she did what was necessary. Silly me. Last time I try to know more than the doctor - especially when the doctor is as amazing as she was!

The end of the heart beat scare is that twin A had a healthy heart beat and all was perfectly fine. Such a huge blessing!

So this is where most people's birth stories end. Not mine.

I laid there (bloodied up now so not touching anything) waiting as they prepped for twin B. They had to get twin A's umbilical cord pulled tight so it wouldn't threaten twin B during delivery and then rupture her sack and get her in place. That took a few minutes as they seemed to have more difficulty than expected getting the sack ruptured. And then we waited. Apparently the body is not set up for twins and after one baby is delivered it thinks it's done. If only. :) We waited for contractions to pick up again and they didn't, so we kind of stared at each other. It seemed like a long time but of course it wasn't. I did get to look at a clock while we waited and realized that I had pushed for about an hour and twenty minutes. Wow! I had no idea. That whole experience was so timeless.

After a few minutes of nothing happening, the doctor suggested we push as if there was a contraction and see if we couldn't jump start them. So we did and that seemed to work. I could feel a contraction coming and thought it was time to push again so we did and when we got done with that round of pushing my whole belly hurt worse than it had the entire time. It felt like everything was bursting. The pain was so intense I couldn't hold still; I just started flailing my hands and crying out and the doctor and James both seemed shocked and he asked what was wrong. I tried to explain that it just hurt really badly and I could see them looking at me like they didn't know what to do next and so the doctor said, "Maybe this is the real contraction. Let's push again and use it!" to which I thought to myself, "Did you not hear me! It HURTS!" Haha! But I gritted my teeth and pushed like she told me and a push and a half later, our baby girl was born - twelve minutes after her brother.

This time, skin-to-skin was AMAZING! As soon as she was in my arms I was talking to her and crying and telling her how beautiful she was and how happy we were to have her and I couldn't have cared less about the bloody mess. Haha! In the back of my mind I did wonder if the nurses saw the stark difference between my reactions and hoped they didn't think I hated boys or something. My boy and I had our moment later when he was the first to arrive from the nursery.

Skin-to-skin with Audrianne

While James stayed with the babies and took pictures, I continued to lay on the bed and finish laboring. I delivered the placentas which were huge! (I left the picture of them off the blog. They're cool but kind of gross, too.) And they worked all the extra stuff out of me which again is something no one ever talks about. Suddenly the resident doctor was rubbing and massaging my stomach HARD and it hurt so bad! All I could say was ouch over and over so she apologized and I told her, "No, you do what you need to do but I'm going to do what I need to and I need to say ouch." Haha! I wanted her to do her job well even if I had to complain about it a little. :) Apparently they do this painful massaging to help the uterus contract down to size quicker and prevent complications later. It's not fun though. After that was over, she went to work stitching me up.

All I felt at this point was relief. I started to rub my belly myself and felt how tiny it was and I just kept obsessively saying over and over, "I'm empty! I'm so empty!" That is happiness! :) I probably looked comical but I didn't care. It felt so good to not be pregnant anymore. And just like the doctor promised, all the awful itching from the cholestasis was gone instantly! I'm sure it wasn't quite that instant since the liver bile had to filter out of the blood but I was distracted enough to not notice it anymore and I never felt it again.

In fact, I felt so good, I had a great conversation with the doctors and medical students while I was being stitched up. It took about twenty minutes so I asked the student how she liked school and what kind of doctor she thought she'd be while she kept feeding me ice chips like a baby bird (since James was with the babies). :) And the doctor told stories about previous births and her schooling and we had a grand old time. Haha! It did occur to me how ridiculous the swing of emotions and energy was. I went from being mentally drained and gone to being awake and alert and focusing on everyone else. But this part of the experience helped me take everything in and allowed me to ask questions of the doctors about how everything went now that the presure was off and the ending was happy. I loved it!

If you've ever seen comedian Joe Wong, you may have seen his joke about his child being the youngest baby in the entire world after he was born. :) So here I'd like to introduce Hyrum James and Audrianne Renee - the two youngest babies in the world!

The two youngest babies in the world

After I was all put back together, I was wheeled back to the laboring room and waited there for the babies to arrive from the nursery. I had started to shake like crazy. Again, this is something no one talks about. So I am. :) I asked the nurses about my shaking because it was intense and completely involuntary. They said it was just the hormones causing it and that it would stop soon. I also found that my legs were HUGE! I had to wait in that room to run another IV bag through me and having so much IV fluid had made my legs swell like crazy! Besides their size, my left leg was completely numb. I couldn't move it at all.

They miss each other

I didn't get to see their first baths but James did which makes me happy. He was definitely one proud daddy and husband!

One happy dad!

They brought Hyrum first and like I mentioned earlier, he and I finally had our magical moment. I doted on him like I had never seen a baby before in my life and told him how handsome he was even with his vacuum-induced cone head. Haha! This was a special moment.

The nurses told us that when they placed the babies together in the bed, Hyrum kept his nose touching his sister like he wanted to feel her right next to him. Adorable!

They liked being close

We had to wait around for a while before we could move to the maternity ward which was killing us because Mom and Abi were on their way to visit us and they weren't allowed in the laboring area. I finally finished getting all the IV fluid they wanted and got most of the tubes removed including the epidural tube from my back which James said was slightly traumatizing to watch be removed. Haha! And we finally were wheeled up to our room and made comforable with our two new family members. Wow!

The cherry on top of an already amazing day...

I finally got my Sprite! As soon as we were somewhat settled, James asked what he could do for me and I said, "Find me a Sprite!"

Sprite has never tasted so good!