Birth Story

It's a baby story – Well it's not as adorable as those on TLC but it was an adventure.

We went to SLC for appointments last week. We drove down Thursday night and had various appointments that took 8 hours total on Friday (most of that time spent waiting and getting super annoyed). We went to dinner in SLC and then hit the road just in time for rush hour. Back in Idaho Falls we picked up the boys and came home. I hopped in the shower and had just enough time to wet the bottom half of my hair before GUSHHH my water broke…conveniently, I might add—in the shower. It was pretty bloody and had blood clots in it so I was kind of worried. I screamed for Shaun who happened to be sitting on the toilet in the other bathroom poor guy. He ran around the house like a mad man doing..I don't even know what before I finally got him to bring me a stack of towels. We had bags packed from just getting back from SLC so we threw those back in the car in addition to the pile of items I'd been stacking in a crib that needed to go. It all made it into the car….except of course Shaun's own bag. We went through the ER with me in a bathroom sitting on a stack of towels and long wet hair. In OB they hooked me up like they do and started Magnesium to try and get contractions to halt. I didn't feel anything at first so the Dr. went ahead and arranged the life flight for me to SLC. Right when the life flight got there for me the Dr came in and told me my contractions were 3 minutes apart on the monitor and I had dilated to a five. He checked me and said he felt a foot through my cervix- DANG. (I joke that she is going to be my little soccer player because of it)  SO a totally different life flight was arranged through primaries with the expectation of just transporting the baby after delivery.  We got to the hospital about 9pm and the babies were born by C-section at 11:21 and 11:22. I saw them for about 1.5 seconds over the surgery curtain before they were passed off to the NICU. I was just a few hours shy of 36 weeks gestation when they were born. When the cut the sac for baby B I heard a loud GUSH from the tons of fluid that came out. It made a big puddle on the floor. Aside from the puddle on the floor and the tons I lost in the shower when my water broke, they suctioned out at least 4 liters of fluid, largely because of the polyhydramnios from baby B. I shook like a leaf through the whole process from about 10pm until an hour after recovery. I spent about an hour in recovery and then the nice nurse wheeled my bed into the NICU so that I could try to see Ava before she left for Salt Lake. They were working on her for a long time doing various things. They thought she might be having seizures so they gave her phenobarbitol to sedate her a bit and wound up intubating her, although she was doing an "ok" job of breathing on her own. (I was thankful to have gotten the steroid shot at 33 weeks for lung development as a precaution for preterm delivery) Shaun had a few minutes to run home with his parents to retrieve his packed bag and to add a few changed of clothes. I never got to see more than Ava's top of her head while they were working on her, but got to see her all tubed up inside the incubator as the life flight was about to take her. The team from Primary Children's consisted of several people and some fancy fancy equipment. They flew by fixed wing from the IF airport to the SLC airport and used ambulances between the airports and hospitals "$$$$".  They left around 4am or so and I finally got to sleep about 5 am. I spent the majority of Saturday just laying there before I finally made the effort to get to the NICU to visit baby A "Ivy".  I was able to hold her for a few minutes and give her a bottle. I was only allowed to hold her at certain times and was even denied one of the times because I was showing up too regularly apparently. They let her leave the NICU when she was eating a little better and the nursery got her set up with a bilirubin blanket to continue the light therapy for jaundice while she was in the regular nursery. She went to the regular nursery on Monday I think. The twins boys got to meet her Monday briefly, which just thrilled them. It was adorable to say the least. Tuesday the hospital decided that it was not medically necessary that I stay another day, though I wanted to. I waited for my dad to get off work to bring the baby's car seat for the car seat challenge test which I didn't realize took an hour and a half and of course we had it ready at shift change so that set us back another hour. We finally left the hospital at about 11:40pm….a good 19 minutes before I absolutely had to be out of there. Tuesday I realized that I had no place for Ivy to sleep when I brought her home, so I bought the first decent bassinet that I could find on Craigslist and my dad picked it up from the lady while we were waiting for the car seat challenge. I've spent the rest of my days just feeding baby every two hours and pumping LOADS of milk for Ava in SLC. I can't believe how much milk I'm producing already. I think I have about 20 2oz bottles frozen for her. Tomorrow the boys, Ivy and I will head to salt lake. I want to be there for Friday when Ava gets the MRI and flexible bronchoscopy. I hope that goes perfectly so that they can wean her from the ventilator over the weekend. I'm worried about her little lungs.

Ava's first surgery was Saturday night. She got out at about midnight or so. They repaired the esophageal atresia and transesophageal fistula by cutting the bottom portion away from the trachea and attaching it to the pouch that developed above. They placed a chest tube at the surgical site as well. At the same time they created an ostomy on her left abdomen which means they pulled her intestines out to the surface…because she does not have an anus, so this is how her food and waste will be cleared from her body until she can have reconstructive surgery down the road…this will have the most long term affects compared to the other anomalies. Hopfully she can have this done before she is 2 yrs old. This condition is called anus imperforate. They also placed a gastrostomy tube in the stomach for temporary feedings. They also placed an arterial line in one arm for monitoring blood pressure and blood work. The next morning they placed a PICC line, because they wanted to do that before she got too swollen from the big surgery.  On Sunday, I think we found out that she need heart surgery as well- which sent Shaun and I into a fit of tears, because we thought we were in the clear in that department. We knew about the two VSDs (holes in the muscle) that should repair themselves, but her fetal echo after birth showed two additional holes in the membrane, which will not heal themselves. The heart can function for a while just fine, but the condition is fatal if it is not repaired within about the first year of life- so we are anticipating open heart surgery around 6-9 months of age. This really scares me. The combination of these three developmental anomalies means that she has classic VACTERL. It is a developmental condition that begins about 4 weeks gestation. The genetics counselors now believe this is all developmental and that there is no need to do any genetic testing. On the upside- this condition does not usually cause cognitive impairment, so I'm hoping she'll function and learn like a regular child, though she may have some delays due to such a rough start in life and multiple surgeries. We had a few scares with brain development, seizures, and tremors….but I am hoping that scare is over.

We named the babies on Monday I believe. It was a big To-Do. Driving back from Salt Lake that day I was staring at the mountains and for some reason thought of the word Avalon. I didn't know if it was a real name or where in the world my brain came up with it. We dug in Shaun's ipod dictionary and it turned out that it's a paradise island from Celtic legend. We loved the name Ava, but it's #5 or so on the popularity list this year so I wanted her name to be a little more different. We threw out the name Ivy while driving in the car, I think? AND I could not convince Shaun of any other names after those. I swore I'd never have such matchy-matchy names, sorry folks- we will all be confused from here on out.  We had their middle names picked out ages ago. Jane is mine and my mom's middle name, so oldest daughter got that one and Avalon's middle name Is Ranae after Shaun's mom's middle name…so they are named after both grandmas.

Ivy was 5lbs 4 oz and 18 inches at delivery and Ava was 4lbs 10 oz…and I don't know how long at delivery. Both of their apgar scores were pretty decent and we were VERY happy that they weighed what they did and that we made it to 36 weeks at least. The preterm labor risks for me were EXTREMELY high—so thanks for praying!

This is all super scary, logistically complicated, and emotionally draining. BUT I am SO thankful for my baby girls!  -AND I know that comparatively others are going through much worse, so I need to keep things in perspective. 

-Amber