The past 2 weeks...

These past 2 weeks have been indescribable, lots of tears, love, frustration, happiness, extreme fatigue--the list could go on and on. Here's how everything went and where we are currently...

On Friday, August 21st (as most of you read in earlier posts), my water broke around 4:30pm while on the phone w/ Sarah! I called Rob to tell him it was time and to hurry home!! While waiting for Rob, I went through towel after towel trying to consume the fluid, it was a lot of fluid!! After making another phone call to my mom to let her know the news, Rob came home and changed, Jim came to watch Kaila and then we were on our way to have babies!!!

When we arrived at the hospital, it turned out I was only a centimeter dilated, we were in for a long night! My contractions started to become harder and more frequent and I finally decided to get an epidural during the middle of the night---I was scared to get it, not sure why, but I was. After receiving the epidural I became very nauseous and could not keep anything down. In the morning, I started feeling my contractions again and they were getting quite painful so the anesthesiologist came in and gave me a boltus of the epidural. That worked for a very short time, meanwhile I was still very sick and my blood pressure kept rising. I was then put on Magnesium to lower the blood pressure, Zofran to help with the nausea and was also on Pitocin to speed things up. By late morning the epidural stopped working again so they called the anesthesiologist and they removed my 1st epidural and gave me another one---would you believe that this one stopped working too?! Of course it did, but at this time they didn't want to give me any more until closer to delivering because my body could become immune to it and it was a possibility that it wouldn't work during labor. I was still extremely sick and uncomfortable and not making any progress during this whole time so, I asked to speak with the doctor to see if it was possible to have a c-section seeing as how I had been in labor for 20 hours and was only 2 centimeters dilated...I wanted to deliver naturally, but to be honest I couldn't continue any longer and I was not about to push out 2 kids with a failed epidural! The delivering dr (Dr. Greenspan) agreed, but his colleague wanted me to wait a little longer---she indicated that it could be another 24-48 hours and thought I should give it more time. At first I agreed to wait, but after she left and I discussed our options with Rob, we decided to go ahead with the c-section. So I was prepped for surgery right away and was given a spinal once I arrived in the operating room. Rob joined me soon after being prepped and we had these 2 wonderful bundle of joys...

Lincoln was born at 5:29pm weighing 5lbs 15oz and was 19 inches long and Tyson was born at 5:31pm, weighing 5lbs 5oz and was 18.5 inches long. I had some big boys in my belly :o) Hearing both of them cry was amazing and a moment I will never forget! Oh, and the fact that Tyson decided to pee all over the operating room as he came out and that Rob witnessed both of his boys being born! He wasn't too fond of looking but he did and I am so proud of him!! I was able to kiss both of them and then they took them immediately to be assessed. Tyson was sent to the NICU and unfortunately they had to put the ventilator in him right away to help him breath, but was quickly stable after all the wonderful doctors and nurses cared for him. Lincoln was assessed in the recovery room and then was given to me.

Later that night (around midnight or so) I was finally put in my recovery room---apparently every pregnant woman decided to deliver that night so rooms were limited! I was doing fine until around 2:45am, I woke up and I wasn't feeling so well and then about 3am I started feeling very hot and like I was going to pass out. Immediately I started hemorrhaging uncontrollably and in a panic I called for Rob and we got the doctors and nurses in there to help. I continued to hemorrhage for quite some time and then was given another IV to be given more fluids and medication to help. At this point I was hooked up to 2 different IV's and had 5-6 bags of fluids and medications being pumped into my body. After I was stable I was told that I needed to be given a blood transfusion because my blood counts were extremely low ---at first I really didn't want it because there can be so many horrible side effects to getting blood and I was scared. Soon after I was told I needed it and hearing that I didn't want to accept it, the doctor came in and spoke to us and told me that I really needed to get it or I could have the chance of not making it---that was not about to happen, so I accepted it and was given 2 units of blood...I wonder who's it is?! I say that it's someone famous like Angelina Jolie--Ha Ha! I was given the transfusion and started improving right away. It was very scary for both myself and Rob, but the doctors and nurses were amazing and we can't thank them enough for taking care of me.

Currently- I am doing so much better, I'm on some meds to help with the transfusion and blood pressure but other than that I feel great! I am also losing all this baby weight a lot quicker than I thought, I've lost about 50lbs and am wearing pre-baby clothes! And my incision is healing great! Rob is doing well too, he's been such a great help that I couldn't imagine going through this with anyone else but him! He's a great husband and a wonderful father---I love him so much!

As for the boys, Lincoln is up every 2-2.5 hours to eat and was recently circumcised so, he is now paying us back by peeing on everything that is put on him! He went through every single blanket we own in a matter of a couple days and unfortunately our dryer died so, we had to ask my parents to wash his clothes because didn't have any left!! Thanks Mom & Dad, you helped us out tremendously!! And, Mr. Tyson well he's doing good so far, he got sick last week and the doctor's are still unsure as to why. They tested him for everything you can possibly imagine and everything came back normal. He spiked a couple of fevers which cancelled the surgery last week and had to be put back on the ventilator. They thought maybe that he had a Metabolic Disease, but all of the tests have come back normal and the Geneticist doesn't believe that he has it and put him back on his normal feedings (if he had the disease he would not be able to have my breast milk). He's been stable for a while now and we are hoping that he continues that way! They are in the process of weaning him off the ventilator and hopefully he'll be taken off today completely. We were told that they are trying to come up with a plan to get his surgery done during the middle of next week---we'll keep everyone posted as soon as we know more. And Kaila, she's doing well---thanks to my parents! They have kept her this entire time for us, as she is unable to stay at the hospital during this time. She's doing great in school and we can't wait until we're all home together!!

Thanks again for all your prayers, we appreciate it and it helps a lot! And we can not wait for all of you to meet these wonderful boys!