Several months ago I talked to my doctor about the possibility of being induced a few days early, so I'd be able to have Jenna fly out and watch my kids while I was at the hospital. I didn't expect to go into labor early, but wanted to make sure it happened while she was in Texas. Turns out, my doctor was on vacation for the two weeks surrounding my due date, and after having bought plane tickets, the doctor on call didn't want to induce on Monday, which would have been two days early. So I asked if they could do Friday, and they basically offered me to come in on Wednesday night for a Thursday induction. So at the end of the day, I had a baby at 39 +1 weeks, and that was two days before Jenna even arrived. But she was around for the recovery and helping to entertain the older kids.
Child care
But that also meant that I had to arrange for people to watch my kids for 24 hours-- kind of a huge favor to ask of someone. Several of the people that offered to help with my kids ended up being on vacation that week, plus our regular babysitter was on vacation. I lost quite a bit of sleep worrying about it; when I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, I'd take an hour to go back to sleep because I kept running through different possibilities in my head. Ultimately, I had one friend with boys who watched Tiago, and another friend watch the girls, for most of Thursday. (Hyrum dropped them off at 7 am!) And another friend picked them all up and put them in bed at our house, then spent the night. What life savers! Having that all arranged was a huge relief.
Then I started worrying about labor starting Wednesday night (they were having me come in that night to ripen the cervix) while Hyrum was home with the kids. So I had to ask another lady if she'd be willing to come over in the middle of the night should something happen. Giving birth can be so unpredictable (and that's even with an induction!) and I felt like I was making plans A, B, and C.
Hospital
On top of all the logistics, my doctor told me I needed to call the hospital Wednesday afternoon to verify there were beds available for an induction. So then I was paranoid they would tell me to come in a different day and all my plans would be in vain. I can't describe the relief when they told me to come in. I hurried and packed a hospital bag, went to buy lunch, and had Hyrum drop me off.
Around 6:30 pm they finally started the cervidil. I was only dilated to a 1. I had to stay on the hospital bed with the fetal monitors hooked up for the next 12 hours. And those beds are so uncomfortable! My tail bone was killing me. Plus there was only 1 flat hospital pillow for a huge pregnant lady (I was accustomed to sleeping with about 5!) so I didn't get much sleep. Nurses came in fairly regularly to adjust the monitors and check my vitals. I had a blood pressure cuff that took my pressure every 15 minutes. I'd be surprised if I even had 2 hours of combined sleep.
Birth Day
The next morning around 7 am they removed the cervidil and checked my cervix. And... I was still at a 1. Basically no progress. The day nurse checked a second time, because the doctor wanted her to compare it to the day before. Then they brought the on-call doctor in to check and see about breaking my water. She said she'd give me a 2, and that I was about 70% effaced. I was happy to at least be given that extra cm. She broke my water, and then they started me on pitocin. That was a relief, because I was afraid they'd do another 12 hours of cervidil and that the baby would never come. I guess it was worth three intense cervix checks to get labor started.
Contractions obviously picked up quickly, and were painful enough I couldn't talk through them. That took some explaining to Hyrum, that I didn't want to chit chat while I was in pain. The nurse said to ask for an epidural when things got uncomfortable, so by 10 I figured there was no point in waiting.
Three people came in for the epidural, and I think they had the least experienced insert the needle. My experience in Germany was that the epidural only took 5-10 minutes. These people were in there for at least 20. They kept asking me to round my back even more, which I told them I couldn't do because my stomach was in the way. Meanwhile I was having intense contractions and that blood pressure cuff was now going off every 2-3 minutes. It was just a sensory overload for my body. Plus, it was quite painful getting the epidural, with a few times adjusting because it was sending shooting pain down my leg. After all that fun, the epidural didn't work. The contractions weren't feeling less painful, so they called the anesthesiology team back in. They determined, as they kind of suspected, that the epidural hadn't been placed in the correct spot because it was more shallow than expected. Luckily the second person to do the epidural was better, and placed it in about 5 minutes. It hurt significantly less, and then it actually worked. Perhaps too well? My arms started tingling and feeling cold, so they did some tests (like pinching all over my body and poking me with the corner of an envelope) to determine if the epidural was too high. They had to turn it off for 20 minutes to see if things improved. My arms got a little better, so they turned it back on. Then it mostly did a good job of helping me not feel contractions. My legs gradually got more and more numb. By the afternoon I couldn't even wiggle the toes on my left foot, and had no feeling in it as the nurses hoisted it around.
Because my water was broken they tried to avoid doing too many cervix checks to avoid infection, but at 12:30 I was still only 3 cm. That was discouraging!
I also had nurses that kept getting changed out. I think over the course of the day I had 6 nurses. The one in the afternoon was particularly helpful. She suggested switching positions often to get my hips opened, so her and Hyrum tried to flip me over about every 20-30 minutes-- between my left side, right side, and sitting up. (Also, using a peanut ball, which was new to me.)
Things had become really unglamorous at that point. Nurses were changing my catheter, changing pads and towels under me (amniotic fluid was flowing for several hours- gross), and physically lifting and moving my limbs. I had some really sharp pain a few times, which they said was just pinched nerves while I was on my side, so they had to flip me again.
At 3 pm, I was still only dilated 4 cm! The day was really dragging. I fell asleep for maybe 45 minutes, watched some shows on my phone. Hyrum worked on his laptop and danced around the room listening to Pandora through headphones. Starting around 5 I was getting really sick and tired of the whole thing. I was extremely tired, and extremely hungry. (The nice doctor did at least tell them they could bring me popsicles, juice, and jello.) All I wanted to do was complain. I was getting a new nurse at 6, so I was just waiting for the new one to come in before requesting they check my cervix again. That happened at 6:15, and if I had any feeling in my legs I might have jumped up when she told me I was at a 10. FINALLY. I wonder how long I'd been fully dilated, since nobody had checked in several hours. She called for the doctor, had me to a few practice pushes while we waited, and the doctor (Dr. Sesay) came in around 6:45.
She asked Hyrum how involved he wanted to be. He said as much as he could be; so they put him in a gown with gloves and got into position. I started pushing at 6:50 and after 3 or 4 contractions they told me to stop pushing while they adjusted the baby's body. Hyrum helped pull the baby out on the next push at 6:58 pm. The doctor had him hold the baby upright for a second, then they handed him to me. (I couldn't feel the head being born, but felt definite pressure change internally as the body came out. But absolutely no pain, which was miraculous after my last 2 birth experiences!)
When I saw first saw him, everyone started talking about the umbilical cord, saying it was twisted, wrapped around him, looped, that he must have been spinning around inside. (There were about 4 people there.) They hurried and unwrapped the cord, clamped it, and had Hyrum cut it within about 3-4 seconds. And then they laid him on my chest. He had dark hair and pink/purple skin. He whimpered a little but didn't cry much. His eyes looked extremely squinty as he adjusted to being in the real world. Meanwhile, I 'delivered' the placenta (I wouldn't have known had the doctor not announced it) and got stitched up from a second-degree tear.
We got to enjoy him for a while before they wiped him off and weighed him: 8 lb 2 oz. His apgar score was a 9. He was able to breastfeed right away without issue. We stayed in the delivery room for over 3 hours while I regained feeling in my legs. Things were still pretty shaky for the next 12 hours, but I could at least shuffle to the bathroom. Apparently right after our baby was born, several other deliveries happened, and by the next day the recovery rooms were completely full. I was glad to get in when I did!
Name
Back when we were naming Tiago, we had a few names on our list we hadn't used. Enzo was one of them. I've always just liked it, and it's easy to say. We added Matias to our short list this time around, and thought it sounded good as a middle name. One Italian name and one Spanish name. Glad to have that decision behind me!
Recovery
Thank goodness the hospital beds in the recovery wing are significantly more comfortable. Despite needing to wake up every 3 hours to feed the baby I was in such a deep sleep the rest of the night I felt like a new woman on Friday morning. I only had snacks after giving birth (the cafeteria was closed, and Hyrum was busy helping me until 10:30 so it didn't make sense for him to leave and get food); Friday morning I placed an order for a big breakfast as soon as they opened and really enjoyed having people bring me meals for the next two days. It was difficult for me to get in and our of bed without pain, but it felt good to stand/walk around after spending 24 hours laying on the other hospital bed. The nurses kept checking my uterus position by pushing down hard, and that hurt like crazy. And when the baby nursed, my cramping got pretty bad. But the pain meds helped. Hyrum was able to stay with my Thursday night and help with all the diaper changes/feedings, but he went home Friday morning to watch the kids. Friday night I was on my own, but luckily feeling well enough that it wasn't a problem. One funny memory from Thursday night was Hyrum changing the baby's diaper, and struggling to get the diaper on. Then the baby started pooping everywhere. That frazzled Hyrum, and then the baby started to have fluid come up his throat and was starting to struggle. Luckily the nurse walked in at just that moment and started to suction the fluid from his mouth, and Hyrum kept going with the diaper. But in the end the nurse was like, "How about I take the baby to bathe him, and we'll throw all these blankets away?" Everything was such a mess at 4 am! Something similar happened to me Friday, but besides straining my back a little, it ended ok.
Meeting siblings
The kids came to meet their brother later on Friday morning. They were SO EXCITED. They watched me finish feeding him and kept declaring how cute he was. They rubbed his head and each got turns holding him. Mila told me, "I'm not going to cry or be sad the whole time he's a baby." They all kept saying, "Mom, your baby is so cuuuuute." Tiago in particular was just smitten. We kept looking over and seeing him just watching and smiling at the baby. They stayed for nearly 4 hours, although part of that included a trip to the cafeteria. They went home for a few hours, then came back at dinner time to say goodnight to the baby. We got to order food to the room, which they thought was fun, especially since it involved two desserts.
Explaining childbirth to little kids was a funny experience. They mostly understood that the vagina stretches out for the baby to get out, but then it hurts. They were asking about my stomach and I explained that the uterus takes a while to shrink back down. We explained to them what circumcision is. During one of Siena's prayers, she prayed that my 'private parts would stop hurting' which I thought was hilarious. Because I was hoping for the same thing! With all the talk about body changes, the thing that grossed them out the most was Enzo's belly button/umbilical cord.
Going home
Saturday we got to leave the hospital just after noon. We were hoping to go earlier, but I was waiting for my doctor to make the rounds and discharge me. The kids waited patiently, and enjoyed watching the television from my bed, which they also found fascinating. My tailbone was still kind of sore, along with all my private parts, but I could walk without any problem and it sure felt good to move. Not to mention, I hadn't left my room for two whole days. As soon as we got home Hyrum left with the kids to pick up Jenna from the airport.
One week later
Now it's been a week since Enzo was born. He is such an angelic baby! Truly, he hardly cries. I attribute that in part to the fact that he's always being fed and held. To establish milk supply, and since I can, I've been feeding on demand and not worrying about any kind of schedule. (That's completely opposite of what I did with Mila and Siena, because with twins a schedule is the only way to sanity.) So all he does is eat, sleep, and get his diaper changed. He sleeps so much, and is very content when he's awake. He always has gas or bowel movements when he's at his most relaxed state, usually right after eating or falling asleep. There have been a few times at night when he cries instead of falling right back asleep but we're all figuring it out. And even though we generally still wake him up every 3 hours to eat, after the 3/4 am feeding we let him sleep til he wakes up and it's sometimes a glorious 4+ hours. (Reality will probably hit in a week when he stops being so sleepy.)
His first doctor appointment was Tuesday. When leaving the hospital he had lost 7% of birth weight, and was down to 7 lb 7 oz; by Tuesday he was back up to 7 lb 14 oz, which was only a loss of 3%. So in short, he's gaining weight well and looked completely healthy.
The kids' enthusiasm still hasn't worn off. Whenever they'd go out during the day with Jenna, the first thing they'd do upon returning is put on hand sanitizer and run to the baby to see how he is. Tiago is always asking where he is so he can check on him. They put stuffed animals under his arms and rub his head. Tiago keeps requesting Enzo join him at bedtime to read books. He just likes having him around. Many people think the baby looks like Tiago, which makes him a very proud big brother. Last night Hyrum had a meeting, so Tiago offered to put the girls in bed by himself. (And he did! Including a prayer, song, and reading books.) He's been extremely helpful, and the girls have really made an effort to help with the baby, too.
Jenna was here to help for 4 days. She was fantastic doing all the mundane stuff like emptying the dishwasher and serving my kids lunch. They went to parks, the pool, Target, the pet store, the movie theater, etc. So much fun with Aunt Jenna around! Apparently at the movie she bought them a giant popcorn which was refilled once. And she bought herself a big coke. In the middle of the movie Siena asked if she could have a sip because she was "so so so thirsty." Jenna said yes, and when she looked over a little while later, Siena was leaning over, mouth attached to the straw, and half the soda was gone. And then there were multiple trips to the bathroom.
My physical recovery from birth is great at this point. I still had a lot of pain from my stitches for the first 3-4 days, plus cramping. But now most of that feels normal. I'm frustrated because two other areas have taken a turn for the worst-- my chest during breastfeeding and my back. Pain from one increases the pain from the other, in a vicious cycle. I went to the chiropractor two days ago because I could barely walk (it feels like a pinched nerve in my right hip) and my OB yesterday. I hope everything starts improving. And it makes me incredibly grateful to have friends providing some meals so I don't make myself worse.
And the entire time it's taken me to write this, Enzo has been fast asleep and completely adorable!
