The Vorkinks: They're Here!!!

I know, I know... It took me 4 months to finally do this post. It turns out I don't have very much free time any more. :) And to tell the truth, I don't particularly like to think back to the scary time of their birth, so I had Austin help me out with this post. (Thanks honey!)

It turns out I was actually right in my last post. We had ourselves some Pi Day babies! For some reason I felt it was necessary to get the oil changed in the Audi and a spare key made for our house. Both errands are very important when you are 36 weeks pregnant with twins and just off of bedrest... Anyways, after all of the contractions the night before, not much really happened the next day. I ran my errands and then at 4:00 I took Kylie to the park to get some of her energy out. We walked all the way over there (the whole 2 blocks) and she wouldn't even play! She just watched the older kids run around. We successfully made the walk back home. I almost fell over and died, but we made it. I couple hours later, Kylie was sleeping in her room and Austin and I were on the couch watching that weeks Biggest Loser episode. We had just finished our huge dinner of spaghetti and meatballs and I was laying on our Shea's lounge. All of a sudden I felt a serious contraction (out of nowhere) with a ton of pressure and then a pop! Holy cow!! The twins were coming! We may have started to freak out, just a little... The Dr.s had made it VERY clear that I needed to get to the hospital ASAP when my water broke since they were both breech. Austin was running around the house gathering our last few things for the hospital bag while I was calling all of our neighbors (who were not home...) to watch Kylie for us so we could head to the hospital. I finally got a hold of our neighbor Katie and she ran right over to help us out. Thanks Katie!!! Something that I learned about water breaking from Kylie's pregnancy, the water just keeps coming out and soaks your clothes as soon as you change into clean ones. This time I went to the hospital in style! I really wish we had a picture of it... I just took a large towel wrapped it around me like a diaper and we took off. :) Boy did we get some strange looks walking into the hospital!

Once in the hospital, they got us checked in, quickly got an IV in me and called my Dr.

They did a quick ultrasound to make sure both girls were still breech and they sent in the anesthesiologist. After a quick look at my back, the anesthesiologist sincerely said, "Thank you for being skinny." Asked a few quick questions and said he would see me in the OR. A little while later, Dr. Broberg came in to see how everything was going. The nurse told him everything was great and they were just getting ready to wheel me into the OR. This was news to him so he took off to go get changed out of his street clothes. They wheeled me into the OR with Austin in tow, in his sexy zip-up scrub outfit. They gave me the spinal, got me all prepped and the Dr. asked me if I was ready to start. I gave them an "I guess so" to which they replied, "Good, we already started!"

A few short minutes later, I hear, "We've got a small one here." As they pulled little Kelsey out. I don't remember her crying at all, so I was a little worried about her. But two minutes later they say, "This one's quite a bit bigger." And Kassidy was born. She gave out quite a scream and she too was whisked away. The girls were in a room right off the OR and I could hear one of the babies screaming. I thought this was Kassidy since she was the one that cried when she came out. As soon as the twins were born the anesthesiologist gave me a shot of some pain meds that quickly made me loopy. I told Austin to go with the twins and take lots of pictures. They got me sewed up and the Dr.s left while the nurses got me all ready to move into the recovery room. I remember the nurses talking about how that was one of the quickest c-sections ever. It was 20 minutes from start to finish! One of them chimed in about how it was March Madness and the Dr.s wanted to get done with the surgery during halftime so they wouldn't miss any of the game... Classy... Anyways, while they were transferring me onto the other bed, they kept rolling me further and further onto my side and almost dropped me off the side of the operating table. It was too freaky to feel yourself almost fall and not be able to move your legs to help stay on the table. Once I was on the bed and about ready to head to recovery, Austin came in and told me that the twins were not doing so well and that both of them had been taken to the NICU. This was not in the plan! We had made it through a month of bedrest to 36 weeks so that we would have healthy babies that came home with us. He told me that they both needed some help breathing. On my way to recovery they wheeled me into the NICU so that I could see my babies. It was horrible that I could only look at them from my bed and touch their little feet. I wanted to hold them and make sure that they would be fine. After just couple minutes of looking at each of them, they wheeled me to my room.

Kassidy in the NICU right after she was born.

Kelsey in the NICU right after birth.

Honestly, the next little while is quite a blur. I remember talking to mom and telling her that the girls were here. She asked if they had dark curly hair and I told her that they did. Then a few minutes later I realized, I had no idea what color their hair was. After asking Austin, he told me that they didn't have dark curly hair and that it was blond. Yeah, I was out of it.

Austin didn't elaborate much when he first told me that "they both needed some help breathing," but later he told me the whole story of what happened after the twins were taken from the delivery room. As the twins were premature, their lungs weren't quite fully developed. Kelsey was taking rapid, shallow breaths and it was determined that she needed to be on the CPAP to help her breathe for a while.

Kassidy, however, stopped breathing altogether after her first cry. She quickly became non-responsive and the nurses had to intubate her to get oxygen in her lungs. They called a code and revived her, but it was a very scary few minutes. Later, they determined that she had inhaled some bad fluid called meconium. The nurses are supposed to suction everything out of the baby's mouth immediately after birth, but sometimes they miss the bad fluid. The meconium is a tar-like substance that gums up the delicate lung tissue quickly, so Kassidy's lungs needed a long time to recover. At first, Kassidy was also placed on the CPAP, but then was brought up to a ventilator which essentially breathed for her for about a day.

The next morning, Kelsey was released from the NICU and was able to come down in the room with me! I think she was around 10 hours old at this time. I got to hold my little girl!!! She was SO tiny, I couldn't believe it.

But, with Kassidy on the ventilator and then a day later back on the CPAP, she wasn't able to join her sister. My parents came the day after the girls were born. They helped watch Kylie for us and kept me company at the hospital. Kylie had a cold when the twins were born so we tried to keep her away from them as much as possible, but she sure had fun at the hospital and in Grammy and Bapa's motorhome that they were able to park right across the street from the hospital.

By the time we took Kelsey home, Kassidy was off the CPAP and was breathing on her own with a nasal canula with oxygen, but because she wasn't able to start eating within the first 48 hours, she had to stay in the NICU for two weeks while we slowly introduced milk and weaned her off the IV and feeding tube that kept her fed and healthy.

She didn't even have anything to eat for the first several days. The poor thing was just too exhausted after her traumatic experience to do anything except for sleep. She was on the IV with antibiotics and some sugar water. They finally put a nasal feeding tube in for her and gave her some milk. They ended up having to wean her off the IV faster than they were hoping. Her IV spots were not lasting very long and they actually ran out of spots to get the needle in. After trying 6 or 7 different times to get the needle in, they gave up and bumped up the feedings through the tube. After she had the IVs in her arms, legs and even her head, we were excited to see her without any more needles in her.

Kelsey and I were released from the hospital when the girls were 4 days old.

Kelsey leaving the hospital.

At this point, the girls had not been together since they were born. I didn't have any pictures of the two of them together and I hadn't been able to hold them at the same time. That morning I went to ask the neonatologist in charge of Kassidy if I could bring Kelsey up before we discharged to get some pictures of them together. After the words, "I was wondering..." I just started crying and couldn't even get my question out. The Dr. (who happened to be a women...) finished my sentence for me. She knew exactly what I was going to ask and after taking one more look at the tears in my eyes said that she would make it happen for me! She set it up with Kelsey's nurse to take the staff elevators and back door into the NICU so that my baby girls could be together for the first time. That might not sound like much to you, but it was AMAZING to me! I finally got to see my two cuties together, hold them at the same time and take some great pictures. I will forever be grateful for that Dr. and the nurses that made this possible for our little family.

Once Kelsey came home, she got jaundice and had to go on billilights. It was horrible the first 24 hours. She was used to being swaddled and we had to put her in the lights with only a diaper on. She screamed and screamed for a the first couple of hours. It was so sad. I just wanted to hold her and calm her down but it was better for her to be under the lights...

Like I said before, Kassidy took two weeks to learn how to eat well enough to be released from the NICU. We spent several hours there each day with her, helping her to learn how to eat so that she could come with us. Between feeding Kelsey, pumping so Kassidy had milk when I wasn't there, driving back and forth from the NICU, spending time with Kassidy and trying to sleep, poor Kylie didn't get much Mommy time. Thankfully my parents were here with us to help us through this hard time and help take care of Kylie. I don't know what we would have done without them. (Thanks Mom and Dad!!!)