Jen’s birth story…

I dreamt of being pregnant most of my life and that finally happened for me in my late 30’s.  For years I had heard stories of labor and delivery, from friends and loved ones, and fictional stories in movies or books that I read.  I wasn’t naive to think it was going to be easy, but according to all I knew and heard, the pain was temporary and it would be worth it when I got to go home with a sweet little baby. But my story started to look differently around early on. Two days after we found out at our gender reveal we were having a sweet baby girl we had our third ultrasound. It was during this ultrasound that we found out we were having TWO girls, identical twins is what the doctor said! A twin pregnancy is always a higher risk pregnancy and so I was trying to prepare myself for all outcomes. Overall I had a pretty easy pregnancy but my doctor started to get worried about my increasing blood pressure. I was put on bed rest at 25 weeks and then at 32 weeks my doctor shared she wanted me on in-hospital bedrest until delivery.  I knew with a twin pregnancy I would not make it full term, but we were hoping to make it to 36 weeks. After being in the hospital for a little over a week I found myself in the OR for an urgent c-section. My girls were 3lb 11 oz and 4lb 5 oz when they were born and were taken to NICU immediately.  

When we started to think they would come sooner than 36 weeks we began to prepare ourselves for a short NICU stay as we knew that was a high likelihood.  But what I was not prepared for was the fact I would not be able to see or hold my babies for over 24 hours after delivery due to not being medically cleared. I was not prepared to be awake for over 36 hours post-delivery and receive NO pain medications.  I was not prepared to see my sweet little baby girl on a breathing machine. This is not what I was told this experience would be like! Our girls spent 25 and 30 days in the NICU and I can say those were some of the hardest days I’ve ever experienced.  The hardest day (one that is still so hard for me to talk about 4 years later) was day 25 when we were planning on bringing our sweet babies home.   We arrived at the NICU and were told that one of our girls had stopped breathing for more than 30 seconds and would need to stay an extra 5 days in the NICU, this news absolutely DEVESTATED me.  I had so many emotions and frustrations about the situation and was really sad we weren’t going to be able to bring both babies home together. Leaving that day was so bittersweet as we got to bring one girl home while the other stayed behind. Those next five days were split between home and the NICU and we rejoiced when we got to all be home together as a family 5 days later. My girls are almost 4 and half years old now and they are both healthy beautiful girls. In those moments, days and weeks after I gave birth I don’t think I would have identified my experience as “traumatic” but as I have reflected over the years I know that it was. It took me years to be able to tell this story without being emotionally and physically brought back to that time and space of the NICU room. I had amazing support from my friends, family and medical team and yet it was one of the hardest experiences of my life.