October 12, 1999

All night Sunday night I tried to sleep, but I was woken up every seven minutes by these horrendous contractions. The pain level just kept getting worse and worse. By six o'clock in the morning, I had pretty much had enough. I got my mother to fix me something for breakfast, because they never let me eat when I go into the hospital, and then I called the doctors back. It was after seven by that time, so I didn't have to deal with the doc on call, I got to talk to my doctor, and he said definitely come back in.

I went to change clothes again before leaving, because I was still having that incredible discharge and I was soaked. It was then that I saw that I was bleeding, rather profusely. Then I got scared. I called the doctor back before we left to let him know I'd seen the bleeding, and he said he'd meet us at the hospital.

So I got to be driven to the hospital, through rush hour traffic, in labor. That was not an experience I'd care to repeat, and I definitely don't recommend it!

Got to the hospital, got hooked up to the monitors, same old routine. My doctor got there shortly after I was hooked up and took a look a my cervix. Turns out I was dilated to 5 cm and he couldn't find the cerclage stitches at all. I had completely blown it. At that point, he said we were probably going to have babies within the next week or so, and in fact he'd be really happy to get another 48 hours. Because the babies were so small, they could theoretically be born within my having to dilate any further, and he didn't want to risk that. So he started me on steroids to help develop their lungs, and started tocolytics to try and stop the contractions so the dilation wouldn't get worse and the water wouldn't break.

The reason he really wanted that 48 hours is because that would give us the maximum benefit from the steroids. There is a very important factor in lung development called surfactant. It is a substance that the lungs secrete to coat the passages and keep the sides from sticking together, so that the lungs can actually be inflated. The babies don't start making this themselves until 32 to 36 weeks. The steroids induce secretion of the surfactant so that the babies can breathe when they're born. They give me two steroid shots twelve hours apart, and then the treatment goes to once a week, if I last that long.

Monday morning I got a shot of terbutaline in the arm (tocolytic), betamethasone in my butt (steroid), a fluid drip, an antibiotic drip, and a magnesium stearate drip (another tocolytic, the infamous mag drip). Then the waiting began. I got a little sleep that morning because of the mag drip; that thing was not pleasant at all. It makes you feel really really hot. They started the mag drip at a very high concentration, and then maintained it at a lower level. So I got the worst effects immediately; my face felt like it was about to self-combust. My mother was putting cold wet washcloths on my face, and I would heat up the cloth in about 30 seconds. But fortunately the mag also made me feel drowsy, so after about half an hour or so I fell asleep for a couple of hours. The rest of the time on the drip I felt warm, but not nearly as bad.

By the time I woke up that afternoon, the contractions were better, not nearly as strong, and they were starting to become erratic. It still tended to be about seven minutes apart, especially if I was alert. But since they were getting a bit better, my doctor decided I could eat. I was restricted to fluids, though, just in case something happened and they needed to take the babies in a hurry. So I got "full liquid" for lunch. Lunch was orange sherbet, cream of mushroom soup, butterscotch pudding, red Kool-Aid, milk, and a popsicle. That was the best food I ever got out of the hospital!

At dinnertime, though, things started to look worse again. My doctor came by in the middle of dinner, and after hearing the latest and seeing that I was now dilated almost to 6, decided to not even let me finish dinner. So at that point we were wondering if we were going to have babies overnight. I wound up being able to sleep better Monday night, though; the contractions were no longer painful enough to wake me up. So by Tuesday morning I was allowed liquids again.

It was starting to look like we might get the full 48 hours on the steroids, maybe even more. Then my water broke. I rolled over to go to the bathroom and felt a bit of a gush, and felt it again when I rolled back. The nurse couldn't really see anything, but she called my doctor in anyway, and he did the little litmus paper check and sure enough my water had broken. That was at about 9:30 or 10 in the morning. So he scheduled the surgery for 11:30 and the ball got rolling.

I got shaved from the top of my belly down past my clitoris, and let me tell you, that's a bit scary having somebody you don't really know wielding sharp objects around that part of your body! After that, the anesthesiologist came in to talk to me. I made sure to tell her about how fast my spinal wore off when I had the cerclage done. She thought it sounded odd, but she said she would have some stuff on hand if the spinal did wear off too soon. Unfortunately, the records of that surgery were not with my current admission papers, so she had no way to check.

I got lucky in one respect. My labor and delivery nurse for Tuesday had a student nurse assigned to her for the day. The student nurse couldn't do anything, she just followed the regular nurse around and watched her. So she was in the operating room for the surgery, just observing. We found that out and decided to give her my mother's camera, so she was the one who took the pictures I have of the birth.

It took the anesthesiologist several tries to get my spinal in. She was about to give up and had actually called for assistance when she finally got it through. I guess I was just too tense; she said the anti-anxiety meds I was getting at the cerclage probably made it easier then. But it took effect real good and I was pretty numb by the time they laid me down. Put the oxygen mask on me, set up the drapes, wiped down my belly with the iodine and stuff.

Brian finally came in, all decked out in scrubs, even a mask, so all I could see was his eyes. I didn't even notice when they first got started; I asked my doctor what was happening and he said they were already cutting. It took them a while to get to my uterus, but when they did, everything happened at once.

The nurse behind me said they were at the babies, and just a few seconds later they had Brenden out. He cried really good. They rushed him out of the room pretty fast, and I didn't get to see him; Brian's head was in the way as the doctor was carrying him out. No sooner was Brenden out of the room then they had Tamara out. Her they brought by for me to see and touch before she left the room. The same with Caitlin. She was still bent in half with her feet up by her head when I saw her! So Brenden and Tamara were born at 12:09 and Caitlin was at 12:10.

Right after Caitlin was born the spinal started to wear off. Where I had just been feeling pushed and pulled around a bit, I started to feel more distinct movements. This moved to achiness, then cramping, then finally by the time they were stitching me up I could feel everything. The doctor kept pumping various drugs into my IV, and I was getting a little groggy, but nothing was really killing the pain. Finally they gave me something called Versed, I think, that causes short-term amnesia, and I don't remember them taking the cerclage out, and I barely remember going to recovery.

I did get to see the babies one more time before they went up to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). They brought them in to me in isolettes and I was able to put a hand in and touch them for a minute before they were taken away. Brian was able to be in the room while the girls were being tubed and stuff, and he got to touch them then.

Brenden was 2 lbs, and the girls were each 1 lb 13oz, and they were all about 13 inches long. The doctors said that singleton babies would have been that size at that age, so the triplets have a head start there. It's a long road ahead!