Flashbacks

I've been thinking a lot about how fast time has gone! And yet how slow it seems to creep by all at the same time. I feel I've been married longer than just shy of three years, but at the same time, I can't believe I have almost 2 yr olds! I spent a few hours last night looking through all their old pictures and I can't remember them as the little babies:( They've grown so fast and change daily that I can't keep those early memories in my mind. I'm so thankful for the healthy little ladies God has blessed us with and how perfect they are when so much was working against them when they were born. I've been trying to remember the day they were born, and like all the other memories it is faded so much! I loved Lauren's story of how cutie Lily Kate was born and I thought I would share the girls story:) So if you don't have a few minutes(probably more than a few) to spare you might just want to skip over this drive down memory lane..cuz it'll be lengthy!

I'll start when I was about 26 weeks along with the girls which would have been October 2 years ago. I started having the worst chest pains ever in the middle of the night. Andy was on nights at the time so I was going over the mental debate of whether or not I should call the doctor or tough it out. About 1am I decided I couldn't handle the awful pain anymore and went to the ER by our house. After several hours of what to do's and the word "high risk pregnancy" they determined it was acid reflux and gave me this awful drink to choke down which was to immediately subside the pain. With my luck of course it did not. But I was so irritated with laying in pain in the ER for 3 hours that I said I'm leaving. I called Andy as I was driving myself home (still in horrible pain) and bawled that nothing is helping. Fortunately he called my mom and she drove the hour down to get me at 4 in the morning and took me to her hospital. After an hour there and an gastro-ultrasound later, they found I had an enormous gall stone lodged in my duct causing all the pain. 3 days and a lot of drugs later, I was able to go home. Most of the time they remove the gall bladder when you have attacks like this, but being prego with twins, my uterus was already too big to risk the surgery so it was pain management till the girls were born and then I could get it taken out. To manage the attacks I was put on a low fat, light, light, light diet (which was funny at the time since I puked my brains out everyday no matter what I ate thanks to all the estrogen pumping through my body, lol).

About 5 weeks later my water broke in the middle of the night and we raced to my hospital an hour away from the house. From there I was air lifted to a hospital in Denver with a higher level NICU just in case they weren't able to stop the labor. PRAISE GOD my leak sealed back over itself and I was put on bedrest and sent home.

So...now we come to Feb 12, 2009. I was headed to the doctor early in the AM for a routine weekly checkup (one of the perks of being knocked up with twins...you get to go the doctor once a week starting at 28 weeks :-/). We had our ultrasound first at 7:30am and went to the waiting room to wait for my appointment at 9am. It was about 8:45 by now and Andy forgot his phone in the truck so he went downstairs to get it. My doctor just got there so they brought me back while Andy was gone. Everything was going routine as it had for the last 6 weeks of these. My doc was saying (I kid you not) if anybody can make it to 38weeks you're gonna be the one! So he laid me back to check me as usual and started asking me what we were doing for the weekend. After he measured my uterus growth as 42 weeks (I was 34 weeks) I was chattering off what we would be doing for Valentines Day. He said in an oh so casual voice, well you're not going to make it to 38 weeks after all we're having babies today. I started laughing and said, "yeah sure" . He sat me up and said I'll call your mom ( who was the charge nurse that day on the OB floor). I said, wait wait wait...are you serious. He said "Sarah...you're 5 cm dilated. I'm sending you over and I'll be over in a little bit to get you delivered." At this point I started bawling and the nurse was trying her best to comfort me and she ran out to get Andy from the waiting room. So Andy comes in to me bawling and Dr. Crane trying to convince my mother on the phone that yes, Sarah is in labor.

We head over to the hospital which is in the same building as the Dr. office. I am still crying at this point as Andy walks with me(because I refused the wheelchair..I was still in denial that I was having these babies much less in labor. I felt completely normal. No pain, nothing changed) to the OB ward. I call Josh and Suzan and tell them that they're sending me over to monitor me no big deal. Suzan wants to rush over, and I tell her there's no need it's not a big deal. One of the nurses meets us at the door and we go into the triage room where my mom is frantically getting monitors, drugs and everything else lined up to stick in me. They strip me and hook me up to a gazillion things and start shooting steroids into my thighs(which is not entirely comfortable). I have to say one of the weirdest drugs is Turb. It's supposed to slow down labor and contractions(which I kept saying I'm not having any). But one of the side effects is shivering, lol. My teeth and whole body was shivering uncontrollably. 3 more nurses come in to help mom and their eyes bug out at the contraction reader. Apparently I'm busting out huge contractions a few seconds apart, which I feel none of. Amidst all the chaos, I'm trying to tell mom that I need to go to the bathroom. She kind of ignores me while putting in an iv and all the other stuff. I tell her again a little more forceful and under my breath, "Mom I really have to go bad if you know what I mean". I start to get up to go to the potty and she says "Oh no you don't!" Hikes my legs up in the air and checks me. I'm now at 7.5cm. It's been a whole 20 minutes since Dr. Crane checked me at 5cm. Josh calls now and asks how things are going. I tell him we're good they're just monitoring me. At this point mom takes the phone and tells him he needs to get here ASAP because we're about to go to the OR. So now all the nurses go into overdrive. I'm getting gowned, and one of the nurses takes Andy out to get him suited up.

We get up and start walking to the OR (I refused the wheelchair again...yes I hate them!). Suzan comes flying in the door with the video camera and she gets suited up. I'm taken back and they do their thing of numbing and hooking me up to all sorts of stuff while Andy and Suzan are waiting outside the OR. As soon as they lay me back I get super nausea and throw up, while I'm doing this Dr. Crane comes in and grabs a knife and starts cutting. By the time I get done puking I ask if they've started cutting yet...Dr. Crane laughs and says, we're about to get Ella out. 10 minutes later, we've got 2 beautiful baby girls. Since they were 34 weeks we spent a month in the hospital with Ella having to go to a different hospital that very night to be put on a ventilator for 7 days.

And now we've got the two crazy toddlers running around perfect! Now we are waiting the arrival of little Nora in a bout a month. Praying she stays in there till then, knowing how crucial it is for them to not be born early.