The Twins Birthday

William James and Benjamin Daniel Sarti arrived on October 14, 2012 at 9:14 and 9:15am! Will was 4 pounds 6 ounces and 17 1/2" long and Ben was 5 pounds 10 ounces and 19" long.

My first time holding the boys :)

 

The boys were born at 35 weeks due to Will suffering from Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) with umbilical cord resistance and a calcified placenta. The discordinate growth was discovered at my 33 week appointment, within that week I saw the perinatologist twice and at 34 weeks they wanted to test Ben's lungs to see if they were mature so they could be delivered. The results of the amnio were negative so I was montiored almost daily for the next week to make sure Will could hang on while Ben's lungs developed. After a week, 2 steriod shots, daily doctor appointments and one more amnio we got a positive result and the delivery was scheduled.

 

5:00am before leaving for the hospital

 

The day of the second amnio, Will (Baby A) was head down! I was really hoping that I wouldn't need a C-Section so the morning of delivery, they gave me an ultrasound to see if I could be induced instead of going ahead with the C-Section. Unfortunately, he wasn't close enough to the cervix and they were stacked like bunk beds. Not in a posititon where they'd let me try to deliver naturally. I was really disappointed but I understood that Will needed to be born, so we got the show on the road!

The boys were born healthy and happy, one minute apart. When I first heard Will cry, I was so relieved and happy! Then came Ben (at the time we hadn't assigned names) and I could kind of see them while they were being cleaned and wrapped up. The whole day is pretty fuzzy for me, Dan had to recount a lot of it for me which is unfortunate and I'm a little dissapointed that it had to be that way. I did not do well with the anethesia and spent the day throwing up and in a fog. Good thing we have lots of pictures to help me remember!

 Proud Daddy

 Our little family at last :)

 Tiny baby Will

Sweet Benjamin

After they were born I went to recovery and Dan had to take the babies to the NICU. He was able to show them to all of our family on the way. While I was in recovery my temperature dropped too low and my blood pressure went up pretty high so I had to stay there for quite some time. It seemed like forever because all I wanted to do was see my babies. Finally after a few hours they wheeled my hospital bed down to the NICU so I could see the boys. I guess they rarely do that so I was very lucky.

Visiting Ben

 Will in his isolette

The hosptial was full because so many people wanted to have their babies on 10.11.12 so I got to stay in the NICU for a while waiting for my room to be ready. The did take me upstairs eventually and I begged and begged and begged to go back downstairs to see the babies. Once the nurses did their thing and a couple of family members visited me, they let me get in a wheelchair and go back to the NICU. My hospital room was on the 4th floor and the NICU was on the 1st floor on the opposite side of the hosptial, not an ideal situation.

 

The NICU was not what I was expecting, I pictured a big room with isolettes and rocking chairs and nurses etc. just like you see on TV. Here, each baby had their own room that had their crib or isolette and montiors, chairs for the parents and sink/bathroom. This was nice because we had privacy when we wanted it but it was difficult because each baby was in their own room and because of the monitors and all of the wires and IVs they were connected to, we weren't able to have them together often. The day they were born, they were pretty stable so they did let me hold them both, thank goodness!





 

Everyone kept asking who was who and like I said, I was pretty out of it. Dan was sure that baby A was Will and baby B was Ben so we just went with it!

 

At this point we didn't know how long the babies would stay in the NICU, they started an IV for Will because he had trouble regulating his blood sugar. This was likely due to the fact that his placenta and umbilical cord were so poor while he was in the tummy. Dan wound up telling me later that when he cut his umbilical cord, it was half the size of Ben's. Break. My. Heart. Ben wound up with a feeding tube and on oxygen because he couldn't coordinate sucking, swallowing and breathing at the same time.

 

There were many more ups and downs during our NICU time, 7 days for Will and 10 for Ben but overall we are so blessed to have 2 beautiful happy babies! It was quite a day but October 14 is a day I'll never forget!