Welcome To The World Lourdes and Sabine!

To say that the girls arrival was unexpected, emotional and chaotic is an understatement. On Wednesday September 15, I was finishing up a settlement letter for work until about 1 p.m. The whole time I was revising the document I was having contractions. but I had been having contractions of varying intensities for the last few days and so I didn't take it too seriously. Finally when I was having them about every 3 to 5 minutes, I called my doctor's office. My doctor's nurse wasn't too concerned as my cervix had just been checked the Thursday before and was only 1 cm dilated even though I'd been hospitalized twice with contractions. But to be safe, the nurse told me to go to the triage area of Prentice Hospital to get my cervix checked and have my contractions monitored for a bit. So I proceeded to the hospital, and watched tv in triage for about four hours. I was having contractions the whole time, but my cervix hadn't changed. The doctor finally came in and said that they were going to keep me overnight in Labor and Delivery for monitoring. Joe and Finn came to visit around 8pm to see how things were going. The contractions were getting progressively more painful, but the resident came in while they were there and said I was only 1.5 cm dilated and I would be moved to antepartum for further monitoring. So I sent Joe and Finn home and got ready for a night of watching tv.

About a half hour later, my doctor came in and the first words out of his mouth were "I have a feeling you won't still be pregnant tomorrow." As I was just 34 weeks along, I got panicky. The doctor then checked my cervix and said that I was 3 cm and stretchy and he wasn't going to wait any longer because the girls were breech. When I explained that it would take my husband at least a half hour to have Rosa come over to watch Finn and then for him to get to the hospital, the doctor said it couldn't wait and we would start prepping for a c-section immediately. He thought it would take about 25 minutes to get ready for surgery and hoped that Joe would make it in time. I called Joe and told him to get back to the hospital immediately. I then woke up Michelle who was in Atlanta for work to panic for a few minutes. Things got really scary when I was on the hospital table with a needle in my back, worried about my premature twins, and my husband nowhere in sight. Thankfully the nurse took pity on me when I started crying and took Joe's phone number to check on his progress. He made it right as the doctor was making the first incision. About 10 minutes later at 12:01 and 12:02 a.m. on September 16th the girls were born. If Lourdes would have been born one minute earlier they would have had different birthdays! The girls were quickly taken into the next room where a team of NICU doctors and nurses were there to take care of them. Sabine Mari weighed 4 lbs 8 oz and was 18.5 inches long. Lourdes Helen weighed 4 lbs 11 oz and was 17 inches long.

While the initial diagnosis was that they would be breathing on their own and discharged in 5 to 7 days, the next few days proved to be a bit rougher than expected. Although Sabine was initially moved down from a nasal tube (CPAP) to a nasal cannula, she wasn't ready for it and ended up having to be ventilated and given surfactant to help her lungs expand. Lourdes regressed from breathing on her own to going back on the nasal cannula for several days. Lourdes also needed a biliblanket because she was a bit jaundiced. During this time, Joe and I have learned more about breathing aides, residuals, bili levels and other "preemie problems" than we ever imagined we would. We have also been on a roller coaster of emotions. These setbacks meant the girls weren't able to try to eat for a week and are still in NICU. But the last few days, the girls have turned a corner. They are attempting to nurse or take a bottle at every feeding. They are both breathing on their own and Lourdes no longer has a biliblanket. It looks like they could be home in the next week or two. They are gorgeous little girls, just miniature sized, and Joe, Finn and I can't WAIT to bring them home!

Sabine Mari right after birth

Sabine with her CPAP

Lourdes when she initially got her cannula out