Our labor story: A week ago today (Sunday) Keegan was welcomed to this wonderfully chaotic world at 11:09 pm weighing in at 4 lbs 7 oz and 17 in long. His brother, Quinten, followed suit arriving at 11:32 pm. It all started with with Momma waking up on the 13th of November at 34 weeks and 1 day and just feeling completely off. A feeling I have a hard time describing other then I just knew in the back of my head that something would be happening that day. I pretty much was chill all day, lounging around and just hanging out with my Mr and our 14 year old first miracle baby. At 4:30 pm I got out of the recliner and decided to sit on the stairs (I needed a hard surface to sit on for a few moments). After a bit I started to stand up and BAM; water breaks. I casually pass through the kitchen, where my daughter and husband were finishing up cooking dinner, and make my way to the bathroom as I tell them my water just ruptured. I call my OB and wait for her return phone call back. My husband and daughter are already starting to get the last minute things packed up when the Dr calls back and informs us we have two options: go to our originally planned birthing hospital to get checked out or head straight down for the hour drive to our level 4 hospital where our MFM is. Knowing we couldn't deliver in our hospital if we hadn't reached 35 weeks we decided to go straight to the high risk hospital. I finished up my phone call, hopped in the shower, and then loaded up the car to start our journey. Everyone was so calm and joyous. We didn't get a mile into our drive when contractions started, they were strong but not too intense. My baby girl timed them throughout the drive, with them starting off at 10 minutes apart and within the hour drive they became a steady 4 minutes and stronger with each one. The drive was upbeat and fun. We're all laughing, making jokes, talking about how excited and nervous we were for it to actually be go time. Once we get to The Birthing Place (name of our L&D) we check in at 6:00pm, get our room, meet our nurses and wait for the Dr to come in. 💛 

It's now 7:00pm and finally get the dreaded check I'm informed I'm 2cm dilated, 100%, and a -2 station; exactly where I was a week prior when I was in preterm labor. So, the only difference this time, as of now, was the ruptured waters. The three of us got settled in and as comfortable as possible. Still upbeat and having the most amazing family bonding experience, we were about to go from our family of 3 to a family of 5 and the excitement was overflowing. Ultrasound comes in does a quick overview and lets us know both boys are still head down but are sunny-side up, we're still a go for a vaginal birth. Best news ever. My contractions were still becoming more and more intense with every one, but my husband and daughter are doing an amazing job coaching me through contractions and keeping me focused. By 10:00 pm I'm begging to get rechecked due to the pain becoming extremely intense at this point. The nurse gets our Dr, she comes right in to check me and lets us know I'm 5cm and asks if I'd like an epidural now, to which I say yes. At 10:15 the Anesthesiologist is in my room starting to prep me for the epi. I'm now contracting every minute with no breaks in between contractions. I somehow stay loose and calm enough for the 20 minute procedure. By 10:40 she is just finishing up and has just removed the needle from my back but at this point I'm telling them the boys are coming. I didn't even get a chance to receive the medication yet and the OB does a recheck. Within those 40 minutes from the prior check at 5cm, I'm now fully dilated and ready to go to the OR to push. The anesthesiologist injects the first starter dosage into the epidural, which is at very low dose just to see if it's placed correctly. Just as she does this I'm already being whisked away to OR while my husband and suiting up. 💙

We're in the OR now surrounded by 15 different Dr's and nurses for myself and then off to the side in a small room are another team of Dr's for the boys. I have an OB with an ultrasound machine constantly on me to keep track of the boys positions, baby A has flipped to face down which is amazing news. I begin pushing at 11:00 and can feel every single thing as the epidural has yet to even take affect (I was hoping even the small amount they were able to manually inject into it would help even the slightest but it did not so here I am doing this naturally, not how I planned it but in hindsight I'm beyond glad that's how it happened). With 3 sets of 3 long hard pushes Keegan Carter has his head out (and holy ring of Fire) one more good push and he's made his grand debut. My husband cheering me on every step of the way. I exhale a huge sigh of relief and fall back onto the table for a short moment to take it all in and regain some momentum. My high risk OB quickly says it's time to start again. I tried to give a good push but had a hard time bearing down on it so they throw the stirrups up to help give me some better support. This helps tremendously, I give a few sets of pushes again but by this point the Dr states that my cervix is trying to close and Baby B is stuck in my pelvic. Unfortunately at this time he proceeds to tell me that a forcep extraction is required to help assist me and get baby out as quick as possible. I start to panic a bit but everyone is assuring me everything will be fine I just need to try with all I have to push and get him out. At that point I get another adrenaline rush and give it all I've got. Two sets of 3 good pushes and Quinten Bradford makes his grand debut sunny-side up, 23 minutes after his brother. Momma is exhausted. Drs bring babes over I kiss them and fall madly and complete love with them. They are now whisked away to NICU to get a complete check, but I'm reassured both are doing well. I am then told that I will need to get some 2nd degree tears stitched up and then go into recovery for a short time and wait for the go ahead that we can see our babies.💚

In recovery I am getting monitored by my nurse, she checks me to make sure my bleeding is ok, she sees something that she doesn't like and goes and gets one of the OB's. The Dr comes in checks me out and lets me know that I'm starting to internally hemorrhage due to large clotting and that she has to go in and do a manual extraction and scrape my uterus. This was the most intense pain I've ever felt in my life. So so bad. Doesn't help I just gave birth to two babies, forceps shoved into places they should never be, got 2nd degree tears, stitched up and now she has to go what felt like elbow deep to stop this from progressing into a deadly hemorrhage. I'm scared out of my mind and screaming through the torture. She finishes it up and gives me a shot of morphine and I can now finally rest until I get the call we can go up to see our boys. After what felt like eternity (really it was two hours) we are on our way up to NICU. Before we get in to their room we're told not to panic but because of Quinten getting stuck and the use of forceps he is pretty bruised but they are all superficial and had no complications from it. Both the boys are breathing on their own and other then heat to control body temperature they need no assistance and are doing remarkable for 34 weekers. Now at a week old (still in NICU) they have almost been weened off the heat and are taking my breast milk from a bottle like champs. Their suction is still a bit too weak to fully engage on the breast but with every feed we are training them and they can latch for short periods. They both have received feeding tubes which is very normal due to their volume of required milk increasing everyday they tend to get a bit tuckered out with all the energy it takes them to eat, so we feed what they can handle out of the bottle and the rest goes into their tubes to help them conserve energy.