Welp, THAT happened.

The longest story ever. True insanity.

March 2024 my husband (45) and I (37) decided to go for baby 3.

We knew multiples was a possibility because of my age and they run in the family. So when #3 became #3&4, we went with the flow.

We have two boys (8 and 4) and now we were about to have two girls to even the score.

pregnancy was an absolute breeze. A dream. My personal goal was to get to the end with two babies who didn’t need NICU stays, not miss any of my older children’s events, and to work till the very end so I could save every minute of maternity leave as time off with the babies.

I also wanted to have the twins, on my birthday, 3/7. Long story short, I was picturing it as a reclamation of a day that has historically made me feel terrible, and I wanted to un-do the trauma and neglect I had experienced throughout my life by giving my girls the best life I could.

It was a repeat C-Section. Scheduled for 3/7. Girls were 38 weeks on the dot. Zero medical complications. Measuring perfectly. I didn’t miss a baseball game, a soccer game, a swim meet, a doctor’s appointment, any PTA volunteer commitments or birthday party invites. I wasn’t in pain, my diabetes was controlled perfectly, I didn’t have any signs of high blood pressure. When I tell you this pregnancy was absolutely magnificent, I’m not exaggerating. The girls cooperated every step of the way. I didn’t have one negative symptom. It was insane.

3/4 rolls around. My last baby appointment for a final non-stress test before surgery on 3/7. They can’t get the babies on the monitor at the same time, odd, but it happens. My blood pressure is also slightly elevated and I’m having contractions about 4 minutes apart. So, off to labor and delivery to be further monitored I go. The doctor on call is not the one I love. But okay. They hook me up. Girls are active, I’m 2cm dilated, and contractions are now rolling every 2 minutes, painful but not excruciating, which makes my BP a little higher. He makes the call we’re going to take them out today.

Hubs leaves the hospital to get my MIL and pick up our youngest from daycare, and bring everyone to our house and grab my bag. I have a few hours because we had gone out to a last breakfast together before the NST and anesthesia wanted to wait 6 hours from my last meal for safety reasons.

C section happens. All goes smoothly. Girls are born at 2:48pm and 2:49pm, almost the same minute because my second literally flopped herself out they had to catch her. Everyone was cracking up. They’re perfect, breathing well. Holding temp. No sugar issues. Both latch during skin to skin. I could not have asked for a better outcome. Zero complications.

Everyone gets settled. Around 7pm our older kids come meet their siblings, along with grandparents. It was lovely and adorable.

Everyone goes home, I’m feeding baby A and I start to feel lightheaded. I practically toss her to my husband and call my nurse in right before I crash. BP was 44/25, I’m white as a sheet and my pulse wasn’t registering. Rapid response team is called. 20 people rush my room, doctors, nurses, anesthesia, all hands on deck. They take the girls to the nursery. They get me back, take some blood, check for internal bleeding via ultrasound. Pressure goes up, I have a hematoma in my uterus but nothing that won’t work itself out. Or so we thought. Blood work comes back fine.

Hubs goes home for the night to be with our other kids for school in the AM. (That’s how we roll, I don’t need him holding my hand all night, and one of us should get a good nights sleep, don’t judge us)

Around 1am, my IV is dripping so my nurse calls in some backup to help get it reset. The second nurse notices my uterus hasn’t shrunk as much as she expected, and my catheter isn’t filling so basically no urine is coming out, despite the 3 full bags of fluid I’ve had an the gallon of water I’ve been drinking for 8 hours. So they do a bedside bladder scan. They’re showing 800ccs of urine stuck in my bladder. Doctor is called. He says pull the cath out, let me walk to the bathroom, if I can pee, great, if not, set another cath in an hour. To no one’s surprise, I can’t pee. Cath 2 gets placed. Urine is draining and snap, it falls out. Cath 3 gets set. It’s in place, no urine coming. Ultrasound is called back to check placement. My stomach is also huge, like I look pregnant again. They find no urine, but they find my hematoma growing. Doctor makes the call to send me for a CT scan. At this point it’s 3:30am. The CT is at a sister hospital about 3 blocks away. They arrange transport to drive me over, in the meantime the doctor comes into my room and sees my stomach. He’s now saying, we’re skipping the CT and going right to the OR.

Surgery #2. As a last minute add on, he advised one of the risks is a full hysterectomy. Cool cool cool. He had taken my tubes during my C section 20 hours ago, so sure, take it all sir, let’s just make sure I don’t die.

They knock me out, clean out and stop the hematoma from getting any bigger. They’re walking me up from anesthesia at 6am. Uterus intact. They keep me in the L&D ICU. My husband doesn’t come to the hospital because he’s home with the other kids making sure they’re distracted and don’t worry. I haven’t seen the babies in 9 hours but they have me pumping so they’re eating and thriving in the nursery. I’m looking at pictures trying to remember what they look like.

3pm the finally get my back to my room in maternity and finally let me see the babies again. They latch, they’re so cute. They have the same personality outside as they did in.

By 4:30pm hubs and the kids are here visiting. I can barely move but I’m alive, just in the worst pain. I can’t get comfortable and the babies aren’t allowed to stay with me in my room alone since I can’t walk or stand. So if I don’t have a babysitter here to help me, I don’t get babies in my room. Everyone leaves by 6:30pm

It’s 10:15pm as I type this. I’ve slept for probably 6 hours total in the last 48. I can’t wait to get home and get out of here. I’m in so much pain and exhausted.

I knew with how lucky I was during the pregnancy, it would end with a bang. I just wasn’t expecting THIS.

Hopefully they’ll have us all home by 3/7 and I at least get to celebrate 38 in slight comfort. Send positive vibes for that please!