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Kyle and Kurt's Birth

When I found out I was pregnant it was on Thanksgiving day my boyfriend and I had just gotton engaged three weeks prior and had been starting to plan a huge wedding, so much for that. We ended up flying to Vegas on Valentine's Day and getting married. About seven weeks into the pregnancy I was getting severly ill and ended up in the hospital twice. The doctor at the hospital tells me that my hcg levels are way to high for a seven week pregnancy and he suspects I am farther along then I think. Well I know this is incorret so he schedules an ultrasound.

I had had a previous misscarriage when I was 17 so when I heard I was having an ultrasound I was scared and excited, I was gonna see my baby and be convinced it was really gonna happen. My OB/GYN comes in and starts the ultrasound my heart is racing I am so nervous... Will she find a heartbeat? Will the baby be OK? About five minutes into the ultrasound she says "Ohhh look at this hmmmmmm I wonder?'" But she doesn't tell me what she wonders, she leaves me on the table and then goes and gets one of her collegues. They both do the same hmmm I wonder routine and says out loud but not to me if we can get the heartbeats together in the same picture I will confirm it's TWINS! That's right I said TWINS!

I was SHOCKED and PETRIFIED! Here I am a woman all of 95 pounds pregnant with twins. Right away all of these medical terms are thrown my way, anemia, High blood pressure, toximia, preterm labor. When I left that appointment that day my head was spinning. I was so scared I was told I most defintly would not carry these babies to term and should probably visit the neonatal nursery and familiarize myself with what a premature infant looks like so I am not scared when it happens to me. I go visit and let me tell you it was the saddest thing I had ever seen in my whole life. So innocent and helpless, they were just lying there grasping on to technology to give them their next breath, I was frightened the day I left the NICU and determined to do whatever it took to keep my babies out of there.

The next 12 weeks went by uneventful, I gained an average of 14 pounds a month (and the Doctors were concerned at first Ha I showed them). Then on March 6, 1997 around my 19th week of pregnancy I started to feel funny while having dinner at a family affair. I was getting really severe stomach cramps. I called the Dr. as she had instructed me to do if I ever felt anything different or unusual. She tells me to come in L&D and be monitered for a while. So I do and spend three hours hooked up to a machine. There on the screen were the heartbeats of my babies which I had never seen before, I cryed that day. My Dr. comes in to the room where I'm at and tells me I am in preterm labor. PRETERM LABOR how could that be I was only 19 weeks I wasen't even half way yet. So they give my two shots of terbutaline and send me home with a perscription to take them whenever I felt those pains starting again.

Well going to the L&D and getting monitered turns into a once a week thing for me during the next 15 weeks, I swear I was in there so often towards the end I was putting myself on the moniters and ordering the terb. Up until my 34th week the terbutaline seemed to be working we did go to L&D alot because sometimes the contractions would just be to strong and would need the shot to stop them and then start up with the pills again. It got to the point were my husband and I would have to set an alarm and take the terbutaline every three hours regardless if I was having contractions or not.

When my 34 week hit to the day we were once again in the familiar sight of the L&D hooked up to the moniters having contractions that were 3-4 minutes apart and lasting for 1 minute. Not enough to dialate but too frequent to send me home. My husband and I were faced with a dilemma, the Dr. wanted to start magnesium sulfate to stop the contractions. My husband and I decide that we have had enough and since the cut off for mag. is 34 weeks we denied it. That was a very hard decision for me to make but I decided that the bad points outweighed the good points and we were gonna let nature takes it course if the babies were ready to come out then so be it. Don't get me wrong I was still on total bed rest and taking the shots of terbutaline and following up with pills every three hours, I just wasen't going to take the mag.

Now we were faced with the next challenge the Dr.s felt that the babies were going to be born soon so they wanted to start giving me steriod shots to mature their lungs faster and give them a better chance of survival. So we agree and start with the first shot, the next shot would come in 24 hours. They admit me and put me in a room, with a woman who had already had her baby and had her daughter rooming in with her. This was one of the hardest thing for me. I desperately wanted to end this ordeal of contractions, shots, pain all I wanted was to meet my boys. That was the weekend of June 13, 1997.

The next day the Dr. comes in to see me and tells me that the contractions have stopped miraculously on there own and I could go home. Part of me was excited, they were going to be healthier and part of me was upset I was getting bigger by the day I had developed the worst case of PUPPS (some rash associated with your hormone level in pregnancy), and I just wanted to end the whole ordeal. Me and my hubby pack my things and we go home.

Well on the June 24, 1997 the same thing starts all over again. We call the Dr. and she tells us to yep you guessed it come into L&D to get monitored. Well by this point the nurses know us by name and joke about never giving birth. Again my contractions are 3-4 minutes apart but when the resident does his internal he comes up with the exact same diagnosis no dialation... early labor. My husband and I are so frustrated at this point here we are at 35 weeks 5 days we wanted them to do an amnioscintesis to determine whether or not the lungs were mature. The resident agrees admits me again and the process begins. The nurse comes in with pain relief (FINALLY) and a sleeping pill, I was so excited to finally get this over with I knew I wasen't going to get any sleep that night. My Head OB Dr. comes in to see me the next morning and I think it is to do the Amnio. She comes into the room and says Danielle I'm really sorry but I'm not going to do the amnio the risks outway the benefits and it is just to dangerous. Plus with it being twins they could only tap one sack so ones lungs could be ready and the others might still be immature. She also informes me that the "Pain relief" they gave me was MORPHINE the dosage she would of giving a 250 pound man with severe head trauma.

I was DEVESTATED to say the least. I cryed for three hours after we were discharged. I was still contracting every three minutes they just weren't dialating me. They did however pick a Induction date of July 3. It was not what I wanted to hear that being a whole week away but I thought to myself the most I will have to do this is one more week. My husband and I go home.

Friday night he cooks a wonderful meal, meatloaf , mashed potatoes, corn on the cob. For some reason I don't want to eat it. I feel like something is different and I tell this to him. Well because we had had so many incidents of preterm labor he doesn't believe me. He goes to sleep around 10:00pm I can't sleep I go lay on my dad's bed and suddenly I feel gush of water. MY WATER BAG BROKE FINALLY!!!!!

We arrive at the L&D all smiles and so happy because we know for sure we are not leaving this hospital with empty arms. They take me down the familiar route to the hospital room I have seen many times before but this time it is different, this time it is for real. The contractions are mild and I figure hey I can handle this BOY WAS I WRONG!!! The intensity starts to increase and I learn I have no tolerance for pain. Around 12:00am I am screaming for an epidural the anestioalogist comes in and administers pain relief. AHHHHHHH... Wait it doesn't take on my left side, I labor for what seems like days (it was really only about ten hours) I am dialating quickly the Dr. tells me at 9:30 I was a 8 cm. Whoo Hooo It's almost over, then my world comes crashing down I get stuck at 9.5 cm. So they order Pitocin, I refer to this as the devil's medicine. They bring in the pitocin disconnect the epidral and connect the pitocin. I layed there in mass amounts of pain listening to the machine beep as it sent this stuff running to my veins and then the CONTRACTIONS HIT. They were coming every minute, I thought I was going to die. I was hyperventilating every contraction, dry heaving and begging for a c-section at this point.

Suddenly I got an urge to push, how exciting, the Dr. comes in does an internal and informs me I am still at 9.5 cms. We make a decision to start pushing anyway and she would manually massage the .5cm to make room for the head. I push for three and a half hours. Giving it everything I had. I was exhausted and in so much pain I BEGGED for a c-section, she refused. Finally after all I had been through I crowned.

They tell me after I have crowned to put my legs down stop pushing and their going to wheel me into the Operating room. I couldn't believe they had the nerve to say stop pushing, Oh yeah like that is so easy. I put my legs down and briefly slip in and out of contiousness on the way to the O.R. When we get inside everything is a bit of a blur, I remember them telling me to resume pushing, now keep in mind I have been at this for 17 hours straight I am exhausted. I was so out of it I don't remember my own son's birth. But at 1:21 P.M. on June 28, 1997 Kurtis Peter made his appearance weighing in at 5 pounds 10 ounces. They wisked him off to the warming bed. HALF TIME

Kyle's birth was alot harder, at this point I had given up I had no more strength to bring him into this world. My OB starts to notice a significant drop in his heart rate and she is determined not to have a c-section because I delivered Kurtis naturally. So they bring out the vaccum, this doesn't work and I must have been blacking out because I don't even remember the next sequence of events. It was told to me by my husband. After the vaccuum failed they decided to use forceps, this works to retrieve the baby Kyle Joseph born at 1:35 P.M. on June 28, 1997 weighing in at 5 pounds 11 ounces.

They successfully got both of my boy's into this world and that I am grateful for but in doing so they caused me to have a level four epsiatomy (The worst you can get). They started to stitch me up before the pain relief occured because I was hemmoraging so bad. I cryed uncontrollably for 45 minutes while they repaired the tear, it was torn from vagina to rectum. They wondered if I would ever gain muscle control again. After the delivery and the repair I still had not seen my babies, they were wisked off to the nursery escorted by my husband. I went off to the recovery room where I layed with the shakes for two hours. Then I was moved to my room where at 11:30P.M. that night I finally met my little men.

I would not trade my sons for all the money in the world I just wish their birth would of been a more pleasant experience.

Kurt. Kyle.

Thank you for your time
Danielle Monahan, mother of Kurtis and Kyle 06-28-97
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