Jon and Will Stadter’s birth story

     I should begin by saying that I have a fairly rare condition called antiphospholipid antibody syndrome, also known as Lupus Anticoagulant (although I don’t have Lupus and this isn’t an anticoagulant, so go figure). What this means is that my blood clots too easily while I’m pregnant. In order to keep blood clots from forming in the umbilical and killing the baby I take two shots a day of a blood thinner, Heparin, and a baby aspirin. 

     We found out we were having twins at our first ultrasound. Nurse: “Here’s one, and here’s the other one”. Us: “Other what?” No twins run in our families so we were very, very happily surprised to find out we were expecting two instead of one. I was also taking a higher dose of the blood thinner than normal since we had two babies in there.

     On Easter weekend 2003 I was at 25 ½ weeks pregnant and we had a scare with some contractions late Friday night that didn’t want to stop. We went in to the hospital for evaluation and ended up staying the night, Terb stopped the contractions eventually and fortunately they hadn’t changed my cervix at all, still closed and long. They did a fetal fibronactin test which showed positive that the boys were more likely to be born in the next two weeks so the doctor on call thought that steroids to mature their lungs would be a good idea. Since the two shots are given 24 hours apart it’s a darned good thing he did.

     April 30, 2003 at 28 weeks to the day, I went in to work for the first time in two weeks after being on partial bed rest after the Easter incident. My doctor had said I could go in for two half days since all was going fine. Well, I got there about 7:30am, had an Egg McMuffin and started work. About 8am my tummy was a bit achy, I thought it was gas. Ha! I went to the restroom about 8:45am and realized I had lost my mucous plug. So I went back to my desk and thought hmmmmm, gas doesn't usually come and go now does it??? 

     So, I called my husband, Jon, to come get me so we could go get looked at, then I called the doctors office. Of course they said come get checked, that was at 9am, by 9:30am I was at the hospital and having fairly painful contractions every couple of minutes. Of course hospital paperwork waits for no one, so 40 minutes later when they FINALLY got around to checking me, I was already dilated to a 5 or 6 (she was afraid to do more than look) and the bag of waters was bulging. They put in an I.V. and gave me a shot of Terb to stop the contractions, then did an ultrasound, the boys were fine – Baby A still vertex and Baby B still breech.

     15 minutes later a resident comes in and says we'll have to check you, we'll be careful not to break the bag - I was already complete. In the meantime the Terb had kicked in and the contractions had stopped.

     You've never in your life seen so many folks move in a rush. They put me on a gurney and rushed me up to an operating room (all twins are born there, and there was no point in stopping in Labor and Delivery). My husband disappeared off somewhere to be covered in paper products and they start trying to get a second IV into me.

     Meanwhile my doctor shows up (yippee! I was a happy girl at this point) and starts barking orders- yeah, that's what I need - a nervous specialist. She tells me that since I'd already had my morning shot of Heparin I couldn't have a Spinal or an Epidural so no pain meds for me - and if they couldn't get the breech baby out vaginally they'd have to knock me out and do a C-section after delivering Baby A. Not what she wanted to do with me on high doses of blood thinner.

     So, now I have two teams, one on each arm trying to get a second I.V. line into me but they keep blowing veins. I have about 10 bruises. One nurse looks over and tells me "You have a really high pain threshold, and you're being so patient with all this". I told her quite clearly that after 5 miscarriages and a stillbirth I would lay there quietly while they cut my arm OFF if it would get the babies out safely. Anyway, right after that one of them finally got a vein. Sometime during all the hubbub Jon was let into the room, thank goodness, since he was the one person keeping me calm through all this. Just having him there made all the difference for me, although I’m thinking now he pretty much would have rather been someplace else.

     So, Dr. Moore says “OK, with the next contraction go ahead and push.” I'm like, “What contractions, they gave me Terb downstairs.” Have you ever seen a doctor explode? It's kind of fun. 'WHO GAVE HER TERB!!!???!!!'. So, now we get Pitocin to start things back up, it's right about 11:30 (I know this because there was a clock right over the doctors head and I found myself watching it more than once) and about 5 minutes later I feel a cramp. She says go ahead and push, so I pushed 3 times and with a HUGE gush of water out squirms Jonathon Walter at 11:39am. Apparently the water shot about 8 feet out, I distinctly remember my DH standing up and looking and saying “Oh my!” I think we soaked most of the staff.

     So, time to get Baby B out and they tell me to push again, but he's breach so the resident doing the delivery has her hand in me up to about the elbow trying to grab him and pull him out. That was NOT pleasant, but one push later out came William Nathaniel with an even BIGGER gush of water (Ha! got the rest of them!) at 11:44am. He was eggplant colored at first, NOT comforting, but the team of doctors waiting for him had him breathing in a few seconds. Although they would both end up on respirators for a few days to give their lungs some additional help.

     Honestly, the worst part was them messing around and delivering the placentas and checking me for tears all while I just wanted them to stop fooling with me so I could see my boys. Everything was fine, though, Jon was crying and breathing on his own and little Will was flailing his little legs around. I didn't have any tears and didn't get even a stitch.

     I do distinctly remember Dr. Moore saying she was going to go give herself some blood pressure medication and lay down. 

     I wasn't planning on natural childbirth, I was all about the epidural, but it was so quick it really wasn't bad at all pain wise, I was too busy being worried and too rushed to have time to worry too much. Heck, it would have barely hurt at all if everyone had kept their hands to themselves. I was up walking around less than an hour later and was able to go by the NICU on the way to my room.

     You can see their web page at: http://pages.sbcglobal.net/atomicpossum/boys/boys.htm