10/22/14 - DELIVERY DAY
Hey y'all! Cal here. Stepping in for a worn out and resting Hannah tonight. Today has been an absolutely incredible day and Hannah wouldn't let the blog go untyped, so bear with me as I try, probably unsuccessfully, to be as entertaining as Hannah is. It's going to be long, so strap in.
Let's start with last night. I had the fortunate experience of spending my first night in the world class UT Medical Center, a 5-star accommodation with all of the amenities you could ask for. It ain't the Ritz folks, but these people up here are truly remarkable and I don't know how they get up and do this job day/night in and out but they do and I'm absolutely humbled at their sweet nature and kind hearts.
And let's talk about Barb. I had met Barb several times, but I got to spend a lot more time with Barb last night and I don't know if there could have been a better person to care for Hannah and myself as we tried to prep for the chaos that was looming today. She is a saint. Now Barb has these snake oils that she claims do wonders and I don't know if I buy it, but she convinced me that one of them would help combat my wall-shaking snoring so I decided to give it a whirl. It was supposed to go under my toes and here was no way I was allowing someone else to touch my feet so I agreed to put it on, so long as I got to apply it myself. Of course, I smelled like I was on my way to a Panic show, which I was OK with but the word from Hannah was that I never snored! So maybe it works after all. And then being the saint that she is, Barb planned to stay after her shift ended to go in the operating room with us and play photographer. So HUGE shoutout to Barb, mostly for taking such amazing care of my wife for the past 7.5 weeks. A one of a kind spirit.
Now on to today. The day started bright and early at 4 AM with Hannah bouncing out of bed like Christmas morning to get ready. I laid around until I had to get up and watched as Hannah diligently put her makeup on, just as if she were on her way out to dinner and a movie. One of the (many) things I love about this woman, her ability to stay calm when she absolutely should not be.
At 5 or so it was time for the mag bolus and hooking up to the monitors and the real prep work. Hannah had been warned over and over that the mag would probably make her feel rough, so she was a little apprehensive about it. Other than a flushed face and feeling hot, she took it like a champ. Babies looked good on the monitors and everything clicked right along.
Starbucks opened at 6 and I was in like to get my fix at 5:57. Almost two hours awake without coffee felt like I had been entombed for 1,000 years and woken up with ice, cold water. I think flames came out of my eyes they burned so hotly.
Around 7 or so the anesthesiologist came in to explain her procedure and step-by-step what to expect. All sounded good and then came the question of the year - would our friend Jennifer be able to come in the operating room for to take pictures. The answer was no. This was a HUGE deal to Hannah and extremely disappointing to learn that she would not be able to do this. Hannah was brought to tears with the news and my words of encouragement didn't help much.
Soon after all this, our nurse for today - Rachel, also our friend, came in to start her work and she was able to explain to Hannah the importance of having the operating room clear for everyone to work and highlighted the fact that overall it was safer for the babies to not have her in there. Rachel is another one of the many unbelievable people that has absolutely gone above and beyond to help make Hannah's stay here as good as it could possibly be. She was here on day 1 when we checked in, so it was wonderful to start this with a familiar face and even more wonderful to close this out with her. She was awesome this morning of course, especially after the surgery (more on that later).
Family started rolling in, first Buddy and Debbie and Nathan and Elizabeth. Then my Dad and Maury, Gretchen and Simms. Simms was super tired but looked so cute in the outfit Hannah demanded he wear. I was so happy to see him. After spending so much time for him over the past 7.5 weeks, its gotten a lot harder for me to be away from him. It was great to have everyone up there this morning and helped to calm me down, especially when everyone offered to haul our stuff away to our new room.
Around 8:15, Hannah's Dad, Buddy led us in a prayer before we said goodbye to all of the family before the operation. It was beautiful and a great reminder of the force at work with all of this. If you're reading this blog, you know the miracle of mono/mono twins and it has only been by God's grace that we even made it to this day. We said our goodbyes, suited up and held our breath before we got called back.
A little after 8:30, Rachel got the OK to bring us back and we walked toward the operating room. Hannah was whisked away to get her spinal and get situated and I was relegated to the "daddy chair" in the hallway. I don't know how long I ended up waiting there, but it felt like an eternity. My hands were sweaty, I was fidgety, my mind was racing and I was ready to get back there and be with my wife. Nurses kept walking by, "almost ready," they said every single time. Finally I was called back and the chaos began.
I walked in and was instantly stunned by the scene. Nurses, doctors, unfamiliar people everywhere in the room. Lights, bright lights, cords, wires, blue drapes, hats, gloves, beeps, bangs, whispers and mumblings. It was sensory overload. There was Hannah. Absolutely calm as could be, smiling at me as if there was nothing in the world strange about having her stomach sliced open and insides prodded through. By this point I had been required to pull my little face mask down over my nose and mouth. Not a great feeling. It felt like it was designed to fit a baby's face and didn't seem to cover everything the way it was supposed to. I know I have a big melon, but come on. That and I think I started to hyperventilate a little bit when I first got in there. Great accessory for someone who has just seen the most startling thing in their life. Cover their mouth and force them to breathe recycled, hot air.
I took up residence in my stool by Hannah's head and tried to get a grasp on everything that was happening. I couldn't really see anything beyond the curtain, and that was a good thing. I said a few sweet things to Hannah and made sure she was doing well, but truly I think it was me that needed someone to whisper sweet nothings in my ear and tell me that it was all going to be OK and that I was not in fact going to be rushed to the emergency room for a heart attack mid c-section. Hannah continued her beaming smile, laughing, eagerly posing questions to Dr. Hennessy as he worked on her. I don't know what they gave her y'all, but give me some of that to take back home.
Some time passed, I really don't know how much and I felt like I heard the word "incision" and then I heard crying. At this point I was sitting up, trying to see beyond the curtain and the nurse told me I could look. Hannah told me to record the crying, which I did. And then I saw him. Baby A, #1 - Ellison Abel Davis. Born 10/22/14 at 9:13 AM, weighing 4 lbs, 10 oz and measuring 17.25 inches. I immediately cried when I saw him. They hoisted him over to the warmer and I followed to get a glance. I started filming again and saw him go from bright red, to blue to purple and I had to sit down. He wasn't crying anymore. They had a mask over his face. Nobody was telling me anything, which was my absolute worst fear in being present for all this - not knowing what was going on and whether or not they were OK. I said to Hannah through tears, "he's blue, babe," which she shrugged off and said he was crying and he was fine. It was at this point that I sort of lost track of what was happening with her and the other baby.
"Don't hyperextend his arm" was the next thing I remember hearing and I sort of went into a panic. I had almost forgotten that B, #2 was still in there. Doc said, "her uterus is contracting," there were some other mumblings, a lot of moving around and more worrisome phrases overheard. I am probably not going to tell this part well, its because it was all a blur and I had almost just shut my mind off from everything to try and stop freaking myself out. I finally asked someone where B was and they said he was on the warmer. I had never even seen him come out and be moved over. He had come out completely silent. They had to do some compressions to get him going. I saw him on the warmer for the first time and knew he was much smaller than his brother and didn't seem to be doing great. Vance Thomas Davis. Born 10/22/14 at 9:15 AM, weighing 3 lbs, 12 oz and measuring 17.15 inches.
At this point neither baby was making a sound and there were nurses hovering over each one, working them, masks over their faces, numbers beeping, more cords, wires, etc. I had almost completely forgotten about Hannah being there, really not even having seen them or knowing anything. She was still smiling and glowing. I showed her some pictures and told them they were not doing well. She assured me that they were fine. I kept asking nurses how they were, they all said they were fine. Nothing seemed fine to me. This was another world from our delivery process with Simms. Simms popped right out, cried his brains out and was cleaned off and in my arms in about 15 minutes. Below is a photo of Simms right after delivery, on the left and Ellis right after delivery, on the right. Look familiar?
The babies were stabilized, foot printed and whisked away. I must have honestly asked 3 different nurses 100 times if they were OK. Dr. Hennessy got on the phone with Dr. Wolfe and I tried to listen to everything he was saying, trying to hear something that would give me peace of mind. Hannah was trying to talk to me. Everyone else was walking around, working, seemingly nonchalantly going about their business as if all was well and I just stayed in a speechless panic. Hannah was frustrated that I wouldn't just take their word for it and calm down. She was still being amazing. Still laughing, smiling, joking around with everyone. They cleaned her off and took the covers off her belly - or what used to be a belly. This girl was built for having babies. She laid there 5 minutes post c-section and looked like she had just stepped off a Victoria's Secret Swimsuit shot. She was flat as a board of course. Good thing I'm typing this, because she would never say that about herself. We finalized all the cleaning and post-procedure work and made our way out to the recovery room.
Once we were in the recovery room, Hannah's upbeat, feel-good demeanor quickly started to tail off. She started feeling bad almost instantly. I felt so bad for her because here was a woman that had just spent 7.5 weeks in a hospital to deliver these baby boys and she had barely even caught a glimpse of them. She threw up. She writhed in pain, not from the cut, but I think just the combination of having her insides shaken up like a martini and whatever pharmaceutical mixer had been thrown in for good measure. She didn't walk to talk, open her eyes or move a muscle.
We waited and waited, all the while sweet Rachel tended to us. She brought Hannah a barf bin, wet cloths, answered my 1,000 questions but most importantly - she helped us deliver the placenta out of the hospital. You read that correctly, folks. Hannah's placenta was packaged up like Italian takeout and placed in a plastic bag of ice to wait for its final destination. I know what you're thinking, because I was there over a year ago when Hannah told me she was going to do this with Simms. WTF? Placenta encapsulation is a "thing," and supposedly there are many benefits to a mother taking "placenta pills" following delivery of her baby(ies). So the placenta is hauled off, dried and grinded up in to capsules to be taken daily following delivery. Hannah did this with Simms and I don't know if it was the placebo effect or the true power of the placenta, but she did great postpartum after him. So, we called in our PPH (professional placenta handler), Hallie and had Rachel take the placenta out to her so we could make use of it later on. I think Rachel said something like "as long as you aren't making it into cookies and eating it or something," so, no, no cookies.
Another eternity passed and Rachel told me I would finally be able to go see the babies at 11:20. In the meantime, she was sweet enough to take a few photos and videos of the little guys to tide me over. It was so very hard for me waiting to see them, and I had just done it. I can't imagine being Hannah and having to wait and wait even longer. I asked Rachel to "sneak" me in to the NICU so that I could bypass the waiting room. Not that I didn't want to see any of the beautiful people that had waited all day to see us/babies, just that I couldn't wait another second to see them and didn't want any more delays.
Right on time, Rachel whisked me off, through the secret staff entrance, to the NICU. I was informed about the 3-minute initial scrub down ritual I had to partake in and I asked the nurse there another 10,000 questions. If you haven't noticed, I ask a lot of questions. I need to take in enough information to get myself to a point where I feel comfortable with what is happening. And in this case, I needed a lot of information.
She told me that we had been lucky enough to get a "twin room," which was a miracle on top of all the other miracles of this day. A twin room meant that we would have a private little space in the NICU where it was just our babies. A quiet, peaceful little place where we can go see them without distraction.
I walked in to see the little guys in their incubators. Ellis on the left, Vance on the right. Another 100 questions or so to the nurses in there and I proceeded to fawn over them for several minutes. I didn't want to touch them. I just felt like they were so fragile being in there that anything I did to compromise their little clean environment would do more harm than good. It was hard though. Seeing my babies and not being able to hold them. So finally I got the courage to open the hatch and stick a finger in to touch Vance. He looked tiny but he felt so much smaller when I put my hand in. He was obviously quite a bit smaller than Ellis and you could see that. He was also more pink. He looked more "normal" to me. Ellis looked red and ruddy, like a 50-year old man fresh back from a whiskey-soaked hunting trip. I took in as much as I could and went out to start giving the family tours.
I stopped in the hall to give everyone my 60-second summary and went back to check on Hannah. By this point, she had been moved to her new room and was no better than she was when I left her. Honestly maybe worse. Still throwing up, still not wanting to eat, drink or move. I felt terrible. In the rush of emotions I felt today, nothing was worse than standing by her bed feeling completely helpless. I quickly realized that there was no shot at getting her mobile to go see the boys and she gave me the OK to start letting the family back there.
I started with my Dad, Maury and Gretchen. Sweet Jennifer was there to shoot pictures for us and I think we thought she would be allowed to go back and take pics of the boys. I was told only parents, so I tried to stick to the rules. We all gushed over them for a few minutes and I went back to check on Hannah again. Still the same. I didn't help matters of course when I checked Facebook and saw that she had misspelled Ellison's middle name in her post. If you know Hannah and myself, you know that we value our social media. This had to be corrected immediately. I grabbed her phone and quickly edited the spelling to the correct one. This didn't seem to be an important matter to Hannah at this point - as she was literally vomiting again into her barf bin.
I got out of there quickly enough and continued my tours. This time is was Debbie, Nathan and Elizabeth. Next up was Buddy, Gail and my brother Nick. Buddy was reluctant to go back and I think we may have prodded him a bit, but he went.
During this time, we continued getting information and updates on the babies that I hadn't already received. It turns out that the umbilical cord for B (Vance) was much smaller and thinner than Ellis' and he was getting approximately 25% of the placenta at the time of delivery. Dr. Hennessy went as far to say that based on what we saw today, if we had waited much longer on delivery that the prognosis may have been much different than it was today. Another one of God's miracles. Ellis had stopped breathing on his own soon after delivery and had to be pepped up a bit. Vance needed some work as well, but overall nothing too out of the ordinary for babies born at 32 weeks. The anesthesiologist was able to get Hannah's uterus relaxed during delivery, so this was crucial in getting Vance out when we did. Otherwise, his outcome may have been different. Based upon what they saw today, they felt there was some twin-to-twin going on and that is why Ellis had gotten bigger and also explained his red man red color.
Ellis started on 25% oxygen and Vance crusied through at 21%. Vance had a little blood pressure issue at first but they were able to get that stabilized. From memory, one of them had blood sugar levels off but I honestly can't remember which one they said it was, but those are fine now. Ellis also needed a little bit of caffeine, which blew my mind - CAFFEINE FOR A BABY!? But, it was a normal part of treatment. Their red blood counts were both a little high, but nothing that seemed to be a red flag. Overall, the nurses assured me over and over that they are doing great and not having any issues outside the realm of "normal" for 32 weekers.
I went and checked on Hannah again to see if she had come around and she continued to be the same. She encouraged me to go on and go eat with my family and to let her rest. So I did that. My Dad, Maury, Nick, Olivia and myself went to grab lunch at the Copper Cellar on the strip. I had a celebratory IPA, some good food and good company. But I still felt completely shattered that Hannah hadn't been able to even celebrate this miracle. She texted me saying that she still didn't feel any better and went as far to say that she felt like you would if you were "so drunk that every time you looked up you felt the room spinning and you're going to throw up and all you want to do is lie in a cold, quiet place and rest." So that's what I let her do.
I went back to the hospital and spent the rest of the afternoon checking on the babies, asking questions and checking on Hannah. Around 5:15, I made a last ditch effort to see if she was feeling well enough to go see the babies before visitation cut off at 6. She hadn't gotten any better. So I eased into the room and tried to stay in one place. That's where we are now. Hannah asked me to go ahead and write the blog since she is unable and since we want to document and share this absolutely remarkable story of the birth of our two boys. Not remarkable for anything I have done, but remarkable for the work that God, the good people at this hospital, the abundantly gracious members of our family and last but certainly not least, my hero of a wife - who has put her entire life on hold to bring these miracle babies into the world - this is for you all.
Thank you everyone who has taken the time to share this journey with us. Hannah is going to try to maintain the blog from here on out, but rest assured we are in amazing, capable hands and all is well. We love you all from the bottom of our hearts and continue to be amazed at your outpouring of love and affection. God bless and Happy Twinsday!
- Cal
