Cami and Brie's birth story

I think this all started on Monday night, May 22nd. Aaron and I turned on the season finale of 24 that we had TIVO’d about 11:00. I started having painful contractions about 5 minutes apart while we were watching the show, after 5 of them in a row we decided to get ready to head to the hospital. While Aaron was showering and I was tossing some clothes in a bag for Maddie, the contractions spaced further apart and then stopped completely. 45 minutes after they had started they disappeared completely. We stayed up for another hour and a half to be sure they didn’t come back and then went to bed.

Tuesday I had a couple of contractions throughout the day but they weren’t consistent. Maddie and I spent the afternoon and evening at my parent’s house, Chelsey helped keep Maddie entertained while I got some rest. We headed home after dinner at about 7:45. I got Maddie to bed by 8:30, straightened up the living room and then laid down to watch TV. I started having contractions again about 10:00. I started timing them right away. They were coming every 5-6 minutes but they weren’t very painful. I called Aaron at 10:35 to let him know and he said he thought we should go in and get me checked out. He made arrangements to leave work while I called my parents so that they could meet us to get Maddie. Aaron got home about 11:10 and we arrived at the hospital at 11:40 p.m. My contractions were still consistent but not terribly painful. My parents decided to wait until we knew a little more about what was going on. They ended up leaving with Maddie at about 12:45 once they realized it would be quite some time before we knew what was going to happen.

They had me give a urine sample so that they could check for a UTI, then got me hooked up to the monitors. My contractions were about 6 ½ minutes apart and both babies heart rates were doing very well. The nurse gave me some brethine to try and stop the contractions, my first dose of that was about 12:20 a.m. She also checked me and I was dilated to almost a 4. The brethine worked temporarily but the contractions came back and were more painful. We let my parents know that we’d be there for awhile, we still didn’t know what was going on. I had two more doses of brethine with no permanent success. The lab results on my urine sample came back, I did have an infection (which was probably the cause of the contractions). The doctor on call came in to talk to us about 1:30 a.m., he checked me and did a quick ultrasound to check the position of the girls, they were both breech. He said that after reviewing my chart from my first delivery (only 4 hours long) he wasn’t comfortable with how things were going and that they’d have me in the OR for a c-section within an hour. I didn’t think that was what we were going to hear that night!

After the doctor and nurse left the room I broke down a little bit. I made it to 34 weeks 3 days, which is great, but I was hoping to make it to at least 36 weeks. We were very aware of the possible complications that our girls might have. We asked the nurse to please find an LDS Elder so that I could have a priesthood blessing before going in for the delivery. The surgical tech that was assigned to my c-section was the one who came in to assist Aaron with the blessing. It was a blessing of comfort and peace of mind and I was assured that we would all be okay.

They took me into the operating room and prepared me for surgery. Aaron came in and sat by my side. Doctor Barton came to do the c-section and the on-call doctor stayed to assist him. Things happened so quickly once we were in the operating room! The pediatrician on call came in and was there during the delivery. I opted not to watch them make the incision on the overhead mirror but I did watch as they pulled the babies out. Camille was born first at 3:11 a.m. and Gabrielle (after some prodding, she was reluctant to come out!) was born at 3:13 a.m. I only caught a brief glimpse of both of them before the pediatrician and nurses started working on them right away, they were struggling with their breathing quite a bit. We heard them call out the measurements on the girls, Camille weighed 5 lbs 6 oz. and was 18 ½ inches long, Gabrielle weighed 5 lbs 8 oz. and was also 18 ½ inches long. Their weights were really good for their gestation.

An interesting sidenote, as the doctor was checking everything before stitching me up he said “Have you had an ovary removed?” I answered “No, why? Are you missing one?” He replied “No, but you are!” He mentioned there’s a possibility I had both at one time and the missing ovary may have amputated itself. It’s odd that this has never been discovered after numerous exams and an ultrasound a couple of years ago when I had a cyst on my right ovary.

The next several hours are a bit of a blur. Aaron stayed with me while I was in recovery until they took me to my room. Once we had me settled at about 5:30 a.m., Aaron went to the nursery to check on the girls. I tried to sleep but I was very anxious. Aaron returned to my room with the pediatrician to give me an update at about 6:45. They were working on finding a NICU bed for Brie, Cami seemed to be doing okay and might not need to go to a NICU. They ended up looking for 2 NICU beds, deciding to play it safe. There was a shortage of beds in the valley and the possibility of having one baby at Primary Children’s Medical Center and one at Utah Valley Medical Center was very real. When they found two beds at PCMC they decided to send both girls up there. We had to wait for the Life Flight teams to come via ambulance to prepare the girls for their trip. Brie’s team arrived at about 8:15. Once they had her ready for transport they brought her to my room so that I could touch her and get a couple of pictures with her. She left for PCMC at about 10:30 a.m. Cami’s team arrived at about 9:30 and they brought her to me for a minute as well, she left for PCMC at about 11:15 a.m.

I will post the events and my thoughts/feelings of the following days over the next several days. I still need to pull all of that together! Thanks for reading.