Matt & Tiffany: September 2011

Although the babies were now born and stable, the next several weeks began a giant emotional rollercoaster for me.

Each day I had to look at my sweet, tiny babies attached to all kinds of wires and tubes and all I wanted to do was hold them in my arms and comfort them.

I could only see my babies at certain times of the day and each time I went to see them, I was faced with having to pass by dozens of other tiny babies, beeping monitors, and the sounds of conversations about babies that are not doing very well. It was beyond troubling.

All I wanted to do was care for my babies and comfort them and all I could do stare from afar and provide breast milk which was almost impossible since the hormones that it takes to produce the milk were on stand by since I had never held my babies or heard them cry.

I felt like a failure.

I failed to carry them to term, I was failing to comfort them, and I was failing to produce food for them.

I spent weeks beating myself up.

Finally the day came when the nurses told me I could come in once a day to hold the babies and from then on my life was complete. I finally was a mom.

Baby Des

Baby Amélie and tired mommy

Desmond during his bili light treatment.

I always said that when I have children, I would have a natural birth. Why? Because my tolerance for pain is so high- it would be a snap!

However, that high tolerance for pain is what landed me in the hospital at only 30 weeks into my pregnancy.

For a couple of weeks I had been working long hours at work and going to meeting after meeting after meeting. I was exhausted and noticed that the long hours were taking a toll on my body. I also noticed that I seemed to be losing control of my bladder (or so I thought) because I would often find that my pants felt wet while going to my next meeting. It was totally embarrassing- so I never mentioned it.

Around Memorial Day weekend, we found ourselves still unpacking and moving into our new home and also putting together nursery furniture. It was a lot of work and by the time the nursery furniture was built- I found that I was so uncomfortable that I didn't think I'd sleep again until I finally got the babies out of me. Luckily, I had a scheduled visit to the doctor the day after Memorial Day- so I could ask the doctor then for something to help me sleep.

Once I arrived at the doctor he came in the room, took one look at me, and told me that I was having extreme contractions and that I was not wetting my pants- I had been leaking fluid! Here I had been going weeks thinking that my tight belly and loss of bladder control was just a part of being pregnant and instead I was in labor!

Thus began Desmond & Amélie's Wild Ride as Matt called it.

From that moment on everything was in fast forward. I was sent to the hospital, had a sonogram to confirm that Amélie had indeed ruptured her sack, admitted, and put in a room in L&D where I was strapped to all kinds of equipment for hours and hours until they were able to make the contractions stop. I was asked time and time again, "Didn't you feel the pain of labor?" and all I could say was, "Well...I've never been in labor before...I guess my pain tolerance is pretty high."

I was told I would spend the following month on bed rest until July 1st when they'd take the babies early at 34 weeks.

I was beside myself.

I spent all of my time looking up 34 week old babies on the internet and seeing how long they'd be in the N.I.C.U. I researched every abbreviation I'd see on my sonograms. I researched head growth and the chances that my babies would have to wear helmets. I made myself sick, but eventually convinced myself that my babies were troopers and would come out ready to come home and not have to spend time in the N.I.C.U. It's amazing what you can convince yourself to believe when you're sitting alone in a hospital room for days and days.

When I wasn't researching premature babies, I spent my time reading People magazine, doing crossword puzzles, and educating the food staff on food allergies. It's puzzling that I was the first person to enter the hospital that is allergic to dairy... (this is what they told me after poisoning me several times with whey...it's obviously not true).

Every 2 or 3 days I'd once again go into labor and have to get shots that would make me forget practically everything to get the contractions to stop. It was a long vicious cycle, but finally on June 17th Amélie rolled over and unplugged the hole she had poked in her sack and the rest of my water broke. Once again things were in fast motion and I found myself hooked up to all kinds of machines in L&D to try and get the labor to stop, but eventually at 5am on June 18th, the on call doctor made the decision to do a c-section and take out the twins.

The sweet relief of not having babies rolling around in your stomach without fluid was great. I know now why women scream like crazy down in Labor and Delivery- their water had to of broke.

I mustered up all the cheer I could to pose for a few pictures so that Amélie and Desmond would look back on these pictures and think that it was a happy and easy experience.

Cheese!