For those of you that have been keeping up with us since day one, we thank you.  We have grown to love this journal and hope that it provides our daughters with a thorough record of their beginnings.  We’ve tried to present as much of our experiences as possible, so the readers can get as true a feeling for what we went through.  However, there were some key events that happened while the girls were in the NICU that went unreported.  Until now.

Many of these stories are funny, while others served as ongoing frustrations and challenges that Ari and I wanted so much to share with everyone.  But, we did not want to post them at the time since the girls were still at the NICU…and who knew who could be logging on and reading.  It is very important to note that our girls would not be as healthy as they are without the tremendous care they received at the NICU.  But having said that, it is important to tell the entire story.  As you read these stories, you’ll understand why we didn’t want to post them when our girls were at the hospital.  But now enough time has passed to make it safe (and I’m finally getting around to it).  We wanted to share those stories with you, to fill in the gaps and color in the lines.  So, step back with us to the days of the NICU. 

Part I:  Over-medicated and Overwhelmed

Two days after the birth, a mere 48 hours outside the womb, Marayla was accidentally given an overdose of Gentimiacin by her nurse.  Too much of this medication, especially in a two-pound preemie, could cause hearing loss.  Arianne received this news from one of the four NICU doctors, the head of the department; she was still recovering from the C-section, and the doctor visited her in her hospital room to tell her that our daughter was given the wrong, and potentially damaging, dosage.  He also told her that they “could not get a hold of the nurse” to question her, as she worked at various hospitals.  When Ari told me this news, I was livid.  I had yet to truly accept that the NICU was our girls’ first home.  I was ready to storm into the NICU, demand that that nurse never be assigned to our daughters, and confront the doctor to insure that nothing like this would ever happen again to my girls, that he would personally insure that they received the best care until their release date.  But we were brand new to the NICU, and we were quickly learning that our babies would not be coming home anytime soon.  We would be interacting with the NICU staff on a daily basis.  We would be relying on all of them to give our Julia and Marayla the best care possible.  We did not want to make waves, or upset the environment, especially with the nurses.  The NICU was not our turf, and anyone who knows can attest:  NICU nurses are not told what to do, they do the telling.  If we start our NICU experience on such a negative tone, setting rules for how our daughters are to be cared for, will we create a negative environment for our girls’ first months?  So, after much deliberation, I remained silent.  This would be a decision that would haunt me throughout the girls’ three-month stay, and still haunts me even as I write this.  At times I was like a ravenous dog chained to a tree, just waiting to be set loose.  I spent so many hours in the NICU with a bitten tongue.  As additional events occurred, I had a slew of complaints in my arsenal, ready to be unloaded.  But one question always stopped me:  will it only make things worse?  So, when Marayla’s hearing test came back okay, the Gentimiacin incident was swept under the rug and forgiven.  Just not forgotten.  Oh, and we never learned which nurse it was; you can imagine the not-so-fun game Arianne and I would play, called “Is it her?”

More stories to follow.

I had an epiphany the other day.  My good friend, Summer, and her son, Talan, were recently here visiting from Houston.  We were on the subject of something related to the birth of the girls and I was talking about my disappointment and pain related to it.  I was recapping part of my “Black” journal entry.  Then I paused for a second to think about my thoughts of finding peace with it someday.  I realized that the girls are fine now, which points to the fact that the early birth did not permanently damage them.  I also thought about Julia’s heart rate dropping while our doctor did the sonogram.  Could it be that she knew she was being looked at? So, she dropped her heart rate just enough to warn us that it was no longer a good environment for her to be in.  It was time to come out now.  She was communicating to the doctor for herself and probably Marayla too.  After this simple thought I immediately felt relief.  My doctors had made the right decisions and the girls are healthy for it.  So simple and yet it took me so long to get there.  I still feel sadness about the manner of the birth, and the NICU experience was very trying but that is behind us now.  But today that is not a part of our lives.  Our challenges (for the most part) are normal to every family with children.  Naps and feeding are the big obstacles these days and in the scheme of things, that’s cake!

Written a few months ago...

I have just begun a book called “The Colors of Birth shared stories” by Ellyn Stanek Hutton, given to me by my friend (and my Mom’s longtime friend) Dona.  The introduction talks about women assigning colors to their children’s birth.  She said that some people don’t have to think at all and just feel a certain color, others have to think on it for some time.  I instantly thought of the color black.  Then I tried to take it back and reassign the birth to the color purple, a bit hazy and dark.  The book starts with stories of white births.  After the color white is black.  After I read a few entries of the women I realized it was safe to be true to my initial feeling that the girls’ birth is black for me. 

I still have conflicted feelings about my birth experience.  It is not one of those experiences where I just say, ”Well at least everything turned out fine.”  For anyone who has experienced birth they will understand that there is so much expectation, and it is life changing.  It is possible to feel let down even if everything turns out fine.  I hope one day I will feel peace with the birth since everything is fine.  However now I think about it all the time, and I feel pain and sadness.  For those of you that know me well, you know how passionate I am about natural childbirth and a positive pregnancy experience, birth and post partum.  I truly had a tough time in all three phases.  On top of all of that, breast feeding didn’t work out well for the girls and I, and this is a very powerful bonding experience for a mother and child.  When I realized that I might have to let go of a natural childbirth, I just kept on saying that if the birth doesn’t go the way that I want at least I can breastfeed.  This may be an exercise in letting go of all of your expectations.

A few days before our February 2 doctor’s appointment I began to feel uncomfortable again, like I felt when the Twin to Twin was bad.  I attributed this to my entering the third trimester and that the girls were getting big.  I felt a lot of anticipation leading up to this appointment.  Their birth day is still surreal for me, what was an appointment turned into an emergency situation in which I had an outer body experience.  I remember the doctors talking to one another.  My main doctor became nervous during my last sonogram (while I was in labor and delivery) and I sensed fear in her voice and on her face.  She called her partner in and he bluntly said that it was time to deliver.  I remember thinking it was odd that he just spoke about it so casually as I was panicking about their lives.  I must say that I always knew the girls would be fine, but I felt like it would be more detrimental for all of us if they were born now then staying pregnant.  The most difficult thing about this whole experience is that I still feel that way.  Sometimes I just feel that the doctor was panicking and overreacted and that Julia was not in distress.  This is ultimately what I need to make peace with in myself.  Julia and Marayla have their own life plan and this is a part of it, also Ryan and I were meant to take this journey with them.  My Dad told me some time ago that it would be clear one day why this all happened and I believe that one day I will truly understand that.

Back to the hospital room.  From the moment that they put things into action for their birth everything goes hazy.  There was a blur of people surrounding me that were doing things that I don’t remember.  Many people were actually being a bit rough, I am sure to be timely, but to me I just felt like a doll being pushed around.  I don’t even remember my Mom being there, but I can still hear the terror in her voice saying that they needed to wait for Ryan.  I remember that I just kept saying please give me an epidural as I was terrified of being put to sleep and I wanted to be a part of their birth.  My primal fear was for myself, as I hate any medication and I don’t like anesthesia.  The next thing I remember is being in the white operating room and a woman putting a mask over my face.   The girls were born to a room of people that they did not know.  Ryan was not even at the hospital.  I was not a part of their birth in any way.  Later in my recovery room all of our friends and family were there and the mood was light.  Everyone said I was really sweet and happy to see them all.  I had yet to see my babies.  Once everyone had gone and it was time to go to post partum, they first wheeled my bed up to the NICU to show me the girls.  I was still groggy and I don’t remember much.  I am not sure who I saw first but she didn’t look like me at all.  Her hair was black (well, really dark brown but it looked black).  How could my child have hair like this?  She was not cute and chubby or how I had pictured her in my head, I felt no strong connection.  The next few days at the hospital I was fine because I wasn’t really feeling things.  I was optimistic and healing well.  I was resolved to go home alone as I didn’t really feel like a Mom.  All of my pregnancy feelings of Love and intimacy were gone.  I was not that happy girl pregnant with identical twin girls.  I was a woman with babies in the NICU.   

It hasn’t been until recently that I feel a stronger connection with my little ladies.  They show me Love and I show them Love back.  From pregnancy, to the NICU, to being home on monitors, to the present there is no harmony.  It is all like different experiences that don’t relate together, separate lives joined by the same people.  I can’t fully describe it, but it is a strange feeling and one that I work to understand and make peace with.  Motherhood is nothing like what I expected and nor was anything else related to my children.  I am making peace with that because my pregnancy and birth was not just about me, it was also about them and that is the key.  I am learning to Love them for who they are.  I am not as caught up in my feeling about being a Mom, but more about being their Mom.  Right now they call the shots and I move to the beat of their drum, my world revolves around Marayla Kate and Julia Emma.  I call my girls Bubby and Schweister (German for sister), to me they both mean LOVE.