Our little bundles of joy decided that they had had enough of sharing mommy's tummy so they have joined the rest of us on the outside. Jessie Leigh Sherwood was born at 10:04am, weighing in at 2 lb 10 oz. Mark Christopher Sherwood was born at 10:06am, weighing in at 3 lb 12 oz.
It all started this way, as I explained in an email to family & friends.....Unfortunately, Cathy's water broke on Saturday evening at around 5pm. She has just finished week 30, with 40 being full term. Clearly, this is too early. The good news is that she has not yet gone into labor. The bad news is that she could at any time. She will remain at the hospital for the duration of the pregnancy.
The best case scenario is that she is there for another 4-5 weeks at which time they will schedule a c-section and remove the babies. Apparently, studies have shown that in situations like this, there is no real benefit to leaving the babies in for longer than 34 weeks. In this case (the best case scenario), the babies will almost certainly spend several days, perhaps longer in the NICU prior to coming home.
The worst case scenario is that the babies come any day. In that case, they will certainly spend many weeks in the NICU prior to coming home.
For now, there is not much that can be done. They are giving Cathy a steroid in hopes of hurrying the babies' lung development, and they are giving her antibiotics to ward off infections that are common once the water breaks. They are also giving her a drug to calm her uterus in hopes of warding off labor. No NICU is as good as a mother's womb, so the goal is to keep the babies where they are for as long as possible.
I hope that explains everything well enough. The babies vitals are good and they appear to be fine. That's everything that I know (the doctors have no idea why the water sometimes breaks so early) so I can't shed any more light on anything.
Sunday the 27th passed without incident, but Cathy had a bad night as we moved on to Monday. Contractions started at around 2:30am and they administered various drugs in hopes of warding off full labor. I dropped Arthur off at pre-school and went to work on Monday morning as usual. Cathy and I spoke on the phone at around 8:15am and everything seemed to be calmed down. However, only 10 minutes later Cathy texted me and told me that I should get to the hospital as the babies were coming. Only 90 minutes later our family had grown considerably.
This first video shows what I was able to capture of their birth. Don't watch if you're worried about getting queasy.
I wish the video was more glamorous. The anesthesiologist emptying Cathy's catheter bag assured me that the glamour is only for television. This next video shows both babies shortly after birth as they were being weighed and fitted with their necessary breathing devices. Mark is intebated and continues to be so but they hope to move him to a c-pap soon. You will see Jessie before her c-pap is even fitted. Both babies are breathing OK on their own most of the time. However, both occasionally stop now and then. We're assured that this is normal at this point. We created quite a stir - there were about 15-20 doctors and nurses involved in the O.R. and nearly as many in the post-O.R. weighing room (whatever it might be called). And being a teaching hospital, there were instructions flying left and right as the long-time doctors instructed the new ones on what to do. It's really pretty cool and amazing and helped me understand (a little) about what was going on.
After things had calmed down and Cathy and I had visited the babies for the first time - at around 4pm by the way. It's very strange to see your babies born at 10am then not lay eyes on them again until 4pm. I at least had seen them. Cathy didn't lay eyes on either one until 4pm. We were able to touch each baby, briefly, on the foot and leg. We have not held either one yet and may not for quite some time. Anyway, back to the story, after our visit I picked up Arthur from school and brought him to the hospital to see mommy and to meet his new siblings. The next video shows Arthur meeting them for the first time. It's pretty good, I think anyway. The doctor (nurse?) did a great job of recording for us.
Well, sorry it's such a long post and sorry for the communications issues on their birthday. We'll be in touch as we move forward. Until next time....
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