Connor's Comeback: Admitted to hospital at 23 weeks + 3 days pregnant :(

I had a routine ultrasound last wednesday and it showed that my cervix was 3cm dilated and looked completely thinned out. So I was rushed to OTMH where a doctor did a visual inspection and said it didn't look thinned but definitely was dilated. Since I was only 23 weeks + 3 days pregnant, they sent me via ambulance to McMaster Children's hospital and admitted me to labour and delivery. I was checked again and it was confirmed that my cervix was dilated 3cm but looked like it was only thinned from 4cm down to 2cm. They couldn't give me a progesterone shot or cerclage like they can normally do in a singleton pregnancy because it risks breaking water and inducing labour with twins. :(

It was the worst day of our lives. Mike and I had to go over our options of consent if I went into labour and decide if they would be resuscitating the twins or not. Since I wasn't yet at 24 weeks, the babies only had a 50-60% survival rate if they were born this early. Also, they would be at increased risks of visual, hearing, learning impairment, brain hemorrhage and cerebral palsy. Scary shit. Pretty much they wanted us to know the worst case scenario in case that happened so we were prepared. We opted for me to have two steroid injections over 24 hours to help the twins develop their lungs faster in case they were born soon. This would give them a fighting chance. They couldn't do a repeat ultrasound on McMaster's machine until Thursday morning because we were admitted late afternoon so we had to sleep with all this weighing on us. I was admitted for hospital bed rest and monitoring and was only allowed out of bed to walk to my bathroom or take a shower.

Had the ultrasound Thursday morning and my cervix was not as thinned as they thought at the ultrasound clinic- it measured 4cm thick! And still only dilated 3cm. Babies were doing perfectly and measured about 1.3lbs each which was right on average size for their gestation length. Super active too which was a great sign. Only had one test to do on Friday which is a non stress test where they measure both heartbeats with a fetal doppler as well as my uterus to measure if there are any contractions or not. It takes about an hour and I had a clicker to click every time I could feel a baby move. No more injections, speculums, ultrasounds, blood or urine tests for a bit!

Nothing changed for the next few days until Saturday night. I ended up having cramps Saturday night that I thought were just from the crappy hospital food and anxiety since I had had them all Friday night after Mike left to go home and I was by myself letting my anxieties run wild. These cramps finally got so bad that I would feel nauseous and hold my breath until I felt faint. Mike finally made me call a nurse and have me checked out. They wheeled me to labour and delivery triage at about 8:30pm where I had another non-stress test that showed both babies were doing well but the cramps were actually uterine contractions. The doctor did another exam and found that my cervix had dilated further to 5 cm and baby boy's head was starting to come down. The doctor told us that the babies were going to be born that night. :(

I was wheeled to a delivery room and had an IV put in and an epidural of morphine and fentanyl. After the epidural had taken effect, I couldn't feel any painful contractions at all. I had a reaction to the drugs, making me soooo itchy so then got an IV bolus of Benadryl which made me ridiculously tired. I fell asleep for about an hour.

The twins were born Sunday, November 2nd. Connor Lucas was born at 1:16am and Quinn Avery born at 1:29am. Both were 1 pound, 7 ounces, 12 inches long. I had a team of ten doctors and nurses working on me and a team of four for each twin.

They were doing ok. They both came out kicking and grumpy and crying and were stable all night. Quinn was having some breathing difficulties Sunday afternoon but they said that babies born this early have a roller coaster ride of ups and downs every day. When we were visiting Connor, a nurse came over and said that I could hold Quinn now because they were going to switch out her incubator for a different one because the one she was in was not reading the incubator temperature correctly. This was so special because there was no guarantee that either of us would be able to hold Connor or Quinn for the next few weeks.

Unfortunately, Quinn had more issues as the day went on. Her lungs, heart, blood pressure, blood sugar could not be controlled. The doctor came to our hospital room and asked if they should keep trying but things were very grim. She was on every medication they had at their disposal and she still was not responding well and had to be sedated and on pain management. We made the difficult decision to let her go on Monday evening. She was only 36 hours old. The doctors and nurses took 20-30 mins to remove all of her tubes except for her ventilation, morphine and midazolam (sedation) pumps. They then brought us to a private room with a bed where we could lay her on my chest and remove the ventilator and be alone with her while she passed. We sat with our beautiful girl, devastated that this was actually happening but feeling incredibly lucky that we got to meet her at the same time.

We had a small wake for her last night that was really beautiful. We have visited Connor every day and he is making small progress every day but it will be bumpy road for the next few months. They told us in the NICU that progress with a "micro preemie" like Connor is typically one step forward, then two steps back. We are very optimistic that he will be ok.

Connor, less than two hours old: