On Monday March 23rd Carrie and I went to the doctor (Dr. Van Dyke) at 1:40pm for her weekly checkup. She was 33 weeks pregnant and had just completed 4 weeks of bed rest, due to being 50% effaced. The Monday before we were in the hospital for a stress test and we found that she was having contractions at about 3 minutes apart. They were able to slow those down and send us home after a couple of hours. So we were expecting this doctor appointment to be an eventful one. The doctor reviewed the information from the previous ultrasound and stress test and checked Carrie to see what was going on. He then told us that Carrie was 3 centimeters dilated, he then said he was going to admit Carrie to the hospital to see if she was likely to go into pre-term labor and we would likely be in there for 24 hours. Then he said "Remember what I said about twins? They won't be late". So I dropped Carrie off at the hospital and then went home to get some things to spend the night.
At about 5pm we saw the high risk doctor in triage at Winnie Palmer, by this point Carrie was having contractions very consistently... she didn't even realize it and was not having any pain. The doctor confirmed what our Dr. Van Dyke had told us and gave Carrie a steroid shot to help the development of the babies lungs and some meds to slow down the contractions; this stuff was pretty painful for her. By then all we could think about was getting some food for dinner, we last ate at 11am. So I asked the nurse if we could order some food, she said yes and we called the cafe to order. Then after telling the attendant that I wanted to order food for Carrie Walker she told me there is a hold on ordering any food for this patient. We thought, this surely must be a mistake. The nurse called the high risk doctor to ask about it and she said that she wanted to wait until she checks Carrie again. This was a bummer because by this time Carrie could not get comfortable; she was having back pains, a painful medication was going through her i-v and on top of that she was thirsty and starving.
A new nurse came in after a shift change and Carrie described the back pains she was having... the nurse told us this was because she was in labor... We both looked at each as if to say "YEAH RIGHT", for some reason we had convinced ourselves that these babies were not coming tonight, and our primary focus was getting food in our stomachs. By about 9PM we were finally admitted into our room and it was a total upgrade to the room in triage. Our new nurse came in to greet us and we asked her when Carrie could be checked so we could eat. She said the doctor would be in soon, and also told Carrie not to drink anything for the time being. So to pass time we thought we would watch our favorite show 24, but decided that there would be too much commotion going on to pay attention to it with family calling and nurses being in and out. Finally at about 9:45 pm our new high risk doctor came in and check Carrie, he let us know that Carrie was 4 centimeters dilated and wanted us to hold off on eating. This was a low blow, at this point this was our primary objective... all we had to look forward to were these contractions to slow down so we could eat.
By this point Carrie's back pain was getting more intense and she could not get comfortable, she mentioned it to the nurse and the nurse told us they were labor pains. Again we were not convinced. The doctor told us earlier that he was going to check her again in 1 hour to see if she progressed even a little and if she did he would send us to labor and delivery. Because Carrie was only experiencing moderate pain, some of which she had earlier in the pregnancy we didn't think it would come to that point. So we popped in a DVD (the notebook) to make the time go quicker.
I remember walking over to the nurses computer monitor that was showing the babies heart beats and Carrie's contractions and watched them go up and down like a roller coaster. The doctor came back in at about 11:30 PM to check Carrie and told us that she was 5 cm dilated and baby A's (Camden) head was engaged. Finally the thought hit us we may have these babies tonight. So the doctor put in orders to take us to labor and delivery, and I put in an order for food because I was starving and there was no reason both of us should go hungry. At this time we called our parents let them know. They mentioned scheduling a c-section for 7 am, or they could do it right away. I asked the nurse if I should go home to get a camera, after all we did not think this was going to happen. She said lets wait and see what your doctor (Van Dyke) wants to do and go from there.
I finished eating at about 12:30 AM, and in came a stretcher ready to take Carrie to labor and delivery. Well we found out then that labor and delivery was actually surgery preparation. Earlier we signed a consent form for a C-section because of the risk in delivering two premature twins naturally, one who was smaller than the other. So by this point we knew it could be anytime. Once we were down in pre-op I decided I had to get a camera, the nurses told me I would have no time to get Carrie's professional camera from home in Oviedo so they told me about a 24 hour Walgreen's that was 5 minutes away. I hurried over to Walgreen's and bought 2 disposable cameras. I was back pretty quickly, Carrie was given an epidural and Dr. Van Dyke arrived by about 2:15 AM. From this time on everything went so fast, they had me wait while they took Carrie in the surgery room. I talked with Dr. Van Dyke for a few moments and he said "did you see that blank stare on her face in my office?" I said what are you talking about? he answered "she had no idea" talking about the fact that Carrie was in labor. We laughed and got ready for the big moment. I sat in a chair outside of the surgery room while Carrie was being prepped. I must say I was so nervous, I just prayed to God to make everything go smoothly. I thanked him for getting us to this point and the love that Christ has for us that is so much better than anything in this world. Then I proceeded to pray for anything and everything. I don't think I have ever prayed so intensely or chaotically in all my life.
Part 2 coming soon!
