Sunday, July 12, 2009

Expectations, perspective and lots of crying

K's favourite position, with her bum in the air

Mandy asked in the comments if I was home yet.

Yes, I am. In South Africa, they keep you in the hospital for 3 nights after a C-section so I was discharged on Friday.


I'm still dealing with some noise in my head because of the suddenness of the babies' arrival.

The first thing I thought after my waters broke was "I'm only 32 weeks; this can't be happening to me". I expected to maybe be a week early at 35 weeks, but not 32 weeks!

The craziest things kept going through my head that morning, like...
  • My hair's a mess (because I was going to have my hair coloured, washed and blow dried that afternoon)
  • I'll have to cancel the pregnancy photography shoot (scheduled for 18th)
  • I'll have to cancel our birthday party (D & I have just 10 days between the two birthdays. Normally we do a party on the weekend between the two; this year I'd brought forward the date by two weeks, just in case!)
  • I still haven't even reached 70 kg (that morning I was still 69.9kg) and
  • I'm only 32 weeks (over and over and over)

Of course this all paled into insignificance once they were born and once the paediatrician told us that blue Kendra was now a healthy pink Kendra :) and I was fine the rest of the day until I woke up on the Wednesday.

I was sharing a general ward with two other ladies who both had scheduled C-sections at 38 weeks, normal babies, etc, etc. The kind of people we infertiles love to hate :)

Well, these two were chatting away about really normal baby stuff - breastfeeding, etc, etc, and it suddenly hit me that MY babies should also be with me.

Why am I going through this all again? Have I not suffered enough? - you know the drill!

And then I started crying in earnest. Quiet but serious crying.

Then an amazing thing started happening. God always looks out for me like this.

I got text messages from 3 of my friends saying things like, "I remember day 2 being really hard for me. Just want to let you know I'm here for you" and similar.

Which of course makes you cry more :)

After a few hours I felt fine again, especially after D came to see me with the laptop!!!

Thursday was a good day and then I was discharged on Friday.

It's very, very weird to leave the hospital without your babies when you'd arrived pregnant a few days earlier.

The thing is on the Thursday evening a lady had had a natural birth but her child was stillborn. Terrible! But put things back in perspective for me because I was grateful that at least my babies were alive in there.

Thursday night - the first time I got to hold one of them. See, a good day.

Also, that Friday morning a new baby arrived in NICU. A nice, big baby at 38 weeks (3.4kg) but he had lung problems which again reminded me that I should be grateful that there is NOTHING wrong with my babies except they're small.

Anyway, had just got home when a friend phoned me and told me she's a bit jealous that I got to experience things with this birth that she never experienced nor would in the future.

She's had two babies and both times the deliveries were sudden, emergency Caesars due to high blood pressure. The doctor has now said no more babies as it's too dangerous for her health.

Honestly, I never even thought about that. But she's right. At least I got to feel what it was like having my waters break, I got to feel contractions all the way up to being 6cm dilated and then I got to experience the Caesar.

I love having friends who challenge you.

Yes, it was not my plan but those experiences have now made my life richer.

I have to keep saying that to myself because yesterday morning, I weighed myself and I've lost 5.1 of the 10.9 kg I gained. Multiply by 2.2 for pounds.

Other people would be happy but I cried and cried!

I also realised that I wasn't starving like I usually am (it really was the babies making me eat ALL the time) in the mornings, so MORE crying.

My eyes were swollen and red - it was terrible.
  • I miss my preggy belly.
  • I miss my babies' movements.
  • I miss the on-demand pregnancy eating.
  • I miss my glow :)
Today, no crying yet. So far, so good!


My hand on K

D's hand on C

9 comments:

  1. Don't you just LOVE hormones?? I'm sure once they come home you'll have tears of joy! I can't wait to see them again. Please take care of yourself, it won't be much longer now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, 3 days??! Crikey - I guess NZ is generous with 5 :) I totally get the feelings around sharing the ward with the mummies of the 38wkers. I've never quite *got* why hospitals do that. I guess you could look at it as them seeing yours as being *almost* there too? And I think it's perfectly hormonally reasonable that there are LOADS of things you miss about being preggers - after all, you had psychologically prepared for a number of extra weeks to enjoy those things, and very quickly the plan changed. I bet the kids are growing quickly and it is fantastic that they are doing so well - see, you did a great job of incubating them :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous11:15 am

    You have done so well, carrying your twins, giving birth to them and now caring for them. Dont forget that! Your twins are just small and just need to grow a bit, in a months time you will be wondering what the worry was all about! They look extremely cute and you look great holding them!
    Take care,
    Losta love xxx

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous2:56 pm

    I love K's bum in the air position... it's soo adorable.
    Your Pollyanna positiveness - looking for the good during this trying time is shining through and I hope that your crying days are fewer and joyful days more numerous as the days and weeks go bye. How much longer til you can take the babes home?
    Love Nat

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love the challenges. That is great!
    These pictures are precious.

    Ok - I cannot believe you've only gained 10.9 kg!!! Wow. I've gained almost 22 lb, so close to 10 kg and I have 1. Umm...

    Hopefully your hormones will even out soon.

    Praying for you and the babes, hun.

    ~~HUGS~~

    ReplyDelete
  6. I found your blog off of someone elses and wanted to let you know to hang in there. Your feelings are completely normal. I delivered my baby girl at 28 wks 1 day due to high blood pressure and I too cried over the same feelings. My husband happened to find a site that said that I was grieving over my pregnancy and that was completely normal. It made me feel so much better to know my feelings were completely valid. I promise it will get better. Please feel free to visit my blog if you get a chance (considering you are slightly busy =)) My very first post explains what we went through. Now we have a beautiful 2 year old that is walking, talking, and loving us with everything she has. My thoughts are with yall!
    www.macmurphys.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  7. oh my goodness! you are just a well of emotions right now, aren't you? :) I guess it must all be normal... to feel a certain loss of the pregnancy when you have your babies. I think Í read that somewhere. Your babies are adorable. It's so wonderful that they are doing well.

    ReplyDelete
  8. congrats! I am very happy that the babies are doing well.

    ReplyDelete
  9. YAY for the pictures! I didn't notice them the first time I read through this, but I'm so glad to see them. I do think everything you are feeling is normal. I hope you feel back to your old self soon, though. It must be weird to not be pregnant anymore, but to be a mommy is a whole new experience. It's what the pregnancy was all about! And you've got it now!

    I'm glad everything is going relatively well. Can't wait to hear more.

    ReplyDelete

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