On the coldest day we’ve had in years, our girls decided they’d had enough and wanted out of their swimming pool.

Monday night, their tracings were normal and we expected to be home Tuesday. Tuesday morning came and my lovely nurse came to do my tracing early so I could get on home. Ironically,  this was the same nurse who admitted me back in November.

Unexpectedly, the tracing was not great. The heartbeats were indistinguishable and often dropped. The tracing also showed several cord pinches.  Concerned, they sent me for an ultrasound and ordered me not to eat or drink anything.

Shortly after my ultrasound,  the team came in for rounds (which feels a little like you’re an exhibit at the museum, with so many people staring at you) and explained that they were concerned and that I might be delivering that day.  I called Jas who came over much too quickly for someone recovering from a chest tube.

Several hours passed without any decisions being made. My doctor was concerned and explained to us what might happen. Around 2 PM I was hooked up for tracing again, which continued to show drops and pinches,  and I started having contractions.  At that point, the decision was made and we were sent off to the birthing unit.

I was given magnesium for the girls’ brain development which the nurse told me quite frankly would make me feel like crap (she was not kidding) as well as a round of antibiotics. Then, we waited. We kept being told ten more minutes until they finally wheeled me off to the OR and Jas went to scrub up.

Nothing could have prepared me for the actual c section. Even though we had seen the OR on our tour,  sitting on the operating table, naked except for a flimsy hospital gown, alone and worried was the single worst feeling of my life. I couldn’t help but cry as they administered the spinal tap and NICU  doctors kept peering in at me through the window to see if we had started.

Eventually the doctors were ready and Jas came in, complete with face mask and hair covering, worried and anxious.  The section started and I was pushed,  pulled, tugged at, and cut until the girls were taken out one at a time.

They would tell me when each girl was born, but there was no crying as they were rushed into the next room to be stabilized.  I watched above me on the monitors as the smallest babies I had ever seen laid on incubators with dark hair on their heads.

Jason ran to see them and took pictures while I was put back together.  He showed me proudly the girls and talked to the doctors while I lay helplessly,  tears flowing freely as I lay, arms stretched out.

We were told that the girls’ umbilical cords were quite tangled, possibly explaining the sudden need to deliver. We declined the offer to see the cords as the idea of seeing them tied up made me feel sick to my stomach.

Eventually we were moved to the recovery room where my legs felt like floppy jello and before I ate anything,  I was being asked to express my colostrum. As I lay wrapped in a heated blanket, Jason called the grandparents to tell them of the new arrivals and found out where the girls would be going.

So, in the end I never got my waffles,  but I did get something just as sweet.