Labor?

The moment I walked into the bedroom, I knew the twins were gone.  I tried my best to hold my composure, as if everything was alright, but I believed deep down that we lost our twins.  All I could do was pray that I was wrong, that somehow Amy could bleed so much, and everything would still turn out fine.  

Blood was all over Amy, the sheets, the floor, and anything Amy touched.  The bedroom looked like a murder scene.  Normally, blood would make me sick, but this was a high pressured situation and I was in go mode.  I gave Amy the towels and made sure she physically felt ok.  Then my focus turned to getting to the hospital.

I was running all over the house getting everything we needed for the hospital.  I grabbed our bags, phones, and chargers, throwing them all into the van.  I filled a whole bowl of food and water for our cat to survive without us for a few days.  As I was running through the house, I noticed I was audibly praying to God to protect the babies, and pleading for everything to be ok.  

I made my way back upstairs and found Amy sitting on the toilet, still bleeding.  At this point, we decided that calling 911 was our best choice.  The dispatcher did not seem to sense the urgency in the situation.  The first thing he told me was to make sure Amy wasn’t sitting on the toilet, which she was.  We moved her to the kitchen floor on top of a pile of towels.  He asked me a list of questions, How far along is she?”

“37 weeks, with twins.”

“How long ago did her water break?”

“Her water didn’t break, she is bleeding everywhere!”

“How long has she been in labor?”

“She isn’t in labor, she is bleeding!”

“How far apart are her contractions?”

“She isn’t having any!”

“Can you see the baby?”

“NO, SHE ISN’T IN LABOR! SHE IS BLEEDING, A LOT!”

On all the TV shows and movies, the dispatcher usually stays on the phone until help arrives.  This guy didn’t want to talk to me anymore.  He told me the ambulance was on the way and let me go.  I pulled everything we needed for the hospital out of the van and put it on the porch.   I kept stepping outside onto the dark porch looking up and down the street, anticipating sirens and lights.  Eventually I saw lights flashing around the bend of the road, on the dark houses and trees, but silence.  Red and blue lights reflected off the night.  Time seemed to move slowly, and the ambulance still hadn’t made it around the bend.  Eventually I saw the ambulance nearly 10 houses down, driving slowly, and stopping at every house looking at the address.  I begin to flash the porch light, indicating this was the house.  This went unnoticed by the drivers, as they continued to stop at every house to look at an address.  Their lack of urgency made me want to scream down the road and wake the entire neighborhood. 

Once they pulled up and stepped out, my annoyance with the dispatcher flooded over, “she isn’t in labor, she has lost a lot of blood.”

“How far apart are her contractions?”

“No, she isn’t in labor, she hasn’t had any contractions!”

The EMTs helped Amy into the ambulance and sat her on the bed, closing the door behind them.  I followed behind with the ambulance bags, opened the door, and let myself in.  We sat there for what seemed forever, annoyed that we weren’t leaving.  The EMTs had “stuff to do” before we could go.  One of their tasks was to look for the baby’s heart beats.  After checking, he didn’t say anything to us.  Amy had to ask, “did you find anything?” 

“They were faint.”

Now my thinking turned to them being alive, but with serious brain damage.  If blood wasn’t flowing to their brain quick enough, or getting enough oxygen, how long could they last? My praying continued, with my hand on Amy’s shoulder.  After we were on our way, I began texting family and close friends.  Letting them know, things did not look good.  

Amy called her mom while the ambulance was on the way to the house, and her family was already on the way to the hospital.  They had three times the distance to travel, but still beat us there.  They watched as the ambulance pulled up to the back.  As Amy was being wheeled into the hospital, I was walking close behind with our bags.  The EMTs began joking about my daddy duties.  Didn’t they realize the heaviness of the situation?  I wasn’t even sure I was going to BE a dad.  Nurses were congratulating us on our walk down the halls, but I rolled my eyes thinking this was going to be the worst day of our lives, and we were being congratulated.  

Back to the third floor of the hospital, where we spent our 4 day vacation a few weeks earlier.  The nurses hooked Amy up to the machines to check the health of all involved.  Praise God, they found the heartbeats, and they were HEALTHY!  Turns out, Amy was in labor, and it was time to deliver.   She went from feeling no contractions, to strong contractions by the time we made it to the hospital. Now that I learned she actually had been in labor, I felt bad for getting angry with the dispatchers and EMTs.   A c-section would be performed as soon as the doctor arrived.  At this point, it was hard to accept I was going to become a father, and so soon!  I walked out to the waiting room and gave Amy’s family periodic updates.  I texted my family and close friends letting them know that things looked ok after all and that I was going to be a Dad!  Most texts went unanswered, as the world was sleeping.  

We were told the way Amy bled was not normal. There were several theories to why Amy had bled so much, but the nurse’s best guess was that Amy dilated so quickly and labor progressed so fast, it caused her to bleed.  Through our birthing classes, we learned that the typical Hollywood water break was very rare.  Water breaking was more of a slow trickle.  Turned out, Amy had the Hollywood gushing water break, but it was mixed with a significant amount of blood and made it look like a total nightmare. 

I put on blue scrubs, head cover, and mask.  I was given grape juice to help prevent light headedness in the operating room.  They wheeled Amy into the OR and I sat in the hall as they prepped her.  My emotions started to overwhelm me with happiness.  I did the only logical thing while waiting, and took a selfie while in my hospital scrubs:

 I posted it to Facebook, but quickly deleted it, with new fears arising that maybe everything wouldn’t go ok after all.  Fifteen minutes later, a nurse came out to the hall, “we're ready for you dad!”