Abby Lee

The birth of our twins was completely different from the birth of our daughter. Abigail was born without any pain medication. We did most of our laboring at home without realizing it. The twins’ birth story started almost two whole weeks prior to their birth. Two Thursdays prior to the twins’ birth, I started having pre-uterine contractions. I didn’t really know what was going on besides the fact that my super huge belly had been rock hard since 4 o’clock in the afternoon and at 2AM it was still hard and I was feeling discomfort. Also I was pretty sure that some pains had been coming regularly and were getting more intense. So Jason and I called my mom, wrapped Abby in a blanket, dropped her off at my parents and headed into town. We spent the next 2 hours in Burlington at the hospital getting checked out. After determining that I was not going into labor but I was 3 cm dilated, they sent me home and said to take it easy. So I did. I felt OK after this appointment until the following Thursday when the pain had returned and felt worse than before. This time it was 1 in the afternoon. Jason was in town so I drove myself to the hospital, where he met me. We got evaluated, the pain had lessened a little bit so they again said take it easy you’ll be fine. The next day I had a doctor’s appointment with Dr. Young. I felt OK on Friday- I had even lost 8 pounds. I did tell Dr. Young that I didn’t want to be pregnant any more. Since I was at 36 weeks, I expected him to be OK with that statement. He warned me that it was still a little early for me to be having the boys. We did decide that it was time for me to stop working and take care of myself and the babies. I was OK with this. The week before I had decided that I definitely couldn’t work full time and had reduced to ½ time. Now I wouldn’t go to work at all. Saturday I spent most of the day in bed. My body was really tired and I didn’t feel good. I couldn’t eat anything, which is totally unlike me. The food that I did eat which included crackers and apple chunks didn’t stay in my belly very long. I felt so nauseous I couldn’t drink any water either. So I was getting hungry and dehydrated. I spent Saturday, Sunday, and Monday in bed. I watched a lot of movies, read a bunch of books, and spent time on the computer. I don’t know how people spend months on bed rest, I think that I would get super bored and uncomfortable in bed. I would much prefer to be out and about talking with people and being outside than in a bed. Ick. Monday I noticed that my urine was orange. It had been more yellow because of the prenatal vitamin that I had been taking but this was a significant color difference. I still wasn’t eating and was drinking very little. Everything that I ate…including 3 crackers and 1 slice of apple didn’t stay down and I could find no comfortable position. I had decided if I didn’t feel better on Tuesday than I was going to call the nurse and tell her. Sure enough Tuesday morning still felt really crummy and nauseous, I called the nurse and got an appointment for 1:30 that afternoon with my doctor. I was excited and relieved to have an appointment and hopefully feel better. I spent the morning in bed trying to keep the piece of apple that I had eaten in my belly. Before too long it was time to head into my appointment. We headed into Burlington to await my time with Dr. Young. I was called and got weighed. Amazingly I had lost 5 more pounds. We were brought to a room, my blood pressure was measured and I gave a urine sample. Dr. Young came in and checked me out saying that I was no longer dilated but he thought that I should be evaluated by labor & delivery due to a high blood pressure and the fact that my urine was a dark reddish orange color. By this time I was crying because I felt really crummy. I must have looked pretty bad as well because Dr. Young stated that I looked really pathetic. We headed up to Labor & delivery. After waiting 10-15 minutes we were brought into a huge room with a pretty amazing view. I was given a gown and the testing began. I was given an IV with liquids because I was severely dehydrated. Blood was drawn with great difficulty leaving a number of different bruises and bandages. Another urine sample was given and this time my urine was the color of a Coke soda. Jason and I waited to hear from the doctors. We realized during the time period that we hadn’t brought our camera—what if we ended up having these babies today. We also didn’t have the car seats in the car and Jason hadn’t packed an overnight bag. We were totally unprepared to stay and have these babies. After sitting around for 2 hours Jason decided to run home and gather up our forgotten supplies and take care of some loose ends at the house. I got some rest and talked with the nurse, who was a little bit overbearing. Jason was gone longer than we expected. After about an hour the doctor came back in and started explaining what was going on. The blood tests had revealed that I had HELLP Syndrome. HELLP Syndrome is part of the Pre-eclampsia spectrum. HELLP stands for Hemolytic anemia, Elevated Liver enzymes, & Low Platelet count. The protein in my urine showed my liver problems along with the pain that I was having in my upper left abdomen. My blood pressure wasn’t excessively high which is what was confusing my doctors. When they ran my blood samples they found that my platelet level was at 33,000. The average platelet level is 150,000-400,000. I was in the Severe classification of my platelet level. This was alarming to my doctors. The treatment for HELLP syndrome is the birth of the baby and the removal of the placenta. The doctors explained all of this saying that we would have to have a C-Section as soon as possible. Prior to this operation they would need to talk to the anesthesiologist and determine how the procedure would occur—if I would be awake for the procedure or completely under. The dilemma was the placement of the injection for the anesthesia would be in the spine if I was to remain awake. Since my platelet level was low there could be a problem with clotting in the spinal region. So most likely I would be given a general anesthesia and be completely asleep. These discussions were occurring while Jason was still not in the hospital. It was decided that I needed to be given an IV of platelets & that I would have to receive a general anesthesia because the anesthesiologist believed this to be the safest route to my delivery of the twins safely and my own return to good health. All decisions were made and the forms signed before Jason’s return to the hospital. I assume that he was totally overwhelmed by receiving this information upon his return and didn’t truly know what was going on. Due to me receiving a general anesthesia Jason would not be allowed in the delivery room. This was a little bit alarming. This wasn’t turning out to be the delivery I thought it was going to be. I received the platelets, was told that I didn’t need to have the magnesium until after the surgery ( HELLP patients can experience seizures following the delivery, thus they are given magnesium either prior or following surgery or both. I was told that I would be given the magnesium post surgery.) I was rolled into surgery at 9 and told it would be done in very short time. I was awake for the roll down the hall. This is when I started to get scared. I was assisted onto the operating table and given a mask to put me under. It took a while for me to go under. I remember starting to panic because I couldn’t get a full breath. The next piece I remember I was back in the room. The boys were not in the room yet. I was evaluated and given a magnesium IV. Jason went to go find the boys & returned with our beautiful sons. Nathaniel weighed 5 lbs 4 oz, and Aleksander weighed 5 lbs, 3oz. The rest of the evening past with the help of the evening nurses helping me with getting the boys to nurse and keeping an eye on my breathing. Magnesium makes you very tired and makes it really hard to concentrate on conversations and anything longer than a couple of seconds. We spent the next day on the labor & delivery floor. Luckily Jason was around for most of the day and could help me focus on conversations with the doctors. My mom came to visit me in my room. While she and I were talking, Jason went down to the lobby and spent time with Abby. They got a stuffed Kitty that was for Abby to hug whenever she missed her mommy & daddy while we were in the hospital.


Mom was able to stick around for about an hour and talk. It was a little weird because my nurse never left the room to give us privacy and would add comments to our conversation. It was nice that Mom can by and took some pictures. I sent out text messages & called some people but from what I hear I wasn’t very coherent when talking to people. I remember one time talking with Jason and mid conversation I passed out. I awoke seconds later and apologized. Jason said my eyes rolled back into my head. We stayed on L&D until 11PM. At 11PM we were moved down to the maternity floor. Because we had two babies we got our own room, which was nice. Jason was able to get his own bed and he soon fell asleep. I was set up with the boys near by and pillows propping me up. The nurse came by every 2 hours or so to give me pain medication and help me with nursing and bathroom needs. We spent Thursday, Friday, and part of Saturday in this room. I was doing well but being watched because of some liquid that could be in my lungs and my inability to breath in with force. I was also being told that I needed to cough up anything I had in my chest even though it hurt a lot. Visitation was limited due to the spread of the flu. My friend Laura came by on our first day and Mary & Paul came on Friday to spend the day and bring some snacks and take pictures. Apparently I looked pretty pale when they came to visit.



Doctor Young also came by to see how I was doing and to say he was sorry that he hadn’t caught the HELLP syndrome symptoms earlier. I had an atypical presentation and due to the fact that my blood pressure never rose alarmingly this possible syndrome didn’t come up. Each day I felt better and stronger. We were hoping to leave on Saturday because it was Abby’s birthday. We got our wish and were able to leave around noon. It was a little emotional for me because all of a sudden we were totally responsible for these two little beings. I was feeling better but still hurting when I moved too quickly. We picked up Subway for lunch and headed home. Mom brought Abby home and she met her brothers for the first time.

It has been 7 weeks. They have been hard and the boys have grown a lot. I have 2 more weeks until I return to work. Jason will be staying home during the day to take care of the boys and will hopefully be getting a job at night to help with the bills. We are slowly getting back on our feet. Having 3 children is much more difficult than 1 and having twins is much more stressful than a singleton. We’ll keep you posted on the exciting lives of the Lee children and try and be better about posting pictures in the upcoming months. Thank you to everyone for prayers, support and gifts. We love you all.





-Emily