Birth Story | The Farnes Family

I suppose the story begins last Friday morning. I went in for a non-stress test appointment where they also discussed my mild preeclampsia. Shortly after that appointment, I got a phone call telling me I was officially on bedrest and basically had to lay around all day. I was also given a list of symptoms of my preeclampsia that if I experienced then I would have to go to labor and delivery.

Now, this was a real shock. Up until a few weeks prior, I had done really well with my pregnancy, I got around fairly easily, and while I was swollen like a balloon, I felt fine. I chose to start my maternity leave early on September 1st, simply so I could rest and try to keep my twins in until I would be induced on the 21st. I wanted to rest but didn't think my doctor would tell me to or that they might come earlier. I was certain they would wait until their induction date.

So I spent that day on my couch with Zoram and mentally prepared myself to deliver. Being told to go to the hospital for certain symptoms scared me. My hospital is 20 minutes from my apartment and can be annoying to get to. Not to mention that with both my baby girls breeched, I needed a cesarean and didn't want a random doctor giving me major surgery if I had to just rush in. I also didn't have my hospital bag ready and I still had things to purchase, like a second car seat.

I spent my day on the couch and slowly began feeling more and more contractions. When Chris got home from work we debated and discussed our options. We said a prayer and eventually decided to go to the hospital. I sat on my bed as Chris packed a bag for me and we left.

We spent a few hours at the hospital while they monitored my worsening contractions and my girl's heartbeats. They eventually decided that I would not be delivering that night, though I did have a UTI and was dehydrated. I was given an IV for fluids and two injections to relax my uterus and slow contractions. Finally, at 3am we went home and went straight to bed.

I spent my entire Saturday in bed, no longer feeling contractions and feeling more comfortable. Chris and I began to believe our girls would come later in the week so long as I kept on bedrest. I made plans to fix up my hospital bag and spent the day in peace.

Sunday morning I woke up feeling incredibly uncomfortable and sick. I ended up throwing up before I could even get any food in my stomach and couldn't even think about eating anything after. I showered and then laid in my bed watching YouTube.

Suddenly, I felt a gush of fluid that would not stop. I remained lying still on my bed as I continued to feel like I was peeing non-stop without any control. When it felt as if it had stopped, I rushed to my bathroom, sat on the toilet, and again began gushing more fluid.

Because I had twins, was 35 weeks along, had a scheduled c-section, and was no longer feeling any contractions, I never expected my water to break in this pregnancy. At all. Honestly, I was so surprised by it, that as I sat on the toilet I was on my phone Googling to be 100% sure that this was real. Eventually, I shouted out to Chris on the couch and told him what was happening.

Chris went into a very calm, controlled, rushed mode to grab everything we needed, get me ready with fluid still leaking from me, and get us out to the car and to the hospital. He held my hand the whole ride, didn't seem scared or nervous at all, and he was acting so excited. I, on the other hand, was still incredibly nauseated, my back was aching and cramping like crazy, and I felt incredibly weak and just tired.

In the hospital, they got me in a bed and there was no doubt that I was having my babies soon. They went into all the prep, my parents showed up, excited to get their first grandkids on grandparents day, my sister and her new hubby showed up, and all the while I laid in the hospital bed, just wanting to sleep and feeling more and more painful cramps.

Honestly, it was only a few hours later until I was wheeled into the operating room. The on-call doctor was one who was previously recommended to me when I had to originally switch doctors for my insurance. I got to meet her and was comfortable with her performing my c-section.

I was given the typical anesthesia, which I hated due to my major fear and distaste for needles. They laid me down as I started to grow numb, my arms were strapped down (still don't know why), a curtain was set up to block my view of what was happening, and Chris sat beside me, holding my hand and doing his best to comfort me.

I felt tugging and pulling in my abdomen, but was numb enough to feel no pain. It was a strange feeling though. It felt like no time at all before our first little girl entered the world, followed only a minute later by her sister. My Zoey and Makell were born.

Chris left with the girls while I was sewn up. Fun fact, apparently when they are tugging at your uterus, your shoulder hurts. It was some of the most intense pain of my life and I really struggled to remain calm. Weird that in getting a c-section my worst pain would be in my right shoulder.

I was wheeled back into a room where my family was waiting. I honestly don't remember what else happened that day because I was in and out of sleep.

I didn't get to see my girls that day. And that night I was throwing up and hyperventilating. I was dealing with too much of my own issues to go see my girls. Chris was with them often though, taking our family members into the NICU to visit them.

The next day I had nurses in and out of my room looking over me and eventually, I was feeling well enough that Chris put me in a wheelchair and took me to the NICU to visit our girls.

Today my girls are one week old and still in the NICU. I have since left the hospital and absolutely hate being away from them, but am so grateful for the nurses at the NICU and everything they are doing for my girls.

My daughters are doing considerably well. Makell is on oxygen as she tends to struggle with breathing, especially after eating. For a while, Zoey was under ultralight therapy for jaundice. But she has gotten better and is now off the lights. Both girls are being fed through a tube. We often try to give them a bottle, but they don't take much on their own. They are preemies and haven't fully developed their rooting and sucking skills, but we're easing them into it.

They both have an issue with throwing up their food though, particularly Makell. Because I'm not really producing much breast milk, they are having formula. The regular formula seemed to upset, they moved over to soy, and now Makell is on another formula. They are worried they have a lactose issue so they are no longer even giving them the little milk I produce unless I go completely dairy free (which is something Chris and I are considering and discussing).

Zoey and Makell will be released from the NICU once they can learn to eat and show signs of consistent weight gain. We're predicting about a week, but you never know. I do have little warrior babies and we believe they can get home soon, but it's very hard to wait.

I visit my girls every day, though not nearly as much as when I was in the hospital or as much as I would like. I love my daughters so much. They are absolutely perfect, they make me cry all the time because of how precious, petite, and perfect they are. I just want to hold them all the time and it kills me that I can't.

I am grateful for the NICU for easing me into parenthood and teaching me how best to care for them. The nurses there are so kind and amazing. They love our girls and take such good care of them.

It's amazing to see Chris as a father. He's still getting used to it, still may have a bit more of a connection to our dog right now, but he honestly loves these girls so much and takes care of them (and me) the best he can. Honestly, as I lay in my hospital bed, unable to visit them, I knew I could count on Chris to be visiting them often and checking up on them.

Happy one week to my beautiful girls!

Makell

Zoey

Makell

Makell and her mommy

Makell and mom and dad

Zoey under the light therapy

How Zoey really feels about light therapy

Yawning Makell

Zoey and her cute hat 

September Review

Hello everybody! Welcome to October!! I love October because it ends with my favorite holiday, Halloween, and leads into November 4th, which is my birthday!! I also absolutely love this autumn time of year! I'm so excited for hay rides, corn mazes, pumpkin carving, and the ever beautiful fall leaf colors!!

So before we lead into October, here is my September in review, which is basically a small compilation of all the things I did during the month of September, with pictures!!!

So it rained a lot in the month of September in Logan. And elsewhere, I was so sad to hear about all the flooding and mud slides! I'm praying for everyone affected by it! But with it being the first big rain storm since we moved to Logan, we had tons of fun playing out in the rain. It was a blast! I love spending so much time with my husband!

 So I bought these new rod curlers to try them out, you can read about that HERE. I did two things with them, curling and a sock-ish bun (because it wasn't a sock, it was a curler). I am still debating with how much I like these curlers. They tangle in my hair to easily and rip some of my hair out, but I do like the results. But I only really used them the beginning of the month, so I haven't fully figured them out. If you want a tutorial on either of the styles above, just leave a comment below!

Chris started soccer intramurals again!! If you've ever heard our love story, we met through intramurals. He was on my roommate's co-ed team and the rest, as they say, is history. So his first game was at 9:30 at night in the pouring rain, which is the reason for the poor quality photo. It's also the reason for this:

Honestly, that experience was so incredibly to me. She seriously went out of her way to keep me from getting wet in the rain. It's so incredible to have an experience like this and be able to see that there is still so much good in the world!! Honestly, Caitlin (or however you spell it), I cannot thank you enough!

Once upon a time it was Friday the 13th, and I had to give an oral book report in class. I was super nervous! My hands were shaking, I had prepared late the night before, and I had that awful fast/nervous speaking voice. My book was Inside Out: Strategies for Teaching Writing. It was over 300 pages long, I had about two week to read it, and (don't tell my professor or parents) I didn't read one page. I skimmed through the whole book, read all the chapter headings, looked online for summaries and reviews (which there were none) and I basically just made up my report. It went really well though and on the written section, I got an "A"! However, on the oral section, I accidentally called the book a novel, not even thinking about it. I knew by definition the book wasn't considered a "novel", but it was merely a slip of the tongue... but my teacher certainly didn't think so. She called me out on it right away: "A novel? Do you know what a novel is?" I was already incredibly nervous, but now I was incredibly embarrassed! "I know, I didn't mean to say that." I tried to cover up my mistake, but it was too late. She had chastised me in front of the class and my face turned red with embarrassment. And that is my Friday the 13th story.... and watching and smelling as my coworker cleaned throw up out of the garbage can, but that's a whole other issue.

First of all, I'm kind of upset at my dad for lifting up his hand and ruining the only good photo I have of my brother from this day. So football season began and I had the wonderful opportunity to drive for two hours in horrible dark rain to watch my old high school's football game... just for my brother performing at half time. The Alta High School Marching Band is new this year, and I'm so glad my brother is able to be on it for his senior year and doing something he loves. He did a fantastic job! I would show you pictures from when he was on the field (at Rio Tinto, which was pretty cool) but my sister took pictures and I recorded it. I might put the video up, but I don't have any pictures because my sister hasn't made them available to me yet. I had a great time watching my brother doing something he loves! He went to all my dance performances and I was very happy to go and support him too!

Speaking of my brother, this handsome boy turned 18 on the 18th! He is seriously one of my best friends in the whole world and I just love him so much!! I was really sad I couldn't be there to celebrate his birthday with him, but I got to over the phone!! While he was opening presents, my family had me on speaker phone so I could hear what was going on. After presents, we all sang to him before he blew out his amazing Darth Vader candle:

 It was sad to not be there, but I got to be a part of his birthday anyways, so I was happy. Nick really is like my best friend and I just love him so much. Even if he did grow to be almost a foot taller than me, he will always be my little brother Nick!

And for any of my LDS peeps wondering, he is not going on a mission yet because he's still in school. He'll probably be putting his papers in next summer, which is totally crazy to me! He's too old! It still weirds me out that he can drive, it's even worse that he's a senior this year... stop growing up Nick!!

After two months of searching I finally found Impress, Press on Manicure. I have an official review HERE, but just know I absolutely loved it!! It looked so good and took less than five minutes. I love it!

I wasn't there, but my husband came home one Saturday with this monster fish!! It weighed about four pounds (our scale didn't work well with measuring the fish) was almost two feet long, and it tasted delicious!! It was super scary though, take a look at it's teeth:

(The eyes only look so scary because of my camera flash, but it really is a scary fish, and big) On the same day Chris also caught this fish:

Who wouldn't die. Honestly. He came home from fishing and we had somewhere to go so he stuck them all (there was a third fish too) in the sink and put them in water so they wouldn't start to rot and stink. The bass pictured above (which I apologize for the blood on the fish and my husband's hand...sorry!) started breathing again once we filled the sink with water, but he was upside down and bleeding so we didn't think much of it. Two hours later when we got back from our thing, we came home to find him still breathing. I then suffered though watching Chris and his friend Ben banging the fish's head on our sink to try and kill him as well as stabbing. I then also watched the entire gutting of all three fish, which was a very bloody and dramatic sight where we found half swallowed baby fish inside of them.

I think I learned from this experience that I never want to gut a fish. I also learned that my husband is a very good fisherman and a tough man who didn't flinch whatsoever while cutting open three fish. I also learned that I never want to see people hitting fish against my sink. Lastly I learned that when Chris guts a fish in my sink, he knows he is then required to clean the whole kitchen, and he did a wonderful job at that. And he did a wonderful job at cooking the big one the next day. It was super delicious. He is so talented!

Now onto the thing that kept us from those fish for two hours. I put on my Latin ballroom costume, did my hair in a fake bob, Chris put on a white shirt and tie, and we headed out to the USU Literary Ball!! This years theme was The Great Gatsby, which is one of my favorite books! We were late because we thought it was a seven, but it really started at six. We got to watch the last half of the new Great Gatsby movie (which we both love) and got to eat some pizza. They also had poker (which we didn't do) and dancing (which we did for like five seconds). I was sad because I had been looking forward to it so much, but I was sick with a sore throat, runny nose and extreme exhaustion. I just couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to. It was decorated beautifully and it was super exciting to see everyone from my English classes all dressed up like the 20's, but I was too sick to have fun. I wish I hadn't been sick. :(

Speaking of being sick, I was so incredibly miserable that my boss allowed me a day off of work. That is when I found the above video. I honestly have watched this video over thirty times, I'm so in love! It is the cutest thing that I have ever seen in my life. I know I shared it for a Web Video Wednesday post, but I just had to share it again. So cute!!

This is out of order from everything else, but I want to thank everyone again for loving this post as much as I do! I never thought that a single post would bring up my page views so quickly! I feel so incredibly blessed by all of you! If you liked this post, know that in October my husband and I will be doing a lot of things on this list, there are many fall related items, so please check back to read about our adventures in Cache Valley.

This month I wrote a pretty depressing post in my anger, and I do apologize for that, although the majority of it is true. I wrote about how I am currently friendless and really struggling with depression (which I've had my whole life anyways). I want you all to know that while I am still struggling, I do know that I have the greatest family in the world! My family are the greatest friends I could have ever asked for and I feel so blessed to have them with me for eternity. I love my new family as well, my three new brothers who are all serving missions and my amazing in-laws. My wonderful mother-in-law contacted me when she found out I was sick and gave me suggestions on how to get better faster. She is amazing and I love being the new addition to their family. I know I am blessed, so I do apologize for that post, I wasn't trying to say everything in my life is terrible. I was only saying I wish I had more friends. Sorry for the confusion.

This month we celebrated four months of being together! I feel so unbelievably blessed to be married to this sweet, wonderful, sexy man. He takes care of me when I'm sick and even when I'm just lazy. He cleans our apartment when I'm away. He cooks me meal and makes me brownies. He constantly tells me how beautiful I am even when I don't feel it. I love him more than anything in the world and I am so happy that he is mine for eternity! Our life together is perfect.

Well, that's my September! I hope you all had a fantastic September and are as excited for October as I am! Thanks for reading!! 

Leave a comment if you like posts like this and link up your own posts or videos like this in the comments below. Thanks everyone! 

Web Video Wednesday: Tonight You Belong To Me

What?? It's Wednesday already? Being sick and missing a day of work really messed up my schedule. I'm so confused!! 

Okay, in the course of one day I watched this video like twenty times because it is SO DANG ADORABLE!!! I cannot even get over how cute this video is!! And it just makes me beyond happy to watch and listen to! This man, is an incredible father to play a pink ukulele and be so patient and kind while singing with his daughter. Bravo to you! I love this video! I know what to do now if I'm ever upset, watch this video, because it honestly puts a smile on my face. :)