A year ago today...

It was Friday, January 27, 2012. I had a routine appointment at my OB to check on the twins. We had an ultrasound that day, as I was just a little past 30 weeks. It was just Dustin and I at the appointment; the girls had stayed with family.

Grandmom was in the hospital at CMC, which is right near my doctors office. So after my appointment, rather than walking to the car, we walked across the skybridge and went to see grandmom. She was always so excited to hear about the twins, and couldn't wait to meet them. We showed her the pictures from the day, and how big the boys were getting. She told us funny stories about her dad when her mom was pregnant with twins, and made us laugh like always.

She told us that she was so glad we had stopped by, because she had been lonely. Grandad had gotten an upset stomach that Wednesday that was still lingering, so he hadn't been able to come up to see her.

No one really thought too much about him having an upset stomach; he had been up at the hospital so much, and we felt sure he was run down from taking such good care of grandmom, so we all thought he had just caught a bug.

Dustin and I told grandmom bye, and we loved her. We headed home.

Saturday was pretty normal; as normal as it gets when you are in the later part of a twin pregnancy. And then Sunday, it all started.

Mom called me on her way from from church. She didn't stay for preaching, because she felt like she needed to get home and go see grandad. He had called her and told her he was having some trouble breathing, and just wasn't feeling right. His stomach was still upset as well. She could tell by his voice that he was out of breath, and it worried her. So she called my aunt, Angie, and they decided it was best to take him to the ER over at CMC.

She had called just to let me know that they were heading over there, so she may not be able to answer her phone if I called. I asked if he was ok, and she said she thought so, they just wanted to have him checked out. Other than the upset stomach and the shortness of breath, he was fine. His shoulder hurt a little, but he was always helping grandmom up and down, and that wasn't easy on him, so no one, including himself, had even given that pain a second thought.

I didn't hear anything else until that evening when my dad called. I was actually taking a bath, because I wasn't feeling the best. I could tell in his voice when he first answered that something wasn't right.

"Grandad had a heart attack."

What?! When?! The answer surprised us all...he had a heart attack that Friday, 2 days before he ever even became short of breath. He had no chest pains. Just an upset stomach. They called it a silent heart attack. We were all shocked, but at the same time we automatically thought, 'Well, it can't be that bad then, since he didn't even know! He will be fine!'

Mom called me later that night, and said that they were going to do a heart cath on him in the morning, since he was stable at the time. He was talking to his nurses about Carolina, and telling them about his die-hard love for his Tarheels. Mom and Angie left be around midnight or a little after and headed home. Grandad was just going to sleep, and they would head back up the next morning.

The next day around 11am, dad called. Once again, I knew something was very wrong. He said that mom had received a call that grandad had taken a turn for the worst. He had to be put on a ventilator, and pretty much into a drug induced coma to keep him from fighting the vent. They were doing an emergency cath as we spoke.

The cath showed that he had a 100% blockage in his main artery to his heart. How could it be that bad, when he didn't even know he was having a heart attack?! I was terrified, but still thought there was no way he wasn't going to beat this. My grandad was in such great health. He still went walking daily, and took amazing care of grandmom. He was a truely amazing man.

Monday and Tuesday didn't hold good things for grandad. His heart was only functioning at 5% what it had been before the heart attack, and he couldn't keep his blood pressure up without medicine. He was still on the ventilator, but would respond by moving his hand if you talked to him. I visited him once, and it was almost too much for me. I couldn't bare seeing him like that. THAT wasn't grandad. THAT was just scary.

Grandmom was released on Tuesday morning from the hospital, and Dustin and I took Makenna to visit her. Something was very wrong.

She was at a rehab center, and when we walked in, she was doing something with her hand on the sheet that looked like she was sewing. Grandmom had been sick, but had always been very much in her right mind. She wasn't the type of person to get confused, or hallucinate, or anything like that.

We said hey to her, and she greeted me as Angie, which was VERY odd. Like I said, I could tell something was very, very wrong, so I just went along. She asked if I could help her find her needle, because she was trying to stitch the drapes...Dustin and I didn't know what to do, so I called my mom, and Dustin just nicely played along with her so as not to upset her. He is an amazing man.

Mom said to get a nurse, and have them check her blood pressure, and ask about medicines. So I went to look for one. They said they would send her nurse down asap, so I went back to the room to wait.

Grandmom proceeded to tell us about the little boy who was in her little closet in the room, that we needed to find his mom because he wasn't wearing his pants, and he would get cold. I was SCARED, so I went to stand by the door and look for the nurse, and call my mom again.

I was standing alone, and grandmom looked at me and said, "Oh, Meredith, who's your friend?" I asked if she meant Dustin, and she said no, the girl standing beside me. That was enough for me! I told her I would be right back, and went and demanded a nurse NOW.

Turns out her blood pressure was through the roof, 239/140ish....and she had a high fever that was making her delirious and hallucinate. They called an ambulance, and she was rushed back to CMC.

Wednesday, I had to see grandmom again, to see that she was doing better and was back to her old self. My aunt watched the girls so that Dustin could go with me up to the hospital, and we stayed with grandmom most of the day. She was feeling much better, knew who I was again, but was exhausted. They had put her on a liquid diet, and she wouldn't have anything to do with it. She was hungry, but wanted food. So they ordered a swallow study, and she passed.

Everyone kept warning me that I needed to go home and rest, and take it easy, and stop stressing so much, because I was going to go into labor. I was feeling pretty good though, and I couldn't not worry! Grandad was grandmom's clutch, and he couldn't be with her. So I wanted to be.

We finally went home before dinner that evening, and I headed to bed early. I was exhausted and my feet were swollen. We decided we had better take things easy Thursday because I was having a few contractions. Nothing major, and nothing strong, so I figured it was just from exhaustion from the day before.

We also learned that Thursday that grandad's kidneys were failing. They attemped dialysis, but his body was too weak. So they were going to wait and try again the next day, after he had a chance to rest. His heart wasn't doing any better.

Friday morning I woke up feeling sick. I was having contractions that still weren't strong, and were like half an hour apart, so I contributed them to being braxton-hicks, and tried to dismiss them. By that evening, they were coming about every 10 minutes, and slowly getting closer and closer together, as well as stronger. I called the doctor, and they told me to get straight to the hospital, labor and delivery unit.

Dustin and I headed over, and my mom came and met us. She was already up at the hospital, checking in on grandmom and grandad. I was the 3rd in the family admitted to CMC in a week! And, we were all there at the same time! It was crazy! This was Feb 3, 2012.

They got me straight into a room and hooked me up to all kinds of monitors. They were monitoring my contractions, both the boys heart rates, and my heart rate. Sure enough, my contractions were getting stronger, but I was only dilated to 1cm, which was reassuring. So they started talking about medicines.

They couldnt give me the first medicine they wanted to try, because it sped up your heart, and mine was already at 144bpm without medicine. So they tried a different kind of medicine, I can't remember the name, but it was in pill form. It did NOTHING. The contractions kept coming, and I was now dilated to a 3.

So they hooked me up to the dreaded magnesium sulfate. It made me feel yucky, and I couldn't get out of bed while I was on it. My nurse was AWESOME, and was so understanding to me. My mom spent the night, so she could be closeby grandmom and grandad too. Dustin went home to be with the girls. He was going to head back up if anything changed.

Around 2 am, the morning of Feb 4, a Code Blue was called over intercom to the Dickson Heart Unit. That's where grandad was, and I remember distinctly telling my nurse I hoped it wasn't him. The amazing nurse offered to go and make sure it wasn't. But she didn't even have to go check; my moms phone rang right then. It was Angie. The Code Blue was for grandad. They had managed to resucitate him, but mom and Angie had to decide if they wanted it done again. Grandad was so weak, and there was no chance short of a a miracle that he was going to improve. So they had to make the hard decision of signing a DNR.

It was right around 6:30 am when I heard the Code Blue, Dickson Heart Unit called again. I knew. Mom ran. I cried until I wanted to puke. My nurse sat with me and held my hand until we knew for sure. I called Dustin and told him to please get up to the hospital asap.

It took my mom about half an hour to get back, and when she did, she was crying. It made everything that I was so scared to hear very real. My sweet, sweet grandad, the most genuine man I've ever known, had gained his wings. My heart was in a million pieces, but my nurse did all she could to help me calm down. Getting upset made contractions worse.

The rest of the day was a blur. I was able to be unhooked from the magnesium, because my contractions had slowed to almost nothing. Family and friends of the family who had come up because of grandad stopped by to say hey, and share condolences. They offered to take me by wheelchair to see grandad before the coroner took him away, but I couldn't do it. I didn't want to get my labor started again.

I still couldn't get out of bed because of the magnesium in my system, so I just stayed there and cried overnight. The next morning, they moved me to the ante-partum unit of the hospital, where they wanted to monitor me for one more night. They wanted me to walk around my room, and shower, and do things like normal, but still take it VERY easy, and see what my contractions did. They were still consistently there, but very few and far between. No longer painful. So on Monday afternoon, they released me from the hospital on strict bed rest.

Before I left, they brought me a wheel chair, and let Dustin take me up to see grandmom. That was the hardest thing I had had to do, up until then. She was heartbroken, and it hurt so much to see her that way. She told me how much she missed him, and how much she loved me, and to take care of me and the babies. I assured her I would, and prayed with her, and kissed her goodbye. And we headed home.

It was almost 8 at night when we got home, and we ate a late dinner with the girls. Someone had brought us ribs for dinner, and it was amazing! We ate, and put the girls to bed, and watched some TV. Around 10:30, I started having a terrible shooting pain in my right shoulder. I figured it was either a side effect of the magnesium, or from laying in the hospital bed the wrong way, something like that. I didn't figure it was anything more. I took some tylenol, and used a heating pad on it, but it kept me up the whole night. I cried, from both sadness over grandad and pain in my shoulder, and just couldn't rest.

It was 6:30 am when I finally fell asleep, on Feb 7. Tuesday. Dustin let me sleep, and I didn't wake up until 2 in the afternoon. I felt SO sick, and had Dustin bring me some zofran right away, along with an ice water. I called my sister, and told her about how sick I was feeling, because I always feel sick before I go into labor and it worried me.

About 3, I decided to get in the bath. Dustin ran a bath for me, and I was still on the phone with my sister. He went downstairs to get me another drink, and I was stepping into the bath, when my water broke. I screamed. My sister screamed on the phone. She immediately told me not to panic. But as soon as my water broke, the contractions started. One after another after another, about 3 minutes apart, and STRONG. They lasted about a minute each. I was petrified.

Laura called my mom and was already headed to my house. My sweet mom, bless her heart, thought we were exxagerating a little, so it took her a little bit to clean up at school and get to my house, which is like 2 minutes from her school. It was 3:45 when she got there, and by then my contractions were less than a minute apart, and lasting what felt like an eternity, but in reality was only about a minute and a half. I made my way to her car, having to sit down with every contraction on the way, and while they debated on whether to drive or call 911, I tried to breathe through contractions and not scream so I wouldn't alarm all of our neighbors!

After about 2 minutes of debate, I yelled for her just to start driving, and she did. Laura followed in her car. Half way there, the pressure started. Women who have had a baby naturally know what I mean. You feel like you have to push the baby out...NOW. I had to hold my legs together so tight that I had bruises on my ankles. I screamed. I couldn't breathe, and thought I was going to pass out. I honestly knew Mikah was coming out in the car.

After about 7 years of driving (which was really only about 30 minutes, but trust me, in full labor with twins it seems MUCH longer), we made it to CMC's emergency room. The idiot that opened my car door saw the shape I was in, and asked if I could walk to the door for a wheel chair...umm, sure. My baby is about to fall out of me and I'm in such excruciating pain that I can't catch a full breath, but yes, let me walk to the wheelchair to make your job easier! NOT!

They got me a bed, and I don't remember them transferring me from the car onto it. The next thing I remember is being in a hallway, with them pushing me very quickly towards an elevator. I was screaming, and there were people all around me. Between contractions, I would look around and tell them I was sorry, because I didn't want to scare all the kids. But when the contractions hit again, the screams were back on!

The doctor told me he needed to check me, but I told him I couldn't move. That if I moved my leg, one of the babies was going to come out. So he told me to hold tight, and we got onto an elevator. We went up to the eighth floor, me still screaming, and into a traige room right there at the elevator. There, the doctor told me he really had to check me this time. But the moment I moved my leg, Mikah James McGinnis was born, butt first, at 4:45 pm, into the doctors hand.

I don't remember hearing him cry at first. I remember feeling temporary relief, yet fear because I still had ANOTHER baby to deliver, and there was no way they could give me pain medicine. I guess they moved me into an OR, but I don't really remember. I remember Dustin walking in, and seeing him for a second. I remember glancing to the other side of the room, where Mikah was all wrapped in a blanket and in a little bassinet, and Dustin seeing him for the first time.

Then I remember the nurse screaming that Khoen's heartrate was going lower and lower. I remember them holding my hand and telling me they had to get him out right now. I remember them cleaning my stomach for an incision, and pulling up a HUGE tray of operating tools. And I remember looking at the nurse and asking her to please not let them cut me while I was awake, because I had NO pain medicine whatsoever. She told me just to take a deep breath and count to 10, and thats all I remember.

Khoen Lee McGinnis was born by emergency c-section that day at 4:59 pm just 14 minutes after his twin brother.

In a matter of 5 days, I had gone into preterm labor, lost my grandad to a heart attack, gone through actual labor with NO pain medicine, and had my first c-section, and delivered healthy twin boys.

Remembering all of this, and where I was this time last year isn't easy. It is painful; even more so now that Khoen is in Heaven as well.

We brought Mikah home from the NICU on March 5, and Khoen came home a week later, on March 12. Grandmom passed away in the ICU at CMC a week later, on March 19. She never got to meet the twins in person, and it has always broken my heart.

But, less than 2 months later, Khoen joined her and grandad in Heaven, and my world fell apart. I am still working on putting it back together, little pieces at a time. It won't be for many, many more years that it starts to come together.

I don't know how I am going to survive their birthday. But, I will. God will see me through. So will grandmom and grandad, and especially Khoen. He will show me he is here with me, I'm sure of it. <3

Praying for strength as I make it through this week! Not just for me, but for my whole family.