Birth Story!

Ok, this is a long one! Make sure you're committed to some heavy reading before you start. :)

On Saturday, Sept. 17th, Alex and I had a great day! We went down to the south side and went to Adrian's Orchard to get some apples and get me a caramel apple (which I devoured, it was great.) We returned some stuff to Buy Buy Baby, and test drove a Traverse, just for fun. (Knowing we'll need a bigger car, but who knows when that will happen!) We had dinner with Alex's parents, but I was starting to feel pretty tired and wasn't able to eat much. When we got home, I pretty much went right to bed. At 2:30 am, I was feeling bad and couldn't get back to sleep. I couldn't get comfortable laying down anymore, so Alex told me to go out to the couch. After a few minutes, he felt bad and came out to see me, and then had me start timing the pain I felt. It was about five minutes apart and lasting for 30 to 60 seconds. So we figured...I must be in labor!

Now, we were not at all ready for this! I was just 35 weeks, and had been feeling good so far. I figured it might be false labor, or that they might try to stop it once we went to the hospital. The house was a huge mess, and we didn't have a hospital bag packed, or anything! So Alex would rub my back and help me through contractions, then while I rested in between, he was cleaning dishes, doing laundry and trying to get our bags packed! It didn't seem real, that the babies were really coming. I tried to help him pack, and we got as much stuff straightened up as we could, and around 6 am, we headed to the hospital. It was all very undramatic, as I was not in that much pain yet, and the hospital is probably 5 minutes away. So no wild and crazy car ride or screaming or anything! :)

When we got to St. Vincents, they sent us to triage, where I was checked out and they did an ultrasound to check on the babies' positions (even though I told them that they'd both been head down for a while.) They gave me a shot to help with the pain, and after that I think I was out for a while. We called my mom to let her know where I was, and Alex left to get some breakfast for him. When I woke up, mom was there and Alex was back, and the doctors decided they weren't going to stop my labor, and sent me upstairs to my room. They pretty much gave me the epidural right away, and after that there wasn't much I could do. It was a pretty weird feeling, to not be able to feel or move the lower half of your body, but great to not have the pain from the contractions. I had been nervous to get the epidural shot, but it really wasn't a big deal. Mom and Alex hung out with me, and I tried to sleep and relax. It was hard to relax, since nurses kept coming to check my blood pressure, or put something in my IV. (I had to have antibiotics, which burned going in the IV, since I never made it to my 36 week appointment.) We had the TV on, but I wished I had brought more to do! It was a long 8 hours that I was just hanging out in the bed, trying to stay comfortable (it's weird not to be able to turn yourself over.) But like I said, I hadn't packed a bag or thought about being bored during labor, and I honestly thought they'd probably send me back home!

I didn't exactly have a birth plan or anything, since I knew I'd have to deliver in the operating room no matter what. I didn't really want to have too many interventions, but hey, they did them all anyway! I had to have pitocin to help speed the labor, and they had to break my water with both boys (since they had their own sacks.) But in general, things all went pretty well. The boys were never in distress; I had to wear three monitors the whole time. I felt pretty sick, and all I wanted was to drink water. Ice chips weren't doing it for me. I wish I had snuck in some snacks, but they probably would have made me sick (like the water did when I drank that!) It was hard not to focus on how hungry I was, since I'd barely eaten dinner the night before. But it was finally time to head to the operating room, around 8 Sunday night. Mom snapped one more picture of us as a couple before we left!

We headed into the operating room, and it still felt pretty surreal, that the babies were coming tonight. I'll spare you most of the details, but it was definitely hard. Alex snapped a picture of all the doctors in the room, which was pretty funny. The babies each had a nurse and people from the NICU just in case, and there were several doctors, nurses and residents there for me, so it was quite a crowd! I pushed for what felt like forever, it was probably about an hour. They had to let the epidural wear off a bit, so the whole crowd of people left for a while. I remember I was mainly feeling a ton of pain in my right hip, and I kept wanting Alex to massage it as the pain meds wore off. I was thinking other types of pain should be on my mind, but all that was bothering me was my hip! The nurse figured baby A was pressing on a nerve, so now I can tell him he was a pain in my hip! The doctor finally suggested using the suction to help get baby A out, and I was all for it! (I had already asked for a c-section at this point, feeling that I was over this whole thing, and the nurse told me no. :)

So with the suction and a few more pushes, baby A entered the world at 10:05 pm, September 18th. It was pretty amazing to watch Alex's face and then see my first baby! Apparently, he came out with his eyes open and looking around, which the doctors and nurses (and his dad) thought was pretty cool! One of the doctors suggested we name him "Scout" since he was wide-eyed and checking everyone out (since we hadn't decided on names yet.) They took him to the warmer and did all the "stuff" to him, no one really said much to me, so I don't know what all they did. He weighed 5 pounds, 6 ounces, and had a healthy cry. He didn't need help with breathing or anything. I know when I first saw him, I thought he looked like his dad! :) (Especially with that frowny, serious face!) They showed him to me after they cleaned him up, but then took him to the nursery. I'm still sad they didn't let me hold him on my chest or try to breastfeed him, since I don't think he needed much help. Someone from the nursery asked if they could give him formula, and I said yes. I don't think I was really given an option, since they didn't offer to let me breastfeed him.

The doctors let me rest for a while before starting again with baby B. They used the suction again, and at 10:34, baby B entered the world, weighing in at 5 pounds, 5 ounces. He was also healthy and didn't need any help with breathing. Everyone was saying how great they looked and how big they were, especially for 35 weeks. After they swaddled him up, I did get to hold him for a few minutes while they finished everything up. So at least I have a picture with one of my babies!

And that was it! They whisked both boys up to the Continuing Care Nursery, which is a step lower than a NICU. I went back to my room to recover, and then we eventually moved to our room where we spent the night. It was a little depressing to not have the babies with me, or to be able to hold or breastfeed them the first night. I know we were both exhausted (and I was SO thirsty), and just happy to have two healthy boys. I think I drank like 3 cups of lemonade when I was finally allowed, and it was the most amazing thing ever! So in the end, I know there are a few things I would have done differently, or will for next time, but we all made it through safe and healthy.

A few last random pregnancy pictures

Here are a few last random pictures from pregnancy before the birth story!

Alex's 30th!

Glad Mere got to visit once and see me pregnant! :)

Uncle Evan getting the boys stuffed animals. Our Uncle Mark got us a brown bear and a panda bear when we were little, so he was carrying on the tradition!

 Yup, I'm looking large and in charge by this point.

Nursery and Maternity Pictures

Alex did an amazing job on the nursery. I wish I had more "before" pictures to show you, but I'll just have to tell you everything he did! We have three bedrooms, so one was my teaching room, and the back bedroom was the computer room. Since that one is across the hall from our bedroom, that became the nursery. So we moved the computer and all the random stuff out and got to work. (Thanks to my neighbor Ashley for all her help this summer organizing our junk! She helped me go through and rearrange the new computer/music room and put the rest in boxes in the garage.) Alex and his dad put in a new ceiling fan/light fixture. Alex refinished the floors himself. He also painted the trim and the walls, put in new window coverings, and re-did the whole closet to give us more storage. All this along with assembling the furniture, including my new chair and both cribs. Oh! And our awesome wall mural! It is a big sticker, not paint, but he did spend an entire afternoon putting that up. I think it looks great! It probably won't always be as neat as it is now in the pictures.

Me enjoying my comfy new chair

Lanore "helping" put the cribs together

Amazing wall mural! So cute!

Finished product!

I was also lucky enough to get some maternity pictures done before the boys got here. We did them just in time! These were taken when I was 34 weeks pregnant. My friend Christie took them, and did a great job! We went back to the Holcomb Gardens at Butler, which was also where we got our engagement pictures taken, four years earlier! Here are a few favorites.



Three awesome baby showers

I was an extremely lucky pregnant girl, I had three awesome baby showers! The first was thrown by my friends Christie and Laura, all the way back in July. I was just starting to show! Christie was pregnant herself, so it's fun to look back on our pregnant pictures together. :) I got lots of great stuff, including books to start the babies' library.

The next shower was thrown by my family, my cousins Lindsay, Megan and Jenni (who has her own twin boys, a year older than mine!) This one was in August, and I was actually looking pregnant at this point. This one was a diaper shower, which was much appreciated! We definitely know how to go through diapers with twins.

And my final shower was thrown by Alex's sisters and some close family friends of Gina. It was in September, and we worried about me still being pregnant at 34 weeks. I figured I'd be fine...but I did go into labor exactly one week later! It was another fun afternoon, even though we had to move indoors when it started pouring rain!

Great double stroller, and the amazing blankets my mom made for the boys!

Thanks to everyone, we were prepared for the boys to arrive! We had clothes, diapers, strollers, bath stuff, bouncy seats, a swing, toys and booster seats. Everything the stylish baby could want.



Pregnant with twins

It all started when we found out we were pregnant, Feb. 13th, 2011. At our first ultrasound a few weeks later, we were shocked to find out it was twins! Funny story...We have a few sets of twins in my family, so my mom and I had joked about me possibly being pregnant with twins, since I'd started feeling so sick. The last thing she said to me before the ultrasound was "Don't worry, it's NOT twins!" Alex and I got our ultrasound, and the tech looked at the screen and said, "Well, you'll be happy to know there's only one in there." And I laughed and started telling her how we'd been joking it was twins. That's when Alex said the screen totally changed (I couldn't see it, as I was laying down) and she suddenly said, "Oops, no, there are two in there..." We both laughed, but I hope she felt kinda stupid after that! Everyone treated us pretty gently the rest of the appointment, knowing we were both in shock!

I told my mom I was pregnant at Steak and Shake. (How else could I explain why I couldn't eat the food I'd just ordered? :)

Telling my dad he's becoming "Grandpa"!

Evan and Lauren excited to become Aunt and Uncle

Everyone pointing at my belly...

The pregnancy went well, although it wasn't exactly easy. I was sick pretty much every day the first trimester and into the second. I was on Zofran, which was a lifesaver for the nausea and getting me through the day at school. I couldn't eat or drink in the mornings without throwing up. I drank a lot of blue gatorade/powerade and ate a lot of crackers! Lots of smells bothered me, so Alex stopped cooking for a while. Food didn't usually sound good, and I gave up on soda and coffee. At our 20 week ultrasound, we found out that we were having identical boys! Neither of us were surprised, the tech had asked what we thought they were and we both said we felt they were boys. I made it through the end of the school year, and started to feel a little better at the beginning of the summer. We even got one last trip as a couple, to Perdido Key FL.

First significant belly picture