Babies!

we are stuck in the hospital for an extra day and so I thought it would be a good time to update the blog, because I know when we get home life will be a bit on the crazy side.

The birth story.

I was laying in bed early Friday morning, not sleeping, but noticing a few mild contractions and I knew there was a good chance these babies would be coming sooner rather then later,  because I never feel contractions until the day I go into labor My first thought was, I need to  clean my bathroom, I didn't want to come home to a messy bathroom. so in the morning, when all the normal people were awake I got busy cleaning the house, my sister was a great help and we finished in record time.   I spent the rest of the day running errands and trying to finish the bumpers for the baby crib... they never got completely finished.  

 around 8:30pm contractions began coming 5 minutes apart, we decided to go to the hospital early to avoid having my water break at the nurses station like last time.  
the only problem was no one believed I was in labor,  they humored me by checking me in and having me wait in a triage room while they checked on the other women there who were clearly in pain,  waiting, I'm sure to see when real labor would start or at least to see a grimace on my face.
while we waited my contractions grew stronger, coming every minute and lasting 20-30 seconds.  we were assigned a brand new intern.  she checked my cervix and without much confidence declared I was dilated 4 and a half centimeters.  she then left to get an ultra sound machine to check and see if the babies were still head down.  when she came back she studied the images for a long time. after a while I asked if everything was okay.  she looked up and said it looks like they are both head down but I'm going to get another opinion.  not being able to see the images myself, I looked over at Cameron, he nodded, confirming that they were indeed head down... sometimes it helps to be married to a radiologist...
Before long I was admitted.
 we walked down to the labor and delivery rooms and got me hooked up to some fluid and penicillin.  within minutes of getting settled my contractions all but stopped. a few hours and a handful of contractions later the resident doctor came in to check my cervix and determined I was dilated to 5 centimeters.  we discussed our options,  I was clearly not progressing much, but I was dilated to a 5, so we could go home and wait for labor to kick in again or we could stay until morning and reevaluate the situation then.   knowing my body I was sure I wouldn't get past the front door before full labor would begin again and then we would have to go through the hassle of being admitted and hooked up to fluids all over again.  so we settled in for the night.

Cameron seemed to sleep relatively well but with 3 monitors strapped to my stomach, 2 babies kicking, the few, yet hard contractions and medical personal checking on me it was a rough night.
in the morning they checked my cervix again, not much change, and we discussed options, they could induce me or we could go home.  my babies were 36 weeks and 5 days, technically preterm, but I was dilated to a 5 and would likely have them within the day. so we decided to stay and be induced.
they started the pitcion around 7am and we waited.  My contraction were weak at best.  after a few hours Dr Fothergill suggested I get an epidural and then he would break my water, hoping that would speed things up a bit, I'm not sure if it did because after getting my epidural I couldn't feel anything, nothing at all.   At noon Dr Fothergill checked my cervix and determined I was nearly dilated to a 9.
30 minutes later they rolled my bed to the operating room where a dozen medical personal joined us.  They  transfered me to the operating table. there is a hospital policy that twins have to be delivered in the O.R. just in case an emergency c-section was needed. it wasn't.  two pushes later at 12:48pm our little boy was born 5 pounds 13 ounces. we waited a few minutes for our little girl to get in position and she was born 8 minutes later.  she made her entrance by peeing all over Dr. Fothergill then she too was whisked across the room to be cleaned, checked and measured, 5 pounds 9 ounces.
I didn't get to see either baby until we were back in the labor and delivery room to recover a while before being transferred to a recovery room.  The delivery went much smoother then I feared. we are so blessed to have these two beautiful babies join our family.