Oct 24 2011

So here's the story of our twin labor and delivery. We'd seen a specialist the week before, when I was a 35 weeks. He said their stomachs were not growing in proportion with the rest of them and he'd recommend to my doctor that he take the twins at 36 or 37 weeks. So that is what we were planning on. I had my next doctor apt the following Tuesday. Sunday Oct 23 I was 36 weeks and well I didn't make it to that doctor apt. but I did see my doctor in the hospital Monday when he delivered our twins.

Labor and delivery went great. I went into labor at 4:00 am Monday morning and by 4:45 I'd already had 4 contractions and they were getting pretty hard. So, I decided to go put in a load of laundry since we didn't have any clean clothes for the twins to wear (luckily Merrill had taken them out of the attic Sat), but half way down the stairs and another hard contraction later, I decided to go wake up Merrill and call our friend to come stay with the other kiddos. She got to our house and we were at the hospital by 5:15 am. I was already at an 8 at that point and they were trying to hurry things along. I decided to get an epidural this go around but was a little nervous about it. I don't do well with medicine and I didn't know if I'd know when to push and all that...but we felt if anything went wrong, I'd want that epidural. So they hurried and gave me the epidural, which actually slowed my contractions a bit...so they gave me a little bit of pitocin and then we went into the OR (luckily we didn't need it).

The epidural was wonderful...strong enough to not feel the pain but I could still feel the pressure of contractions and knew when to push. It all was great! We got into the OR and 5 min later it was time to push. The doctor had broke my water for our little boy shortly after I got the epidural and he was the first to arrive. Only one big push and at 7:43 am out came David at 4lb 13 oz and 17 in. Then he broke my water for our little girl and I had 4 pushes to get her down in position and then 2 more big pushes and out she came at 7:49 am. Alyssa was 6lb 2oz and 19 in. Merrill got to cut her cord and made the comment of how much bigger her umbilical cord was than David's. No wonder the guy was so small...check out the picture of the two cords...his is so thin compared to hers.

We got them both into our room and I got to have David on my chest and start feeding him. Then they got Alyssa over and she still hadn't had a good cry yet and was grunting a little. I tried to feed her but she wouldn't latch on and then they did another blood sugar and temp check. She was way low for both so they said she needed to head over to the NICU. At least we had her with us for a little bit. Merrill went over there with her and said it was really sad to watch them try to put her IV in her little frail hand. They finally got it after the 5th try...so sad! They said her lungs weren't quite strong enough because she was the bigger one and David had been under stress for a little while and he was a little stronger because of that...even though he was smaller...he was a fighter! :)

We got to go over and see her in the NICU as often as we were able and Tues night they let me go in and feed her. By Wed night she was able to come back in the room with David and I and then Thursday evening we were able to go home. Overall it was a much longer hospital stay than I'm used to but we have 2 beautiful, healthy babies! They are so sweet and so much work!

I didn't realize that preemies had to be woke up every 3 hours to feed no matter what time of day it is. So we wake every 3 hours and supplement as often as we can...the first few days we were home, we tried after every feeding and by Sunday they were spitting up quite a bit! I think they were tired of being force fed. But we went back to the hospital for another weight check and they were doing great! When we left the hospital David was 4lb 9oz and at the weight check he was 4lb 14 oz and eating about 1 oz every feeding! Alyssa was 5lb 11oz when we left the hospital and she was 5lb 15oz and eating 2 oz every feeding! So yes they are super stars and we were all glad to know our hard work was paying off. I was glad to hear I could slow the pumping down to twice a day and just focus more on breastfeeding.

So we are all doing great and are very tired. But David and Alyssa are so cute and so worth it! Enjoy the pics!