They're here!

Well, as most of you have probably gathered by now... the twins are here!

STATS:
They were born on Tuesday, 10/28, in the late evening (incidentally, this was my mom's brother's birthday). Andrew Levi was born at 10:52pm, weighing 6 lbs, 11 oz, and measuring 19.25 inches. Micah Bryan was born at 11:24pm, weighing 7 lbs, 9 oz, and measuring 19.5 inches. They are both nursing well, and tolerating all the assessments, baths, pokes and prods that happen when you're only hours old. There's been a nurse in our room with the babies continuously so far, and it's now after 3am.

STORY:
My midwife advised me to err on the side of caution in this pregnancy, and go into the hospital when contractions were 8-10 minutes apart (normally, they turn you away that early, because they want them 4-5 minutes apart). That's pretty early labor, so when we started realizing that contractions were fitting into that parameter this afternoon, both Jacob and I were pretty dubious about whether we ought to go in. While I was at 4cm this morning at my exam, I certainly didn't feel like I was anywhere near labor. Amanda (my nurse-sister-doula) convinced us otherwise, and we ended up coming in to the hospital "just in case" in the early evening.

I had progressed to 5cm at that point, so we did some walking around the hospital grounds, came back half an hour later, and found out I was at 7cm. I hardly felt the contractions, so was both feeling a little cocky about things, and simultaneously a little doubtful that this could really be labor. This "easy" labor continued until 8cm, at which point there was definitely more instructions from Amanda on slowing down my breathing during contractions. :)


The contractions continued to get worse (worse than I remember with Lucy or Patrick), and I started feeling a lot less cocky, and a lot more like I wasn't handling things well. I stalled at 9cm for TWO HOURS, and finally broke down and asked for an epidural... something I never thought I'd do (funny how God really has used this pregnancy to bring me down a couple notches). Can I just say... I'm SO glad I did. I was able to go back to relaxing through contractions, which makes them much more effective, and I got the rest of the way to 10cm very quickly.

They moved me to OR (where they require twin deliveries to happen), and Andrew was actually delivered half on the gurney, and half on the OR table... he came so fast, they couldn't move me over in time! After Andrew was born, the doctor did an external version to flip Micah into the head-down position, and then we waited awhile for my body to ramp back up for another delivery (I was actually back down to 7cm after Andrew was born, which I didn't know would happen). Micah's heart rate was dipping a little, but he did very well after they put me on some extra oxygen. He came without complications, and Amanda got to come into the OR room for his birth (Jacob was the only one allowed for Andrew's birth). Because of the epidural, I was really able to enjoy the celebratory feeling in the room when each baby came, which was so special.

My temperature was low after delivery,
hence the attractive head blanket. :)

The family who was here (my parents, Jacob's mom, Amanda) got to come in to the L&D room after we left OR to say a quick hi around midnight before they headed home, and then Jacob and I got some two-on-two time with our brand new baby boys (well... and the nurses). What an unexpected direction our day took, and how blessed we are! I can't wait to introduce our other family to our little ones, especially Lucy and Patrick.

And now, the nurses are wrapping up their current obligations, so time for us to attempt some rest. We'll see. I had quite the adrenaline surge running through my system, and was shaky for two hours after giving birth, and I still don't feel super sleepy.

A note about visitors: We will probably reserve Wednesday for family-only at the hospital, and then we'll see how we're doing for non-family visits to the hospital on Thursday. If all looks good, we'll be going home Friday, so probably won't be having visitors then. We'd like to hold off on any kind of social visits to our home for a few days, as I remember struggling with baby blues in the week following Lucy's birth, and even the most well-meaning visitors add some stress to that scenario. Dropping off meals is okay, but just be warned that I may hide in my room and be anti-social. ;)