We have been a family of 7 for nearly a month now! In a sense the time is flying, in another sense the task of managing 5 kids at home in the summer has made for some long days-especially in the very beginning when I wasn't moving as well as I wanted to be.
I wanted to get some pictures uploaded and some memories documented in hopes I can eventually transfer some of this to the kids' baby books. I'm also finding that I'm more tired than I'd like to admit and want to write their birth story before I forget (because I can admit to at least 5 things I have forgotten in the past couple of weeks including a couple of birthdays and my wallet at a store in Denison, oops).
The weeks leading up to the birth of the twins went fast due to a *few* things going on:
Our first Spring of Competition Dance. She says she's not doing it next year (which is totally OK with her mother) but now she's thinking "I guess it was pretty fun". We shall see...
Spring Soccer, every Saturday for 6 weeks, for both Will and Gabbie. I will admit its a great Spring sport to get everyone out and moving again.
Family time celebrating the life of Great Grandpa Rollie-Gabbie even sent Gretchen home with one of her handmade scarves :-)
The last day of school. No one looked very happy, because they weren't very happy. I guess it is a good sign when your kids are sad that the school year is done!
Dance recital; 3 of them this year!
We still haven't braved bringing her brothers to the dance recital!
Tee-ball for Will, Pee-Wee ball for Gabbie (hooray for traveling for ball games!)
1 week to go...had to get a picture. The kids loved "pregnant Mom"....just kidding; no one cares much for pregnant Melanie, including Melanie!
Pee Wee ball-thank goodness for the orange shoes or we had trouble telling where she was on the field!
Vacation Bible School during the first week of summer
The usual "belly shot" before going in to have babies! (There had been a water balloon fight just prior to the photo session :-) ) This was taken Sunday night, June 11th.
At 12:15 am Monday morning June 12th I got in the car and drove to the hospital. They had scheduled labor to be induced at 1:00 am Monday morning (the reason was that the goal was to have the babies during the day when plenty of staff would be present instead of at night). Our last doctors appointment had indicated "baby B" was head down. Baby A had always been head down, but Baby B kept us guessing every week. It had been planned when I arrived at the hospital that we'd do an ultrasound first. If Baby B had stayed put they would induce labor. If he had flipped I would just sleep at the hospital and have a C-section at 7:30 am.
The ultrasound indicated that Baby B was in fact head down, so they induced labor with some sort of gel. I can never remember the names of all the things they use. Doctor was still 'iffy' if I would accomplish this without a c-section since my other babies were all overdue and still had to be induced. The rest of the early morning was pretty uneventful and the doctor was able to break the water (or waters?) at 7:30 am.
I can not remember what time Brice came down but I think it was mid-morning? I think I remember him eating my breakfast tray, but I'm not certain. At some point they started Pitosin (not sure on the spelling of that) to get the contractions moving along, and at first that worked great. The problem became that Baby A was apparently not positioned in a favorable way. The nurse spent several hours with me trying to re position me on my side, inclined, whatever else she could think of to get Baby A to go where it was supposed to. About 2:00 pm I was having pain; not enough to where I was demanding an epidural, but the nurse and I decided that might help get things over the hump and get the babies coming. This has worked for me with the other kids, and this situation seemed similar where I had dilated for 4 cm but wasn't getting any further. At 2:30 I got the epidural and felt pretty good but I could tell that nothing was happening, even though the nurses were telling me the contractions were still going on. Brice went home to do chores and came back after supper (this part I do remember-he came in with food from the A & W and the nurse was very close behind him to remind me that I couldn't eat anything. Even she knew it was evil to bring that food in when I couldn't have any!!) Anyway, the doctor had stopped in and initially had said we would wait until 10 pm and initiate a c-section if delivery hadn't happened. Then the contractions were actually getting further apart and he moved it up to 8 pm instead. I was ready-I had planned to meet these babies by supper time and I really wanted to make sure we met them before the days end!
Things went pretty fast after that. I spent most of the time trying to stay calm and everyone at the hospital did what they do best. They rolled me into a room across the hall from the room I'd spent the day in; got everything ready, then they brought Brice in and he sat next to my head. 2 more doctors arrived, one for each baby. Dr. Flores, who I had seen in the hallway at work a week earlier, joked with me and said "now which one did you say was the easier one? I'll make sure I get that one!" Dr. Teggatz, our pediatrician, was the other doctor present. At first I didn't feel anything except some pressure and someone pushing on my ribs. Baby B was the first to come out, so he became Baby A (this was very confusing to me the first 24 hours that I was on pain medication and not quite thinking straight...). He (now known as Luke Michael) came out screaming, and peeing according to Brice, at 9:23 pm. I still remember the anesthesiologist, Cory, who had also been sitting next to my head, whispering in my ear "it's a boy". I immediately started crying with relief to hear the sound of a crying baby after months of anxiety of how this whole thing was going to go.
Baby A became Baby B and was delivered 2 minutes later. He is now known as Benjamin Carl-we kept the "B" theme going-he was now Baby B, the Baby of the family, and also for being the bad breather. He, unlike his brother, was not crying when he came out. In fact, the room got pretty quiet. I am still not 100% sure what was going on with him. The first thing I heard was the anesthesiologist again telling me "it's another boy", then Brice leaning over and saying "the kids are going to be pissed!" (side note: thankfully the kids weren't upset in the least as far as we can tell). No one said much and I was assuming they were starting to stitch me up. I could look to my left and see Dr. Flores with "Baby A"-Luke. Soon both doctors and babies left the room, along with Brice. The anesthesiologist told me I was being awfully calm for a first time c-section mom having twins; I told him it was hard to get too worked up when I couldn't feel my legs and my arms were strapped to a table! Eventually Dr. Teggatz came back and explained that Baby B was not breathing as well as they would like and was also having episodes of tachycardia (high heart rate) but she said they were working on it and not to get too worried. (At his 1 week check up she admitted she was pretty worried, but she stayed pretty calm at the time). I was able to meet Benjamin about a half hour later, in my estimate.
Luke Michael (I was able to meet him right away; I didn't see Benjamin for awhile)
I'm guessing this is Luke but I am not certain. Of course they had to weigh exactly the same so I can't tell by the scale.
About 10:15 pm I got to meet them both!
The next morning the whole crew showed up :-) Of course Brice didn't tell them the genders of the babies and the first thing my beautiful daughter said to me when they arrived was "well, what are they?" No tears were shed that she didn't have a sister and her and I decided we needed to really stick together with all of these boys around!
Our first full family picture
Tuesday night Gabbie got to ring the "lullaby bell" twice in the nursery
Will enjoyed holding the babies as often as he could
Our "going home" picture on Thursday afternoon.
Packed up and ready to go! Benjamin on the left, Luke on the right.
They loved being like this the first few weeks! Now they are getting bigger and do not seem as comfortable this way.
Henrik always likes to be right there!
We hear a lot of things: "are these all yours!", "you have your hands full", "how many are you going to have?" We admit some nights have been a lot of work, not much sleep, and with the busyness of the older 3 we certainly don't catch up on sleep during the day. However, I had always dreamed of having 5 kids, and also dreamed of having twins. Even if my mind is tired and cloudy right now I will admit this is a dream come true and I would do it a million times over. These 2 complete our family and their older siblings have taken to them very well. Brice and I (most of the time) have accomplished getting everyone out of the house on time for ball games, church, etc. I have loved being home and getting reacquainted with my older children after months of fatigue and crankiness. We had planned a lot more summer adventures than we are actually getting accomplished, but we still have some time left. Its good for us all to be home and even a little bored sometimes to get everyone's imaginations sparked (Friday 3 houses were built on the deck out of recycling materials!)
I will shoot for an update later this week with some "1 month" pictures!
