6 months ago today...

...my sweet little babies were born! =)

My c-section was scheduled for 11:00 a.m. on December 16, 2008. I didn't sleep the night before at all. I was really nervous about the delivery. I hadn't ever been through anything like that... not even stitches! I think it's fair to say that I've always been a wimp and will likely always stay that way! We took off to the brand new hospital and checked in. They told us at that point that we'd be a while because there was an emergency c-section that had just come in. The nurse taking care of us was the wife of a good friend of Greg's that he grew up with so she was extremely helpful and got us a big room to wait in until the surgery. My family came in shortly after they put in the IV and hooked up the baby monitors. It's was nice to have them there and take my mind off of what was going to happen shortly. When the nurses came in to get me ready though, I became a mess. I was really emotional. I was excited and scared at the same time. We had waited for this moment for a long time and we were so close to meeting our little babies. We weren't sure what was going to happen. Our doctor told us to expect 5-6 pound babies (average for twins). We were just praying that they'd be over 5 1/2 pounds so that they wouldn't be considered low birth weight and wouldn't have to go to the NICU. I was scared.

We walked over the OR and waited for my doctor to get there. It felt like an eternity waiting in that freezing cold room with what seemed like a million people standing around with white coverings and masks on their faces. Fortunately, I had recognized a face. The anesthesiologist was Dr. Mixon, who attended our church and was one of the mentor couples in our pre-marital classes. He made sure I was very comfortable and calmed me down. My doctor finally came in and they gave me the spinal (which surprisingly, didn't hurt as bad as I thought it would). They laid me down and put in the catheter. My legs started to get tingly and VERY heavy. It was the weirdest feeling to be able to "feel", but not feel. I didn't like it one bit. I finally had to tell myself to quit trying to lift my legs because it was causing me to panic. After checking to see if I could feel anything, someone spoke up and said, "Start time..." I started to panic because they hadn't brought Greg back in to the room yet. He got there right when they started and stayed right there by my head. Fortunately, they didn't even tell me that they were starting so it was a relief when they said they had legs coming out and I hadn't felt a thing, just a lot of tugging. Soon after they yelled, "It's a girl!" and a HUGE scream came out (very typical of Ella!). She was ticked too! She didn't stop for quite a while. =) I saw them bring her by with a team of doctors and nurses by her side. I still didn't know if she was okay, but she looked pretty small to me. I then felt so much pressure and could hardly breathe as they were pressing really hard at the top of my belly to fish Evan out. Finally they yelled out, "It's a Boy!", with a cry that followed. I had Greg take off to see how they were doing and to take pictures of them. After a bit he came back and asked me if I had heard how much they weighed. I couldn't believe it when he told me that Ella weighed 7 lbs. 4 oz. and Evan weighing 7 lbs. 8 oz.! They were absolutely perfect! We were so blessed to have such healthy babies! I was instantly in love...

I decided that I would post some of the birth pictures. Remember, this blog is a way for me to document what happens in the lives of our family, so if you are squeamish, you may not want to look at some of the pictures below where they are pulling the babies out! It's pretty amazing to me though! =)

Here I am waiting for the c-section... look at how HUGE I am!

Yuck! Stretch marks! And of course, they showed up at the end of the pregnancy!

You can see my stomach lopsided... Ella went to visit Evan again! =)

Monitors on the babies... you can see how high my blood pressure was... I was SO nervous!

Pulling out breeched Baby A, Miss Bean!Ella Marie

December 16, 2008 ~ 2:32 p.m. ~ 7 lbs. 4 oz.

Baby B, Buddy! Evan Jacob

December 16, 2008 ~ 2:34 p.m. ~ 7 lbs. 8 oz.Finally! I can hold my babies!

Happiest together...Proud Daddy!We're home!