A coming out story....

On May 30, we visited the doctor where we found out that I was dilated to 1cm - no biggie. See ya' next week type of thing. Later, we took my neice out for a special 18th b-day dinner. As we left the restaurant, I stopped at the restroom as all pregnant women would. While cleaning myself up, I felt a pop similar to a popping knuckle, and then I "peed" all over my hand. Knowing that my bladder was empty, I sat in disbelief and then moved quickly to denial. After trying to clean up three or four times all while "peeing" on my hand, I started to wake up. I finally left the restroom and hugged my neice goodbye. It was 6:45pm.

When Bubba and I got in the car, I said "I know that we're both really tired, but I think that we should go to the hospital instead of going home." She didn't get what I was saying at first. Then, when I finally said BROKEN WATER out loud, she sped along the freeway, honking and waving at everyone while I yelled "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE CALM ONE. THAT'S YOUR JOB." Then, we had to stop for gas which was really irritating.

I continued to be in denial at the hospital even though I was dripping water down my legs and onto the floor. Finally, a pH test confirmed that the water was amniotic fluid. This is when I started to panic because Baby B just wasn't big enough to come out yet. I think that this was the most major source of stress for me and probably for Bubba, too. Finally, I gave in and didn't object when Bubba insisted on calling our folks. We told them all to sit tight, and we would let them know what was going on. That totally didn't work. They all hopped in their cars and came to the hospital. It was about 9pm.

Contractions were happening, but not too bad. It was decided to add pitocin at 12am to help my body catch up to itself. At about 2am, the contractions were really getting bad. At 3am, I would have divorced me. At 4am, I got an epidural. Finally, we got some sleep. I was checked at about 7:30am and my doctor was called; I was at 5cm. Bubba went to find the grandparents. By the time she returned at 8:30, I was 9cm. (4cm in just an hour!) Our doctor arrived at 8:45am, and we hit the operating room by 9:10am. (Operating room instead of delivery room just in case there were twin complications.)

I started pushing and only did five or six different “sessions.” The doc asked Bub if she wanted to see how things were progressing. The first baby was crowning and Bub exclaimed "It looks like a hairy meatball." At 9:29am, Meatball came into the world. He cried once and was immediately handed off to the NICU. Since the other baby was still high in my uterus, the doc asked me for a few more pushes to help him move down. After two more pushing “sessions,” the doc ordered me to STOP and then started yelling at the NICU people that she needed someone to “come in and catch this baby.” She was literally holding the tiny little guy in! When the catcher arrived, baby #2 joined us at 9:41am with just one little push. This time, it was the doc who uttered the nickname when she said "Oh, he's just a little peanut." He also just let out one little cry before going to NICU.

Samuel Edmond (after Bubba’s grandpa) weighed in at 5 lbs, 2oz (the size of a bag of sugar). Benjamin Jacob (after my grandpa) was just 3 lbs, 6 oz (the size of three bricks of butter). Even our doc was surprised at Ben’s size. After some tears and hugs and kisses between me and Bubba, the doc reminded us that there were likely some grandparents in the hallway who would like an update, so Bubba left our happy little world to make their day fantastic, too.

In the four days that they have been here, Meatball and Peanut have done very well. They will be in the NICU for a while longer, but things are moving along.