THE HILLS: And then there were 4...

This post is SO overdue, I've been a wee bit busy lately! Even now, I'm having to type this one handed while I hold a baby... This may take me a while! So when I left Texas (June 29th) I was 29 weeks along, I had a Dr.'s appointment that week and I was 2cm dilated, pretty scary at that point, I was scared everyday that I was going to go into labour prematurely...Little did I know then that we'd be forcing these guys out! Brett's graduation was on August 11th, and he had a couple days left in clinic after that to get the hours and adjustments that he needed, but then had to plan a few days to drive home. This was the big thing we were waiting for. With twins you're full term at 36 weeks and they won't let you go over 38 weeks and I was 36 weeks when Brett graduated. At every Dr.'s appointment he was surprised I was still there, when I first went to him at 32 weeks, he didn't think I had that much time left. So I was put on a "moderate" bedrest, all I have to say about that with my children is, "yeah right". Bedrest shmedrest. I was just as crazy as I was before but just WAY more uncomfortable. Oh the uncomfort, it's indescribable! I had nights where they would push so hard on my ribs, I could feel it in my shoulders. NO position was comfortable, sitting would squish them, laying down would give me acid reflux, standing made my stomach hurt... 2 babies in a five foot girl is not a great idea!

So I had my induction date set for 37 weeks and 2 days. I don't know what it is about having a "date" set, but all of a sudden I was so scared that I knew the day this whole thing would go down. It's like when I'm pregnant I forget that I actually have to give birth. I really thought these babies would come on their own so I called and changed it to the next week so that I would be the full 38 weeks, plus 2 days. Gladly, my Dr. was good with that, and I really hoped they would just come on their own. No such luck, those babies were perfectly happy where they were! The nice thing about getting induced I guess is that you can be prepared. Brett and I were able to go on a date the night before. I had my bags all packed and legs shaved, I was ready to go. There's something weird about CALMLY driving to the hospital knowing you're going to give birth to twins that day. At least if you go in labour, you don't have time to think about the craziness of it! So here I am, in the hospital parking lot, as big as I could possibly get!

We got up to the labour and delivery unit just before 9am and they took us right away into our room, the Dr. came in and did an ultrasound to check the positions and both of them were still head down - perfect for a natural delivery. I was positive for Strep B, so I had to go on a drip for that, then he broke my water. We had to wait about 10 minutes for the anesthesiologist (Parker people, don't judge me for having an epidural, they pretty much enforce it with twins!) so Brett and I went for a walk in the hallway. Just before the anesthesiologist got there, I got my first contraction. He gave me my epidural and I got a few more contractions, but a little more intense - which seemed quick for me since it was only maybe my 4th or 5th contraction. By the time the epidural kicked in, I was glad we did it that early! So we were just hanging out, I napped, Brett read, we were pretty relaxed.

At this point I was having 6 contractions every 10 minutes and since they hadn't given me any pitocin yet, I asked if they would call my Dr. and ask him if we could just do this naturally and he was good with it. So they checked me and I was 6 or 7cm dilated so they wanted me to go to the bathroom so that I didn't need a catheter. I was helped (since I couldn't walk so well) by Brett and one of my nurses and while I was in there, my nurse was suddenly like, "Heather, the baby's crowning!" The two nurses carried me on one side and Brett on the other (in a sitting position - just to give a visual) back to the bed, pressed a button and said the babies were coming and within 30 seconds, the stations set up for the babies had all the pediatricians and other people necessary, all ready to go. My Dr. walked in and said he didn't have time to change and put on a hospital gown, came over and said, "let's go". Luckily he was in the elevator coming up when they called him! So my Dr. is this super hyper man, like really, really hyper. I wasn't sure how he was going to be in delivery but he was amazing! Unlike the other Dr.'s who have done my deliveries, he was like, "don't push yet, we'll let the head stretch things out and just take our time". My other deliveries were more like, "let's get this thing out of here, PUSH!" So after just a couple pushes, Parker was out. It was amazing! He was born at 1:05pm and weighed 6lbs 5oz. I had hopes that my babies would at least be 5 pounds each, so over 6 was incredible!

So I held him and fed him while we waited for Maci to make her way down. I kept asking, "do you need me to push?" and he was just like, "no, we'll let her make her way down" and then he broke her water (I never really thought about each baby having their own water). So while I'm pushing with her, I'm feeding Parker, of course I handed him over to Brett for the end, and she was out at 1:43, weighing 5lbs 2 oz. They were perfect and it was crazy how smooth it was. I don't know if it's just because with Branson and Spence I had hours of hard contractions before getting the epidural or what it was but everything about this was so smooth and easy. I had NO tearing at all, thank goodness for small heads! When my Dr. was leaving, he gave me a pat on the leg and said, "that was fun". And that's how it felt, like we were all just hanging out, having twins! I only have the "new" pictures with Parker on here, Maci's showing too much for the internet and once I had both babies with me, I was feeding, so that was a little more skin than I'd like to show on here. I just don't want anyone to think I love her any less since there's less photos of her on here.