Our first week with our new babies draws to an end tonight. Wow, what an amazing week of love, learning, patience, and wonder.

Our week started off with the birth of Audrey and Andrew via Cesarean section on Tuesday, Aug 6. Although a vaginal delivery was an option for us, I chose to proceed with the C section for a number of different reasons. While I had not, obviously, had a C section before, I have had abdominal surgery in the past and was familiar with what the recovery would be like. However, when we checked into the hospital on the day of the birth, I was almost overwhelmed with anxiety. Anxiety is something I hardly ever experience, as I do not typically worry about things a whole lot and I usually can handle a fairly significant amount of stress pretty well. I tried and tried to calm down and to talk myself through everything I knew about the procedure (which was quite a lot). But none of it worked. When the nurses came to get me to walk into the operating room, I felt true terror that I don’t remember ever feeling in my life. I can’t explain it. I absolutely couldn’t wait to meet the twins and learn their genders. I knew that everything would turn out fine. But I was completely overwhelmed with anxiety. I was shaking so hard and had such a large belly that they had a very hard time placing the spinal, which, of course, brought on even more anxiety. Finally it all worked and they brought Dave in to sit with me. Aside from my anxiety, the tone in the operating room was a lot of fun. There were about 20 people in the room and all were VERY excited about delivering twins with surprise genders. It was a festive and fun atmosphere that I wish I had been relaxed enough to enjoy.

Andrew David at 6 lb, 12 oz, was delivered at 2:08 PM, about 2 or 3 minutes after the surgery started. When they pulled him out, they all exclaimed over how big he was and then announced that they had just delivered a big baby BOY! My doctor held him over the curtain for me to see for a few seconds. He had a shock of black hair sticking up all over the place, which I thought was funny. Then they took him away for testing and cleanup and 1 minute later, at 2:09 PM, Audrey Elizabeth at 5 lb, 1 oz was delivered with a scream to pierce the eardrums. My doctor announced that she had delivered a little GIRL and my response was, “YES!!” Audrey did not stop SCREAMING at the top of her lungs for several minutes after that, which amused all of us.

Unfortunately, about this time, I started to go downhill and got quite shaky and sick. They gave me several medications to stop the shakes and vomiting, which caused my blood pressure to drop pretty low. I was sick for the next few hours and don’t remember much of it. Finally I started to feel better and they took me to a regular room in the hospital. The babies were brought to us and stayed with us right in the hospital room until the day we left the hospital.

The rest of the hospital stay, which totaled 3 days, is a bit of a blur to me. When I first looked at Andrew and Audrey in the operating room, I cannot say that I felt the overwhelming love that many people describe when they first see their child. I did feel relieved and happy that they were healthy and safe. Over the next several days after their birth, however, I began to bond with them and to absolutely love them both. I feel amazed by how much I truly enjoy being with them, even when they are screaming, shooting me with flying poo and vomit, and sometimes doing all of it at once. Their birth truly has been a thing of unexpected beauty. I feel honored and blessed to have been given this opportunity to be a parent to both of them. I have watched with a sense of amazement this past week at all the things that they’ve learned how to do already and that I’ve learned as well. I’ve learned about some giant well of patience that I did not know existed within me. And all of it has been a lot of fun.

I have been told repeatedly that I will have my hands full, that life will be crazy, etc. And, maybe in time it will. But since we’ve come home from the hospital, I’ve felt at peace and relaxed. Dave has been with me pretty much every minute through all of it and we’ve had some funny moments that we are already laughing at. We’ve had a really good time getting to know our children’s oddities, like Andrew who sneezes twice and then shouts afterwards, and Audrey, who has many great facial expressions and wrinkles her forehead and smiles craftily at you as she poops. She is turning out to be a feisty girl and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

If I had that much fun last week, I can’t wait to see what this week holds. Here are a couple of pictures of Andrew and Audrey from this week.

Andrew – left
Audrey – right

Dave, Mandy, Andrew, Audrey leaving the hospital to go home for the first time