Rain Rain

The weather has been so nice lately and a couple of days ago it rained all day which doesn't happen very often. The boys love to be outside and they love the rain.

The next night we had this beautiful sunset

these two boys of mine

My little boys are 10 months old. It's hard to believe that they'll be 1 so soon.

Thomas loves to clap and bounce to music. He puts everything in his mouth but his favorite thing to eat is paper. He loves to mimick us and puts his hands to his checks when you say uh oh. He also gives the best hugs, he's our snuggler.

Nathan loves his binkis and is very good at stealing Tommy's straight from his mouth. He bables a lot and says mama and mom all the time. He shakes his head no no and loves to read books. He's our mellow and happy one.

They both crawl everywhere, laugh at each other, love food and are the same height and weight. But they are two very different boys and I love it.

They both bring so much laughter and joy to our home and family.

 

time to strap the baby in the swing

um, so yeah, t boy fell out of the swing last night.

in the past and up to last night, i haven't strapped them in the swing when they are swaddled. cause really when they are swaddled they don't move that much. but t boy is a kicker. he loves to kick his legs all the time. but usually when he's swaddled and sleeping, he doesn't kick as much.

but combine how big he's gotten (when did that happen), kicking legs and not being strapped into the swing and you get a baby on the floor. luckily the swing is very low to the ground.

the crazy thing is t boy didn't really even cry. E went into the room because he heard some fusing and as he went to put the pacifier in t boys mouth, there was no baby in the swing. he brought him into me and told me what happened and as we looked t boy over, he seemed fine.

in other news, n boy rolled over twice yesterday morning.

the birth of Thomas and Nathan

Disclaimer: The story and pictures are graphic.

I woke up at 1:15am on Friday October 21, 2011 feeling thirsty and wide awake. After getting a drink of water, I started walking back to bed and all the sudden it felt like I peed my pants. There was liquid running down my legs and I couldn't stop it. It was weird and I suspected it was my water leaking (it wasn't very much) but I didn't want to believe that I was going into labor. I had a major event at work that day and I wanted/needed to be there. A couple minutes later I started feeling some cramps and tightening in my stomach that was coming and going every couple minutes. I put a towel on the chair, sat down at the computer and googled contractions (even though I had spent the past 9 months reading and learning about them. I still wanted to google it and read about it again). I decided to casually time what I was feeling. About 10 minutes later I got up to get more water and  I leaked more fluid. After about 30 minutes of timing the waves I decided it was the real thing. My water was leaking and the pressure waves were 3 minutes apart. I labored for another hour as the waves gradually intensified. I decided that at 3am I would wake up E and see what he thought. Right after 3am, E came walking in the office. He had woken up on his own. I told him what was going on and asked him to time what I was feeling. He timed for about 15 minutes. My pressure waves were 2 minutes apart and lasting a minute. That's when we decided to call our doula Kimberly.

I continued to labor in the office chair with my Hypnobabies CD on in the background. It was really intense but extremely calm as well. E talked me through every wave. Kimberly got to our house around 4:30am and checked the babies heart rates, the babies were doing good. She started setting up the birthing pool so I could labor in there for a while. As it was filling with water I was anxious to get in and try different positions. When I got in, it felt really good! E climbed in with me to help me work through each wave (E was so awesome). Our plan was to stay at home as long as possible. After about an hour and a half of laboring in the pool I started to feel a lot of pressure. None of the positions I got into eased it. I eventually ended up back in the office chair, it felt the best. After telling Kimberly 4 or 5 times that I felt the urge to push, she suggested we head to the hospital. I was ready to go (although I was still very worried about getting there and finding out I hadn't progressed very far). E grabbed some last minute things and we got in the car. Kimberly followed us there in her own car.

During the car ride I told E that I couldn't do it anymore, it was too hard. He told me this was my ironman and I could do it. We arrived at the hospital minutes later around 7:30am. I had a pressure wave in the parking lot and leaned on E for support. When we walked into the ER, they put me in a wheel chair and wheeled me straight to a L&D room. I kept saying over and over, I have to push.

Note: This is where everything changed. My birth story was exactly how I wanted it up until this point. Everything was perfect. If I could have stayed at home, I truly believe I could have had the birth I wanted and brought these boys into the world how I envisioned and practiced for. But that is not what happened. The rest of the story is what it is and it's a part of me. I love it because it is how my boys were born. But I don't love it for very many other reasons. I'm learning to accept what happened and be at peace with it.

They got me on the bed (flat on my back) and told me I was fully dilated and effaced and could push. The midwife said that I could deliver baby A (Thomas) right then, he was that close to coming out. But as soon as I laid down my pressure waves eased up and I didn't feel as strong of an urge to push. My body was telling me to get into a different position (like I was able to be in at home). I wanted to be up and squatting or on a birth ball because I felt the most pressure in these positions. But because I was on my back, baby A (Thomas) retreated back into my womb. Because he retreated, the midwife decided we had time to wheel my bed into the OR (where we were supposed to be from the beginning).

Note: When delivering twins in the hospital you are required to deliver in the operating room. The only reason they didn't take me in there immediately was because baby A was so close to coming out.

Once in the OR the nurses poked and prodded me for over an hour to try and get an IV in. The whole time I was trying to push baby A (Thomas) out I had both arms being mauled by needles. It was extremely distracting. Eventually the anesthesiologist was called and he got one in (apparently I was dehydrated which made it harder to find a vein for the IV). I had indicated that I didn't want an IV in our birth plan. But in the chaos of arriving at the hospital ready to push, the birth plan kind of got thrown to the side.

I pushed and pushed and pushed. It was hard work and it was a lot harder to use my Hypnobabies techniques in the hospital with so many people around distracting me. E was right by my side encouraging me on every push. Kimberly (our doula) was awesome as well and she was able to take a bunch of pictures. For me, the pushing was much more difficult than the labor. I remember thinking, "I didn't realize this part would be so hard" and "I have to do this twice". It was overwhelming to think about pushing another baby out but I just kept telling myself to focus on getting this first baby out.

The whole time I was pushing baby A (Thomas) they were monitoring baby B (Nathan). After pushing for about 45 minutes, baby B (Nathan) started showing signs of stress. At that point, the midwife suggested we do an episiotomy to speed things up. I was opposed to having an episiotomy and asked if she would give me another try before she did one. She agreed and I pushed with everything I had and that's when I pushed Thomas' head out and with another push his body. Thomas Winn Kimble was born at 9:32am. The sensation of pushing him out was so crazy and intense. But it was so awesome to have him out. The cord was wrapped around Thomas' neck twice but he was perfect and healthy and cried right away. She gave him to me and I got to hold him on my chest for 2 seconds before the nurse whisked him away. I was so bummed I couldn't hold him longer. He was so little and I just wanted to take it all in and enjoy him.

The focus was now on baby B (Nathan). He was head down (which is what you want) but he would not come down. He was hanging out at the top of my uterus and his bag of water was still intact. At this point baby B's (Nathan's) heart rate was dropping into the 80's and not recovering. The midwife talked about breaking his bag of water but then decided against it because he was so high. It was also decided that we didn't have much time because baby B (Nathan) wasn't doing very good. She said we could give him 5 more minutes to make some progress before we had to do a c-section.

As soon as the 5 minutes were up and baby B (Nathan) was still stressed and hadn't made any progress, I was transferred to the OR table. Because I didn't have an epidural, they put me completely under/out for the c-section. I was not happy. It was so crazy in there with people running around all over the place. The last thing I remember was asking where E was while fighting the nurses as they tried to strap my arms down. The last thing I heard was that E could not stay with me and then I was out. Nathan Brewer Kimble was born at 9:48am.

The first thing I remember is E. A very happy and smiling E holding Thomas up to my face. I also happened to be bawling.

That's where I'll stop for now. There's more. There's a lot more.

the time i deleted thomas' first bath pictures

The first month of Thomas and Nathan's lives I was so out of it. I thought I was with it and I was slightly but looking back, it's a big big blur. I'm pretty sure the only way I survived was by having my mom there for 2 weeks, then E's parents for 10 days and then my awesome sis in law Jo for another 5 days. They did everything for me except feed the babies.

What a crazy journey I've been on the past 3 months. I can't wait to blog it all for my records and for your enjoyment. It was (and still is) such an intense time of life. Going through so many changes and learning how to care for not one but two babies is such an experience. One that deserves a lot of blogging.

Sometimes I look at these boys and can't believe I carried them and birthed them. It's so amazing.

Yesterday we were going through pictures on the camera and deleting ones we'd already put on the computer. Well I got going and before I knew it, was deleting pictures we hadn't put on the computer yet. Luckily I only deleted 3 before I realized it. Unluckily all 3 were of Thomas' first bath. Luckily I didn't delete Nathan's. Unluckily Thomas might think we don't like him because there are no pictures of his first bath. They were really cute too, he was sooo tiny with a lot of dark hair... see.