Babies Are Here!!

As you all probably know, our babies arrived Wednesday morning, September 1st at 7:37am. They've been breathing on their own so far since the moment they came out! Camryn Summer (who was always "Baby B", thought to be the second one in line) actually got taken out first. Not sure how she managed that one--she's now referred to as "Baby A" for cutting in front of Cole Lawrence, who is now "Baby B". Camryn weighed 3lbs. 14oz. and was 17 1/2 inches long. Cole weighed 4lbs. 6oz. and was 17 3/4 inches long. Here are some pictures to take you a little through our journey up to today so far...

Here is Matt all decked out before heading into the operating room

And here he is all ready for the action with no nerves at all. I, on the other hand, was a hot mess. I love my babies, but I hated every single second of the c-section--of what I remember from it. They quickly put me out (colonoscopy-type sleeping) pretty much right after they took the babies out. Our understanding was that there was some extensive bleeding going on and some serious closing up and stapling to be done. Thank goodness I had a most wonderful anesthesiologist who made things so much better for me! Carol McHorse, I love love love you guys so much for looking out for me with Dr. S. I will never forget his gentle nature and how wonderful he was to me that whole day and the day after.

Anyway--again, Matt, ready for the big moments...

Our baby girl came out first much to our surprise! Here's pretty little Camryn Summer. (And notice Matt multi-tasking with the flip recorder.) I'll post some video (don't worry, not any of blood and guts) soon.

And here's our adorable guy Cole Lawrence

I have absolutely no recollection of this moment below. You can kind of tell from this picture that I'm already pretty much asleep and definitely out of it. All I really remember is the horrible feelings of the c-section, the presentation of the babies (in the pictures above) and then the beginning of the closing, etc. I can see that my hand is wrapped around one of them, but again, no memory of this. I'm glad it was this way and glad it's on camera. And another nurse had our flip recorder. It's all on there too--and you can actually see me slipping away, going completely out of it around this time. At that time you see the nurse kind of look at Matt and say something like--okay, forget this idea, let's move on!

One of my most favorite pictures ever. I can just see his pride bursting like crazy in this picture!

Our babies settling in their warmers at the NICU soon after

I was pretty out of it the first day. While in recovery I apparently started hemorrhaging where some crazy action needed to take place. Again, Dr. S. came in and helped me through what I remember of that kind of scary time. I had more bleeding, some serious blood pressure drop, then a central line put in for a couple eventual blood transfusions. I was kind of in and out of it during that time. At any rate, one of our NICU nurses "broke the rules" and brought the babies up to my room later that evening so I could at least say I saw and bonded with them the first day. Unfortunately I don't remember too much of it. Here's a picture of them in their isolate that they were brought up to my room in. I love this picture, I think they look so precious together here.

A few days later, feeling much better and spending lots of special time with my precious babies! Here's me and my precious little girl

And me loving with my sweet little boy

They were able to maintain their body temperatures well enough that a couple days later they were moved out of their warmers and into a crib together--and wearing their own clothes! They've been such strong, good babies. They started breast feeding with me by the 3rd day and have been doing 2, now up to 3 a day ever since. Several times we've gone in and caught them holding hands when they sleep (or one clutching another's ear, or arm or nose)!

Cole got circumcised yesterday evening. Matt did not handle it well at all! We got the call at home right before it happened and about an hour before we were due to be there for a feeding. Matt was so anxious and concerned for his little guy. We left right away and Matt was sure to give him some extra loving last night after his ordeal. Here he is about an hour after his snip. He appears pretty calm, thank goodness. However, when it came time for feeding, he wanted absolutely nothing to do with that or with us! He was cranky up until this afternoon.

And Matt having some man-to-man bonding time with Cole after his little boy ordeal last night...

This last picture below was actually taken a little bit ago tonight. We had our first bottle feed with them. The fantastic babies that they are--they did so awesome, of course! Matt loved holding both Camryn and Cole this way for about an hour. They all got in a good post-dinner nap! We are so in love with these special, miracle babies of ours. Hopefully things continue to stay good for them and they just keep staying on the up and up. Once they get up to 8 feeds a day on their own consistently (either by breast or bottle) they get to come home. Right now we are at 3 feeds on their own a day. Thanks so much to all our wonderful friends and family for your kind words, thoughts, gifts and help you've given to us over the past week. We are so grateful for all of you and are so thrilled to share this special time with all of you.