Sunday morning was Easter. We were supposed to be visiting with my family (Saturday we were supposed to have taken the dogs to a Mets game, but we missed that). On Saturday, I had asked family members to bring my things to the hospital so that I could start to knit some hats for the babies. I started working on Caiden's early Sunday morning. After getting through a few rows, I felt a gush of water. We called the nurse who came in and checked on things. I don't have a good sense of time because everything was so overwhelming, but I am sure we waited hours for the doctor to come in. Eventually, the doctor came in and said that they were now sure that my water had broken (until then they were unsure) and that there was nothing more we could do and I would need to deliver the babies. They recommended inducing labor to speed things along so that I wasn't in labor for days. We agreed.
They gave me a pill to initiate the labor. While the medicine went to work, the family started trying to get someone to come and pray with us. Since it was Easter Sunday, it took a lot of calling to reach anyone. But all the calling eventually paid off... The hospital produced their chaplain who said a couple prayers with us. A short while later, the hospital also produced a Catholic priest who was tied to the hospital. Shortly after that, our church's deacon (whose son my husband grew up with) stop in and said a few prayers. After that, our old priest (who had moved to a new church) arrived to say prayers and give us a blessing. We joked that we were the most blessed people on earth that day because of all the praying and blessings.
After taking the pill, I started freaking out because I hadn't decided yet how to handle the pain of labor (I was only 20 weeks pregnant and labor had seemed so far away). The nurse told me I could have anything I wanted. They had been giving me Oxycodone for my back (it was very sore from the uncomfortable position I had been laying in), so I ended up requesting that in the end.
Just after taking the Oxycodone, I started shivering violently. The nurse quickly brought blankets from the warmer and wrapped me up. Unbeknowst to me, this was the start of labor. (What does shivering have to do with labor? I still don't understand it, but apparently it is a common sign...) After shivering for a few minutes, my water burst. The doctor came in and with one push Caiden was born. The doctor wanted me to concentrate on delivering Kaylie, so he would not let me see Caiden at first, but when it appeared Kaylie was not quite ready to make her exit, the doctor introduced us to our son. Just before pushing, the doctor had warned us not to expect our children to look like full-term babies, so we steeled ourselves for the unexpected. He looked nothing like what we had prepared ourselves for; I would never have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes: other than being off-pigmented (dark) because of the early stages of development, he was a perfect looking tiny little baby with 10 tiny fingers and 10 tiny toes, his mouth opened and he had a tongue! His little ears were in perfect proportion to his head. It was the littlest things that amazed me.
Kaylie decided to come into the world with a burst! When her water broke, it soaked the resident who was sitting at the edge of the bed (though my doctor had enough experience to back up). She was born 27 minutes after her brother. She amazed us with her strength by taking several breaths. Her heart beat for a while, though again I have no sense of time...
The priest who had given us the final blessing came back to baptize the babies. Then the nurse brought in tiny hats and small quilts. She put the hats on them and my husband wrapped them very meticulously in their quilts. Our wonderful nurses took the babies to get their hand and footprints and take pictures. (And when we asked for clearer footprints because my husband wanted to get the footprints in a tattoo, they went off and did more footprinting.) They also weighed the babies: Caiden weighed a little over 12 ounces and Kaylie weighed about 10.5 ounces. We were not ready to say goodbye, so we kept the babies with us for the night.
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