introducing zachary grant and zoe katherine!

BE FOREWARNED...may be TMI for some of you...and sorry so long.

jason and i welcomed zach and zoe into this world on saturday, january 10th at texas woman's hospital. as per the plan, we went in that morning at 7:15 for induction and within an hour and a half, the doc broke my water, started the pitocin and contractions were coming full on not soon after. i was a little disappointed in myself for not being able to bear the pain longer that i did, but after an hour and half of contractions coming every minute and a half to two, i was pretty eager to get that epidural!

when we arrived at the hospital, i was 3 cm dilated, and beared the contractions until i was 6 cm. the epidural was beautiful...i never thought those words would come out of my mouth, but they are! for those women who have done it all naturally, i have so much more respect for you...i have no idea how you did it!!

anyways, so once they inserted the epi, i was good to go. it just became a waiting game at that point. it was probably another three to four hours before the action began. i was pretty much fully dilated at 10 cm by about 2:30, but there was a little "lip" of my cervix that was still in the way. at that point, the doc had me start pushing a little bit to see if we could she could maneuver it out of the way, but before i knew it, she was prepping me for the operating room.

i remember checking into the OR at 3:39 and making my exit at 5:40. but i tell you what...those two hours were the longest of my life! to begin with, there is definitely no time to be modest while there! there seemed to be twenty people of which i think i knew four in there and they had me propped up and exposed in under a minute flat it seemed. i was completely at their mercy totally unaware of what was going on down there! i'm not complaining by any means, since they are the experts and did a fabulous job, but not something that i'm quite used to!

this post is actually a lot longer than i had anticipated...sorry! i didn't realize it was going to turn into my birth story! so let me try to speeden things up a bit! hmmm...so i pushed for what seemed like forever and it got to a point where the doc said "two more pushes and then i'm sorry, but we're going to have to do a section." in between contractions the babies started getting distressed, so she didn't want to take any risks. you better believe i gave those last two pushes my all after i heard that, even though i felt like my head was about to explode! to be honest though, i was so close to just giving in...i didn't know how much more i could endure. whatever i did worked because by this point zach was so far down now in the birth canal that there was no turning back! sounds fine and dandy, but my goodness. the next thirty minutes were horrible! his positioning was off (sunny side up) and she kept trying to turn him, but nothing was working...all the while me still pushing for dear life! she pulled out the vacuum to no avail and then came the forceps. after a lot of thought and debate, dr. swaim just felt that something wasn't right for forceps use because of where the soft spots on his head were located, so we collectively decided against it. so of course that meant it was all in my court now!

zach was finally born at 5:03 pm and little zoe soon followed at 5:06 pm.

that wasn't even the worst of it. when zach came out, jason said he was purplish blue and looked lifeless. the look on the doctor's face didn't make things any better nor did the mass of people who rushed in to tend to him. of course, i didn't know any of this was going on at the time, since i was still working on getting zoe out. at the end of the day, zach was okay...thank goodness. he did need to be resuscitated and suffered two major hematomas on his head, but healthy overall. jason and i are just fine with him having a square head for a few weeks given the scare he gave us.

the babies were in the NICU for six hours following their arrival, so around 2am that morning i finally got to hold and admire these little angels. i just don't think it quite sunk in that these little guys were mine for quite some time. we spent two days in the hospital and came home late monday night. zach had to go back to the hospital the next morning to check his bilirubin levels and as it turned out, we had to put him under the lights for almost five days but thankfully we were able to do it at home. he is now officially in the clear as of yesterday!

what else? we did go to the doctor four days after they got home to get a baseline established and the good news was that zach maintained his birth weight and zoe lost only 0.06 oz. i guess i should provide their birth stats...zach was 6 lbs 4 oz, 19 3/4 inches long and zoe was 5 lbs 9.6 oz, 19 inches long.

i am nursing and so far so good. using some formula to supplement, but i'd say that's probably about 10-15%. they're really quite good during the day, but of course the nights are a bit more of a challenge. we've had a ton of much appreciated support especially from jason's parents and my mom. my aunt is here from jersey for two weeks to help out as well...thank you! it's amazing how much two little ones can take out of you! it's been worth it though!

it just amazes me to see their progress each and every day, even thought they only are ten days old! zach is much more laidback, quiet and quite the eater whereas zoe just loves to sleep and will let you know LOUD and clear when she needs something!

we had their newborn session done yesterday and it went suprisingly well. i've attached a pic that we got from it (below) as well as a pic of the two of them in the hospital (above).

thank you all for your emails, calls , presents and support...it has meant so much! i owe many of you a call or a note back, (and probably a thank you note) but please bear with me! i can't wait for you all to meet them!! :)