Introducing Amelia Ann and Penelope Sue

Here is one of the earliest pictures - the girls are less than an hour old! Amelia is wide awake, checking everything out while her little sister, Penelope is fast asleep.

I suppose I should back up a little.... When I left off on the last entry, we were just heading off to the OR for the actual delivery. And while the epidural was great during labor, the same can't be said for how I felt during delivery. I was in a lot of pain during the contractions and pushing and then during my little breaks, I was super drowsy and had a hard time staying awake. I was a little frustrated feeling so out of it but Paul was right by my side talking to me and feeding me ice chips and that definitely helped. Although we had both been warned about how many people would be in the delivery room (each baby gets a couple nurses plus my nurses plus my Dr plus some interns plus the neonatalogist) we were still kind of surprised. The room was packed! And another mystery of childbirth was solved - I always thought I'd have a hard time feeling so exposed to that many strangers, but in the moment, I couldn't care less. Whatever it took to have babies is what it took, regardless of who was in the room. And during one of the worst moments, I believe my exact words to my Dr were "I just want them out of me". Nice right....real motherly :D

So on Monday, November 3rd, after an hour of pushing in L&D and a short 30-40 minutes more in the delivery room, we finally met Baby A. Amelia Ann was born at 9:30am and weighed 4lbs 8oz and measured 17in. I got a short break in the action while we waited for the 2nd baby and during that time, one of students/interns in the room actually got queasy and had to sit down and then eventually leave the room. I'm not sure what exactly got her sick, but it happened right after #2's water broke, so I like to tell Penelope she might have just changed the course of that girl's future, turning her away from a career in the OB field. ;D Anyway, back to the birth... At 9:51am, we met Baby B. Penelope Sue came into the world weighing 5lbs 12oz and measuring 18in. Both Paul and I were surprised at how small the girls were but we were told that those ultrasound measurements during the last couple weeks of the pregnancy could be up to a pound and a half off... Also, I must commend the women out there who are in labor for hours on end and give birth to 7lb and 8lb babies - I thought 2 hours and 5lbs was hard enough!! After the birth, Paul was in camera heaven, going back and forth between pictures and video. He took lots of pictures all day Monday and you can see some of the favorites in our little slide show here on the blog or you can link to our photo site acandpc.smugmug.com (we will eventually have lots more on Smug Mug). Even though both girls were small, they were as healthy as could be (crying loudly and scoring 9s on the Apgar test) and I got to see them briefly before they were taken off to the nursery. Penelope slept through our introduction but not Amelia. She was awake and alert and looking all around. And I think that was about the time when it all started to hit me at once... I just couldn't believe that these 2 little precious babies were ours and they were actually here with us. After all these weeks of waiting and waiting and waiting and then in a few short moments, it's all over and no more waiting.