Welcome, Katherine and Hadley!

So if you follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, you may have caught wind that my girls arrived about a month ago. It was actually a month ago yesterday and it has been a whirlwind, an absolutely amazing, fantastic whirlwind but a whirlwind nonetheless. This is a post that I have been meaning to write for awhile but trying to find the time and more importantly, the words has been hard.

Before we found out that we were having twins, I was totally prepared for the idea of having a baby. One. single. baby. When we found out that we were getting two babies at the very same time, my head was spinning. I feel like I spent a lot of my pregnancy just trying to wrap my head around the idea that we would be having two identical twin girl babies that would indeed be arriving at the same time.  On top of that, twin pregnancies, especially identical twin pregnancies can be scary. All the sudden, my husband and I found ourselves speaking in acronyms and weird terms. Talking about and worrying about the complexities of MoDi twins, TTTS, TAPS, and so on and so forth became de riguer for us. We live in the Washington, D.C. area so acronyms are just a way of life mostly but these are acronyms that frightened me in so many different ways.

After being on partial bed rest for a month and then full bed rest for almost two months after that, I got up on the morning of April 16th to use the bathroom. When I came back to bed, Phil asked me what time it was. I replied "4:30. We still have time to sleep!" Right at that moment, my water broke. This was exactly a week before I was supposed to have the girls (at 36 weeks and 4 days - here's the other thing about identical twins is that they have to be taken early because of increased risks after 37 weeks). I panicked. I wasn't ready. I was worried that because the girls were coming even earlier than expected that we'd run all sorts of risks such as health problems and NICU time. Luckily, my dear husband is a man of action and started flying around the house to pack up the last few things that I hadn't packed for my hospital stay yet while calling my doctor on call.

We got to the hospital and got signed in. The next few hours went quickly and slowly at the same time. We waited in triage to figure out what the next step would be. Phil did his best to keep my mind from running and off of how badly the contractions started to hurt. Finally, my doctor came in and said that all we were waiting for was an OR.

By 10:35 a.m., Katherine Mary was born.

By 10:37 a.m., Hadley Elizabeth was born.

With everything that I was worried about and had fixated on for the previous several months, the girls came out perfectly healthy. Katherine only weighed 4 pounds, 7 ounces and Hadley weighed 4 pounds, 11 ounces yet they were fierce. Both girls blew their Apgar scores out of the water and neither one had to have any NICU time at all!!!

 I knew I loved these girls before they arrived but what has been so amazing to me is how quickly it felt as if they have always been here. It sounds trite but I cannot imagine my life without them. Yesterday, they turned a month old and they have already grown so much. I feel like we are finally hitting a rhythm somewhat!

Anyone that knows me at all can tell you that I like plans. I really like plans. I am your classic "Type AI like to have things set and admittedly when my plans don't work out exactly the way that I had planned, it throws me off. My pregnancy was not smooth. I had to cancel a trip to India for a good friend's wedding and our babymoon to Philadelphia. I was on partial bed rest beginning at the end of January. By the end of February, I was on full bed rest. Just a few days before the girls arrived, I was diagnosed with mild pre-eclampsia. It was frustrating and actually quite scary for me at some points. If nothing else, my pregnancy and the birth of my girls taught me that you can't plan everything and the things that you don't plan don't always turn out badly. In fact, things can turn out quite well. Sometimes, the ability to be flexible and to roll with the punches is the only thing that you can plan for and that's okay. When you're open to all the different possibilities out there, truly amazing things can happen.