Happy 1st Birthday, Kiddos!

Holy Moses, can it really be? HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AERON and ADDYSON!! I can only sit here and shake my head wondering where this year has gone. I realized tonight that we didn't get any pictures on their birthday, so I took one of each of them sleeping just to have one. I also added a picture of each from last year to compare! Amazing is all I can say. We will post birthday pics from their party tomorrow for sure. We are doing just a small family party for now and hope to have a bigger celebration in the summer around their Due Date (June 11) and Coming Home Date (May 25) when the weather is nicer and we can be outside and not cramped in a small house with so many illnesses going around.

Addyson now..

Addyson then..

Aeron now..

Aeron then..

I was trying to decide what to even write today other than Happy Birthday, and I decided to share little snipets from this day from the journal I kept this time last year. This was written after the fact, of course. I haven't shown this to anyone .. I'm not sure if Dad has even read all of it, but I thought it would be nice to go back to this day last year and let you all know what I was thinking and how it all happened. Sorry if it's a little too personal in some places (i.e. bedpan use!)

"Friday, the 24th, started out much the same as the rest of the week. I woke up feeling pretty good, but an hour or two into the day felt really crappy due to the mag [magnesium sulfate]. Once lunch came it got better. .. After cleaning up after a bedpan use soon after 5pm, I felt something was not right. I called the nurse, who called the resident, who checked me, and said I was fully dilated and ready to deliver. They took me to the OR and got everything ready. It wasn't a huge rush, but things were done pretty quickly. M was given scrubs and was right at my side. They gave me an epidural in case 'Baby B' had to be born by c-section. I still don't know quite what was going through my head. I was scared and sad that my babies were coming so soon, but as M says, also happy we were about to be parents. I guess I knew there was absolutely nothing I could do or could have done at that point and it was just no longer in my hands. The delivery went pretty smooth. [It is VERY rare for babies to be born naturally at this gestational age, but in some ways I think this was good for the babies - less stress, etc.] Addyson Marie, 'Baby A', was born at 6:47 pm on 02/24/06 weighing in at 1 lb. 9 oz. I remember seeing her for the first time and just not believing how small she was. [She let out a little whimper when she came out and reminded me of a newborn kitten. They took the babies to an adjoining room where the neonatal team worked on the babies .. 5 or 6 people per baby]. M went back to see her once she was stable and came back with a smile and a tear. It really was something special. We waited a bit to see if 'Baby B' would turn down on his own, and after some help from the docs in turning him, Aeron Matthew 'Baby B' was born at 7:03 pm on 02/24/06 weighing in at 1 lb. 10 1/2 oz. [He too let out a whimper and looked very alien-cat-like.] He was 12 1/2" long and she was 12 3/4" long. Both were stabalized and doing well within minutes of birth, but we knew we had one long journey ahead."

Just a week before at home we had painted, carpeted, and put together cribs for the nursery. It was finally starting to sink in that I was pregnant and we were going to have 2 babies. We didn't get the extra excitement of waiting for the day they would come, but we did get to enjoy them for an extra three months. I like to think that they knew we had waited years for a child already, and they just didn't want to make us wait any longer. We had a nice young resident most of the week that I was at General, and he ended up at the delivery with us. They were wheeling me to recovery, and I remember him coming up to me and saying, a little teary-eyed, "I'm sorry." All I could tell him was, "Thank you." I can remember sitting in the recovery room in amazment and wondering what just happened. I figured I would be crying and hysterical, but the first tear I shed wasn't until about an hour after birth, when they brought Addyson through to let us see her before she was tranferred to Akron Children's. I was fine until they took her away, and then I lost it wondering how they were going to survive being so small. Aeron came soon after and I was more prepared to see him hooked up to all the machines, but it was still hard. I did cry just a few times in the next day or two, but something let me know we were going to be okay. It didn't make it easier, but it made me calm.