The Birthday

When we last left off, we had just found out the babies were going to be born today, October 29.  I got to order a liquid breakfast (chicken broth and jello) and then spent the day waiting for delivery time (and thinking about how incredibly hungry I was!)  Mark left work and came over to the hospital and we focused on not getting too nervous.  My nurse told us we were scheduled to deliver around 4:00 that afternoon.  I showered, we packed up the room and we waited.

Once it was time to start prepping, everything went very fast.  I thought there would be a lot of down time and waiting, but it was pretty much GO TIME once we got going.  I got an IV put in (ouch) and then they wheeled me down to a small prep room in Labor and Delivery.  Our L&D nurse Rachel was very nice and telling me about her four boys at home.  I told her we were having a boy and a girl - Annabelle and Henry.  She monitored the babies’ heart rates and then the anesthesiologist came to give me the epidural (which hurt pretty bad for about ten seconds, and then it felt very, very weird!)  Before I knew it, they were handing Mark his scrubs to change into and wheeling me down to the OR.

The procedure itself wasn’t too bad.  In fact, it was borderline fun, which I think is thanks to the drugs they give you.  Everything made me feel so happy and calm, which is not at all how I would normally handle being operated on while awake.  I felt like it took longer than I thought it would, but in reality it was no more than about twenty minutes long.  My doctor knew we were naming the babies Henry and Annabelle, so when Baby A came out (Baby A was always the boy), she held his little head over the curtain for us to see and said “Here’s Henry!”  Two minutes later, she did the same with Baby B (Baby B was always going to be the girl) and said “And here’s Annabelle!”  I saw their little faces and was just thinking it was all very surreal.  Mark went over by where they were being cleaned off and checked out to see them and take pictures.  I remember laying there and hearing a nurse in the distance say, “Oh, we have a surprise!” and thinking hmm.. I wonder what she means.  And then I hear her say, “We have two boys!”  At this point, I am halfway thinking hmm, she must be talking about someone else (who, I have no idea??) and halfway thinking WHHHHATTTT? Two boys??

So I get all stitched back up and then things get a little hazy.  I’m not sure what order everything happened in, because I was still in that happy place and not caring about anything (thanks drugs!)  But I go off to recovery where I was SO EXCITED to be able to sleep, Mark goes off with Baby B to the NICU because he was having a little trouble breathing, Henry is doing great and goes up to the nursery and my parents and Mark’s parents come into my recovery room to see me.  A nurse had brought Henry by for them to see, so they had seen him but hadn’t heard anything about Baby B.  I told the nurse to not spill the beans about Baby B being a Boy, so I guess when she went to show him to all the grandparents, it went something like this:

The nurse called for our family (the waiting room was apparently packed that day) and showed them Henry.  My parents ask how Annabelle is doing/where she is?  The nurse replies with, “the other one went to the NICU because there was a problem, and that’s all I can say!”  So… our poor parents sit for the next hour in the waiting room, freaking out and praying that everything is okay with baby Annabelle.  When they finally come in to see me (Mark is still in the NICU at this point) they are all asking if everything is okay, etc. etc.  I remember having them all gather around the bed to make sure they could all hear the news at once….. “Guess what?  They are both boys!”

Needless to say, everyone was shocked.  At this point, I was still thinking maybe I was in a dream and that this was not real.  How could Baby B be a boy?  Every sonogram we’d had in the past six months told us he was a girl!  Just goes to show, you can never be too sure and God has a good sense of humor!  So our little Baby B was Parker Alan all along.  And now that he’s here, we can’t imagine not having him.  He tricked us for months and will still smirk every now and then, like he’s remembering the great hoax he pulled.  Or… he just has gas.  I like the think it’s the former!

Brand New Henry