When Two Strings Come Together...: Abi meets her new brother and sister

I loved being in the hospital! I loved having people take care of me and our babies and bring me food and tell me I was OK health-wise and clean up my room and everything in between. Granted, I have very, very few complaints about my experience so maybe not everyone wants to be in the hospital as much as me but I really didn't want to go home. Honestly, I wanted to stay a few more days.

So this photo was taken literally hours after the birth. The babies were born at 5AMish and this photo was taken about 10AM. Once we were finally moved to the maternity ward, I was able to get some breakfast but wow was that difficult to eat. No one tells you that either! I could hardly swallow! My throat hurt so, so badly that I couldn't swallow the french toast that I was so excited to eat. I ate the wet things like the fruit and yogurt and eggs but gave James the rest. It was so good to eat after such a physically traumatizing day and 26 hours of not eating.

We got a nurse to take this picture for us - five hours post delivery!

And our first photo as three-child parents - - do we look tired yet?

We were in our new room for only a short while before my mom brought Abi to visit. I was dying for them to arrive and I know my mom was dying to see the babies. Because what else does a grandma live for but grandbabies??!?! We could hear them coming down the hallway because Abi is a loud child. She came in the room and at first was happy to see me and her daddy because she hadn't seen us since Thursday night. Then James brought the babies to her attention and the volume and pitch of her voice about doubled. "BABY SISTER, BABY BROTHER!!!" We had been prepping her for the arrival of her siblings for months by helping her add into her nightly prayers, "Bless baby sister and baby brother," which when she said it sounded more like this, "Bless baby sister and baby sister and baby sister..." Crazy kid! So for her to finally have a tangible brother and sister about overloaded her senses. Haha! It was adorable. We unfortunately didn't catch the beginning of her exclamations but we did catch it a few minutes in. Enjoy this video! Sorry it's a bit quirky but someday I'll have mad skills maybe and be able to fix it...

Abi was so thrilled and a bit confused as to how to react to her new siblings. Here she is pointing to her new treasure!

"Baby brother!"

The three kids in their first picture together

Abi was already feeling the need to maintain her attention from mommy and climbed up beside me. This was slightly frightening for me since I was still in so much pain and could not move fast enough to avoid being clobbered. She was mostly gentle though and we managed to snuggle a little.

The girls

Aren't we adorable?

Abi is not patient enough and too wiggly to sit next to brand new babies for long so she got to pose on Daddy's back for the family photo.

First family photo!

It's amazing how individual their personalities are even from day 1! Audrianne had a pretty smooth entry into this world. There was hardly ten minutes from the time the doctor broke her embryonic sac to the time she was born. Maybe she thinks that was traumatic but really it was fairly smooth and yet she seemed a bit more traumatized.

Audrianne

Hyrum had to work for over an hour to get here and then had abrasions on his scalp from the vacuum and a clogged tear duct and yet he was cool as a cucumber. Aren't they both adorable???

Hyrum

It was such a blessing to have my mom here to be with Abi. I know I have many friends who would have gladly taken her while we were in the hospital but it was nice to not have to worry in the least about Abi. Thanks, Mom!

Grammy with grandkids numbering 5 and 6

This is what I stared at while I laid in that hospital bed. Could there be a better view ever in the world??? To lay there and see that for which I have waited and prayed and cried and paid for so long was almost overwhelming! I loved it!

My blessed view!

Notice my feet? The nurses were quite eager to get me to empty my bladder but I kept telling them to come back later because if you remember from my last post, my left leg wasn't working! I couldn't lift it or move it for hours! I finally accepted their invitation to try to make it to the bathroom because I was afraid they'd think I was lying but seriously, my leg was useless. I had to "walk" to the bathroom with a nurse under one arm and James under the other. Haha! Oh boy. Good memories.

Keeping in mind how stuck in the bed I was, I have a funny/not so funny story. There happened to be another member of our church congregation at the same hospital and James was asked to pop over to that person's room and check on him. Ok, so he left me with both babies sleeping in their beds, one by the side of my bed by my legs and the other at the foot of the bed. He was going to be fast and I wasn't too concerned since the plan was for all three of us to just sleep while he was gone for probably 15 minutes. Well, he wasn't gone for two minutes and Audrianne who was by my side started coughing which turned into choking sounds and I panicked! I knew she needed help right away but I wasn't thinking clearly or I would have just pushed the emergency nurse button but instead I tried to sit up which I couldn't because my stomach muscles were shot so I had to push the button to make the bed sit up and it seriously went comically slow. Like so slow it could be the comic relief in a terrible movie! Haha! I just laid/sat there pushing the button, waiting while the bed slowly rose higher and higher while my not-even-one-day-old baby coughed and choked (to death, I was sure).

After an hour it seemed, the bed was high enough I could sort of reach over but the table-on-wheels was in the way so I was trying to push that away to get closer to the baby and eventually realized it was hopeless so I finally got smart and pushed the button but not the emergency one (I was only a little smarter) and then, to top it off, instead of yelling "HELP!!!" I just politely asked for the nurse. Augh, I'm an idiot. Haha!

The nurse must have been busy because they sent in the nurse's aide who up to this point had only taken my temperature and blood pressure so I wasn't sure what she was qualified to do really. So she walks calmly in and looks at me all lovingly and says, "You want your baby?" And I didn't know what to say. I just stared at her and wondered where in translation the emergency had gotten lost. To add to this, this particular aide had a real think English accent and I honestly don't know how well she spoke English, so I finally just said, "Yes, I want my baby." So she handed her to me which was only a little helpful because having a baby on my belly was so painful so I couldn't really burp her to help her through the coughing fit. I didn't know what to say to the nurse because I really was confused as to how she didn't see the problem and not sure if she was even allowed to do anything about any of this so she left which in my compromised state seemed better - no help is better than unhelpful help, right? Ha!

And THEN, Hyrum who was at the foot of my bed started coughing and then crying. And I started crying. Because welcome to twins!

James had been gone about ten minutes by this point and I didn't want to interrupt him in helping with this other person but I decided that on this day, I needed him most and someone else could check on all the other people in the world so I texted him to hurry back, twice. I didn't hear from him for a few minutes so finally I called and he answered very sweetly and so I asked if he'd seen my texts. He hadn't. He read them real quick and then quickly said, "I'll be right there." And he was, not a minute later! That's when we decided that I do not count as a responsible adult yet and when no one is there with me, the babies have to go to the nursery. Haha! Fortunately I wasn't alone much after that.

But let this be a lesson to all of you! Haha! On day 1 postpartum, moms need help.

My mom had so much fun with Abigail! She took her to the park to feed the ducks which we hadn't done in a while because I could no longer run to catch her safely. In fact, the last time we went to the park she ran into the road before I caught her - that was scary. That's what big bellies do for your athletic ability...