Warning!! This post contains detail of a real life delivery

So, you'll notice no pictures here! Actually, all pictures of me taken within 24 hours of the girls birth will be burned. :) So, here are the details for those who are interested.

About 12:55 am Friday night (actually early Saturday) I was going to sleep when I felt the girls just going crazy and moving all around. I felt a sharp punch at the bottom of my uterus and a moment later I felt my water break. So, maybe Clara punched a hole in her sack? Maybe not. We'll never know for sure. After about 25 minutes to determine for sure if it was my water breaking, we headed into the hospital. I should note that is whole time I'm thinking to myself--you've totally been nested for the past several days. For about 2-3 days I had been obsessed with getting everything ready for the hospital, but I had just been to tired to get it done. Now, instead of having nice organized suitcases for the hospital I ended up with 2 sets of garments, 2 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of pj's and that's it. I had been having pretty heavy contractions for about a week and I had gone into my doctor to see if everything was all right. He did a test to see if I would go into labor in the next 2 weeks, but it came back negative. So, moral of the story. TRUST your instincts!

So, back to labor. We get there into the labor room. They call my doctor to see what he wants to do. He says the action plan would be not to help labor and not to stop labor. They're not sure I'm even in labor because my contractions are so irregular. He says if I haven't had the babies by in 1 week then they'll induce labor.

So, from 1:30 until 8:30 they don't check my cervix because they don't want to introduce any bacteria. Justin sleeps most of this time. Meanwhile, my contractions are getting increasingly painful. They give me 2 doses of pain meds which work for 1 hour each. But, not super well and I'm really hurting. This whole time they still don't think I'm in labor. The contractions show every 3-7 minutes on the machine but actually I'm still cramping in between the contractions, so there's no relief. All I can think is there is NO WAY I can keep doing this for 1 week without some sort of pain relief.

So, the doctor gets there at 8:30 am. He decides to check me, still saying they don't think I'm in labor. I've dilated to a 5. I'm definitely in labor.

So, they order the epidural for me. I was about a 7 when I got it. I completed about an hour later and they wheeled me into the Operating Room. By this time I'm am completely numb from the lungs down. Lets just say I wasn't a very effective pusher for the first little while. I do seem to remember the 15 people in the room discussing what radio station to listen to. The contractions still aren't regular and Clara keeps slipping back up in between. So, they give me pitocin.

At one point I got really nauseated. I tried to warn them. I had a decision to make: Justin? Nurse? Justin? Nurse? Justin! So, I threw up on Justin's side. I think I missed him. Darn. J/K :)

Anyway, Clara was born first at about 11:50 am. They let me hold her and kiss her. Justin got to cut the cord.

Then the doctor reached up and broke Kate's water bag. He grabbed her by the legs--which sounds really simple. I guess it wasn't by the amount of wild movement I could see within my stomach. He pulled her out about 4 minutes later. Again, Justin cut the cord.

They let me hold her as well. Then they wheeled me past the girls and let me hold one of them (I can't remember which) for a bit. Their APGAR's were 6 & 9 and 8 & 9.

That's it! I am soooooo glad I didn't have to have a C-Section. I am really Sooooooooo glad I didn't have to have one of each!