They are here!

Around 9:30amish Friday morning our boys came into the world after 32 weeks 4 days of hanging out in a cozy uterus. Oliver Charles Wall weighed 4lbs 9 ounces and Evan Alexander Wall weighed 3lbs 11 ounces.

It started Thursday morning with a "routine" appointment that quickly became non-routine. Baby Evan was showing signs of stress which was eventually diagnosed as anemia. Originally, the decision was just to do a little more monitoring, but then quickly the plans changed into admitting me directly into labor and delivery...and informing me that I wouldn't be allowed to go home until the babes were out. My best friend and I had plans to have lunch and a pedi after the doc appointment...so like boys not to understand the value of lunch and a pedi with good friends. ;-).

They gave a couple steroid shots to help mature the lungs quickly and had hoped to have pushed delivery until Saturday morning. But after a night of monitoring and Baby Evan continuing to show signs of stress, they decided to do a c-section this morning. And what a wise choice that was...

Identical twins that share a placenta are at risk for something called twin-to-twin transfusion...basically one twin starts robbing the other twin of blood, causing one twin to have too little blood and the other twin to have too much blood. This was the cause of Evan's anemia. The somewhat unusual thing is that it usually starts to develop before 26 weeks. So to have develop so suddenly at 32 weeks was kind of rare. And, to boot, it was a "dramatic case" per the delivery team - so dramatic that they asked if we would sign consent forms so that they could use pictures of the boys/placenta in future lectures/studies. We've explained to Evan that this was probably not going to be the last time that his younger brother Oliver would be stealing something from him....

So they were pretty sick when they first came out (Evan worse off than Oliver). But the great news is that now, almost 48 hours later, they are both very stable and off their ventilators. Alex and I both got to hold both of them last night. What a strange feeling to not be able to hold your baby(ies) right away. It will be a long haul as they will probably be in the nicu anywhere from 5-7 weeks, but we are just grateful that we made it to the 32 week mark.

Emmeline is doing fantastic and got to meet her brothers the day that they were born. I'm doing well - my biggest challenge will be slowing it down and realizing that this is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. I should be discharged today. Alex is well and is trying to establish the balance of helping care for Emmeline and being up here at the hospital. My best friend Lauren and my parents have been very valuable these past 72 hours. Now to figure out the challenges of life with two babes that don't get to come home right away.

In the pics, Evan is on his side and Oliver is holding my hand.


More to come...