I'm sure most, if not all, of you have heard but the twins made their arrival last week! I went into labor on Wednesday night, and after slowly laboring all night, gave birth to Lucas Paul at 12:05pm on Thursday, March 11, 2010 and Bennett Allen at 12:25pm. Both boys were 5lbs 6oz. They are doing great and were able to avoid any Special Care nursery or NICU stays, and didn't need any oxygen or help after being born. We came home from the hospital on Saturday. Saturday night was a bit rough - one baby, or both, were crying almost the entire night. But last night we had a really good night. The boys are a bit jaundiced right now, so they are laying on bili beds to help lower their bilirubin levels. Nothing to be too concerned about, and their levels are barely on the high side, but we're just being cautious. This is pretty common with newborns, especially preterm ones (full-term is 37 weeks, the twins were born at 36 weeks, 5 days). Here are some pictures from their first 4 days. We were assuming since they had their own sac/placenta that they would be fraternal, but many signs are telling us they may be identical. They were the exact same weight, almost the same length, head/chest size, etc. Even little things like a newborn rash and their bili levels have been almost identical. There isn't a test or anything to do to figure out if they're identical or not, so I guess we'll continue to wait it out :). Lucas has a bump next to his right nipple and Bennett has a bit of a stork bite above his right eye -- luckily these things save us from mixing them up! They are nursing really well and are very cute. Having two newborns is a bit overwhelming - as you can imagine - but we're managing! Matt has today, tomorrow, and Wednesday off, but has to go back to work on Thursday. I really wish he had the type of job where he'd get 4-6 weeks paternity leave! Kaden was super excited to meet them in the hospital, and is being a great big brother. He's pretty good with them and is accepting that they are a part of our new lives. He has become much more attached to Matt than before - I guess he knows that I have to spend a lot of time with the boys because of nursing and such, but he still enjoys the babies! He gets a bit concerned when they cry and enjoys giving them hugs and kisses.
PS- Most of these pictures of self-explanatory, and time is a bit short here :). In general, I've tried to a match a blanket or outfit with an initial of one of the boys -- here if the blanket has a boat, it's probably Bennett, because b=boat=Bennett. Also, Bennett is in an outfit with cars and the wording says "beep beep", again b=beep beep=Bennett. In some pictures Lucas has an outfit with an alligator because he was Baby A, which = alligator, thus = Lucas :).
