March 18th was the longest day of my life. I woke up around 4 with some slight cramping but I really didn’t thing much of it. My doctor always told me the that Braxton Hicks were a lot more common in twin pregnancies. I tried to go back to sleep, but around 7, I noticed that the contractions were getting more and more consistent. As 10 o’clock rolled around I called John at work to let him know what was going on. He insisted that I call the doctor, and the doctor recommended that I go on to the hospital just to be safe. I called my mom so that she could watch Jettie, my 15 month old, and we headed to the hospital as soon as she arrived.

Once we got to the hospital the nurses hooked me up so that they could monitor my contractions. Both of them said that they were most likely Braxton Hicks. They watched me for a little over an hour, and then did a physical exam. A 6! I was already dilated to a 6. At that point none of the hospitals with a neonatal unit would take me because my labor had progressed to far. The pediatric nurse told me that they would have to “ship” the babies to Baylor in Dallas since they were only 33 weeks. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that my twins were going to be transported by helicopter without me. I was told that as long as I didn’t receive an epidural or have any complications that I would be released in 4 hours. At 3:02pm Erin Layne was born weighing in at 3lbs 12 oz, and Timothy David came shortly after at 3:08pm weighing 3lbs 6oz. I got to hold Erin for a brief moment before they took her to assess her breathing.

Shortly after they were born, I was informed that they would have to fly separately because they were both requiring a CPAP to breathe. Timothy left first because he was more critical. John, my mom, and I waited until Erin’s helicopter took off before heading to Dallas. It was so hard to see my babies leave without me. We arrived in Dallas around 1:15am and immediately went to see them. The nurses informed me that they were debating on putting a ventilator in Timothy because he was really struggling to breathe. They told me they would watch him and assess again in the morning. We stayed in a hotel in the hospital. I don’t think I got one bit of sleep.

I guess throughout my entire pregnancy I thought the hardest part about having twins would be having twins and a 15 month old. As naive as it may sound, I didn’t really ever imagine the twins having to spend time in the NICU. I mean Jettie was early, and we were released the following day.

I laid in bed thinking, if you take away all of the crazy that factored into our lives at that moment, a completely gutted kitchen, a half torn apart bathroom, closing on a house, a 15 month old, and a 10 year old. I knew this was going to be hard, and I began to try and prepare myself for the days to come.

#loveyoulikepeaches