They're here and they are perfect!

Dear readers,

I apologize for not writing sooner; we have had our hands just a tiny bit full. I know a few of you have been wondering where we've been or if we've had the babies yet, so I am proud to announce the birth of Addyson Marie and Bentley Michael!

Here are their stats:
Bentley Michael was born on July 16, 2012 at 11:16 pm.
He weighed in at 6 pounds 5 ounces and measured 17 3/4 in length

Addyson Marie was born on July 16, 2012 at 11:17pm
She weighed in at 7 pounds 1 ounce and measured 18 3/4 in length

So, 13 pounds of baby in my belly. It's no wonder I was so uncomfortable and felt huge at the end of my pregnancy. The labor and delivery process was nothing I had ever imagined and it is safe to say that J and I will NOT be going through this again. Now, don't get me wrong, we love our two kids and they are perfect in every way, but it was such a trying pregnancy and an even more challenging birth. Despite the fact that both babies were head down and Bentley was Baby A and scheduled to make his appearance into the world first the ENTIRE pregnancy, Addyson decided to be extra difficult and try to push her way out first. She was further down at my 35 week ultrasound, which changed her position to Baby A. Which proved to make birth extra, extra challenging for me.

So, bear with me because this blog is going to be a little lengthy...

As you all know, both J and I were extremely anxious to have these babies here. So, starting at 36 weeks, I was doing everything we needed to do to induce labor- taking baths in lavender, consuming primrose oil capsules twice a day, going on numerous walks for miles and hours at a time, sex... you name it, and we were trying it. To our surprise, nothing worked for awhile; however, the day I went into labor, J and I went for a two hour walk (to get lunch and some Slurpees) and surprisingly, my contractions started to get stronger and closer together. Once we got home, though... my contractions slowed way down and got further apart. So, around 8:00pm, we went for another walk around the neighborhood and again, my contractions started to increase. We walked for another hour and by this time, my contractions were five and half minutes apart and had been that for an hour. We got home, called my doctor and they told me to come in within the hour. We took a shower, loaded up our car and headed over to the hospital.

Once we got there, they do a quick check on me to see how far I am dilated and then do an ultrasound to see the position of the babies. Thankfully, I was dilated to a four which means they were able to admit me.

To make an extremely looooong story short, I will give you highlights (and I am not sure how much time I have because I am sure the kids will start fussing soon)...

1) I was admitted at 11:30pm Sunday night, July 15th.
2) I was dilating one centimeter about every 2-3 hours
3) I couldn't eat once I was admitted (grr....) since the last time I ate was at 7:30pm that night.
4) The epidural hurt like a bitch and for those people that say the epidural makes it so that you have an "enjoyable" delivery, lied.
5) When people tell you that you get used to your hoo-hahh hanging out because you're being poked and prodded constantly- so true.
6) Addyson decided to not only try and come out first, but she was facing the wrong way causing me to have the most intense back labor ever.
7) Every time I pushed, both heads were trying to squeeze through the birth canal causing pain each time.
8) I pushed for TWO hours without much success or progress and I started to break down in tears and finally had to call mercy.
9) Doctor came in and we talked about delivering via c-section.
10) Finally decided to have a c-section because after each push, my back pain was too much to handle.
11) Kids were born (at the times I specified above).
12) I was in labor from start to finish for about 20 hours and it sucked.

This was just the delivery process. The recovery blog will have to come another day...

For now, I will leave you with pictures of our oh-so-cute kids. Don't you just want to eat them up!? 

Hope everyone else is doing great. And no matter how difficult or hard the TTC and pregnancy process was, I wouldn't change a thing because we have the cutest kids ever.