The Big Day

On Tuesday, May 20th, I woke early, had my last solid meal for awhile, talked on the phone with just about everybody, while people were in and out of my room all morning. Took my last shower, Mom and Mark arrived, and the nurses started prepping me for surgery (yuk). After that was all done, Mom and Mark came back into the room and we waited. I asked Mom to tell me stories about her childhood. That made the time go by really fast. Then the anesthesiologist came to talk to us, and okayed both Mom and Mark being in the operating room with me. Then, it was time to go. They loaded me into a wheelchair and it was off to the OR.

They hoisted me onto this skinny table (felt like I was going to fall off), then the anesthesiologist put in the epidural. After that, I was feeling no pain, but things became a big hazy. Dr. T & Dr. J. arrived, and what seemed like an army of nurses and other people. There must have been 17 or 18 people in the room (not counting me and the babies). They put up a drape so I couldn't see what was going on, but I saw my 2 doctors standing on either side of me. Then I felt some tugging and pulling, and the anesthesiologist was whispering in my ear, telling me what was going on, Mark was trying to catch it all on video (he missed everything) and my Mom was squeezing my hand really tight.

The next thing I knew, Dr. T. was holding up Baby A -- our son Isaiah -- saying he was a girl. This was our long running joke, he always said we were having 3 girls, even though he knew one was a boy. So he holds up Isaiah and says "look, here's the girl with the penis." At least, that's what I think he said. With an epidural, you're sort of awake, but everything is in slooow motion, with freeze frame. The umbilical cord looked really weird, like it wasn't even made of the same material that the baby was made out of. Anyway, a team of people whisked him away to a corner of the OR, and the nurses put up a mirror so I could see what was going on over there. Well not really, but just enough to distract me. When I looked around, they were holding up Baby B -- Mariah -- and finally, the biggest one, Baby C -- Sierra. It was all very quick, they were all born within 2 minutes (6:05-6:06 p.m). They wrapped up each one and brought them by my face for me to kiss before taking them to NICU for observation.

After they sewed me back up, I was wheeled to recovery. Mom stayed with me the whole time while Mark was off "chasing the babies" as she put it. Then both of them got on the phone, calling back East and down to Texas, letting everyone know that the babies were here. We got back to my room a couple hours later, they got me settled and I drifted off to sleep. I was very groggy from the morphine, but felt pretty happy. Mark left some Polaroid pictures of the babies and I kept looking at them, not quite believing that it was all over and the babies were here at last, and they were beautiful. Some people called, but I don't remember who I talked to or what I said. I drifted off to sleep, and felt absolutely wonderful.