A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Parenthood: Friday, May 8, 2015

We will never forget that day! That's the day our identical twin girls were born!

I have about 45 minutes until the next feeding. So, here we go!

They're here! It's kind of hard to believe. We are over the moon, excited, happy and every other adjective you can think of. It's so great!

I had a hard time sleeping Thursday night/early Friday morning. I was anxious and everything else you can imagine if you have a scheduled c-section later that day for your twins to be born. Am I the only one who might feel that way? We got up pretty early because we needed to be up and picked up by Ignacio at 9am. We hardly ever eat breakfast but the night before we decided we probably should eat breakfast because we didn't know how things would go the next day. So we got up, went down for breakfast. It was a buffet breakfast, but I was so excited and nervous I could barely eat. I really forced myself to eat. Hard to believe right?! LOL Anyway, we eat, run upstairs and then head down. Right before we walked out, much like we did right before we left our house, we said, this is the last time we'll be in this room alone. At the time, it was hard to wrap our head around that. We head to the hospital, Clinica Medica De Jesus which we call "Jesus Clinic," not knowing what was going on or really, what to do. We basically sat in the car in silence. We get to the hospital and by the way, our deliver c-section was set for 11:00am. We knew our surrogate Tatiana would be there already. We end up going to hang out in her room for a little bit, where we met her husband. It was nice to finally meet her and her husband, Alejandro. Both are super nice and were so happy for us and them too. Though they don't speak any English and my Spanish sucks (Scott at least can speak/understand a lot lot more than I could) we still managed to communicate with each other just fine. Right before we left we got Tatiana's husband and kids some San Francisco Giants t-shirts. It's not much, but we thought it would be nice for them to get a little something too. After all, they were a HUGE HUGE part of this pregnancy.

We spent maybe 15-20 minutes in there before they moved Scott and I to our own room. We wait for maybe another 45 minutes. In that time, we fell asleep! I think it was because neither of us really slept the night before, we sat there and napped for maybe 10-15 mins. Our OB Dr. E comes in with a couple other folks and lets us know we are about 20-30 minutes away for delivery. They had to set up the O.R. and get Tati down there and prepare her. They leave and at that point we start to freak out! Holy Shit It's Happening!!!!!!!!!! Our coordinators Catherine and Joe (there you go Joe, you're "Joe" on here!) come in and very soon after that, a nurse comes in and gets us! She also asks for clothes, hat, gloves, socks, diapers and pants for the babies! Whaaaat??? They need all that? Yup! We are not in America! We were kinda not prepared for that right at that moment but thankfully we packed everything to last a few days for both us and the babies since we didn't know what was going to happen. We knew they were going to give us a room for the two nights but we didn't know much else after that. We tear our diaper bag apart quickly grabbing what they asked for. The only thing we didn't have were pants for the babies. Who knew they needed pants in 95 degree and high high humidity weather?! Plus, don't babies usually just have a diaper and a onesie wrapped up in a blanket? Not here in Mexico!

They take us to the prep area and our OB, Dr. E, hands us each a set of scrubs. We change and then we had to put on shoe covers and the head gear. They had us wait outside the O.R. until they were all set.

Our OB and those other folks our OB came to our room with... yeah, one of them looked all of 12 years old was another OB who was going to do the surgery! We thought she was an assistant or something like that. She was tiny! They scrub up and then head inside. Meanwhile, we are still standing outside and we're having our moment alone... for the last time ever. It's great though.

Then... we hear loud music! Hilarious! It was like a par-tay in side the O.R.! Someone from inside comes out and asks if we're the dads and takes us in. There are two stools in the corner by the door for us. We sit there and they have already started, with the music blaring - appropriately with a DJ-like mix of Jersey Boys' "Can't Take My Eyes Off You." It was a sight to see them all dancing along to the music while they've got a scalpel and cauterization thing, needles going into IVs and scissors and suctions, the whole nine, all going about the room. We sit there for maybe 10 minutes while they open up Tati and then the music changes to One Direction. I have to say, I will never ever dislike that song now. It was "What Makes You Beautiful." A O.R. guy comes over to us and waves us over. It's time!!!! He says that we can't move past a certain point, but with all the stuff happening around us, I so didn't understand what the heck he was saying. I think he figured it out and he physically moved me up to a certain point by the surgical trays. I had a video camera by the way that our coordinators let us borrow to film the whole thing. I know in the U.S. that's hardly ever allowed these days with all the malpractice suits and what not, but they didn't say anything about it! So I kept filming. It was time and it was AMAZING!

We were standing side by side holding each other as they were cutting the last of whatever they needed to cut and you can see baby #1's head right there. They cut it open and pull out baby #1 who is Edie and was screaming right as she was pulled out! It was one of those moments where everything just happens really really fast and slow at the same time. It was crazy! We were so excited to find out if we were having girls or boys. We saw, and both yelled out at the same time, "Girls!!!!"

She gets pulled out and then a pediatrician standing by takes her and cleans her up and checks up on her and what not. She's still screaming like no other. Another moment I found funny, maybe just to me though, was when I was shooting the birth of the first baby, the other pediatrician on the other side of the room gestures to me to go and follow baby #1 with the camera to the warming table thing while she gets checked up and what not. Then about two minutes later, baby #2 comes out, who is Stella.

Baby #2 is taken out with a loud scream and then swept over to the other pediatrician standing by and she calms down and is pretty quiet while the doctor is checking up on her and getting cleaned up.

Scott and I are overwhelmed with excitement and joy and we both didn't know which one to go to stand by and watch. We kept switching off and wanted to be together and see it all together. It was like a game of tag! The babies were on opposite ends of the room. So we were switching off going back and forth to see our baby girls. Scott was with Stella at the time, so he got to cut the remaining chord.

Turns out, the chord is really tough! You really gotta get in there and cut. I was able to cut Edie's a little later on too. They also stamped our forearms with their footprints. Scott got Edie's footprint and I got Stella's.

It was kinda like a stamp you would get going into a nightclub hahaha! They continued to check up on them and clean them and then they started to put the clothes on the babies we gave them before the birth.

The babies were handed off to us it was just beautiful holding our babies. I got Edie first and then handed her off to Scott.

The doc taking care of Stella walked her over to the surrogate to show her and then Scott went and showed her Edie. After that they handed Stella over to me. The nurses and what not offered to take pictures of us with the babies - our first family photos- so we took them in the O.R.!

They took us out of the O.R. while they finished closing up Tati. We made our way to the room they gave us where our coordinators Catherine and Joe were waiting. There, they had bassinets set up with a heating lamp for each of them. Our coordinators gave us a moment alone with the two and we just stared at them and held them for what seemed like a really long time. I think it was just maybe 10 minutes or so. I dunno, it was hard to comprehend the time and what not. You know?