Happy New Year!

On New Year's Eve, we had cereal for dinner. Then I made a delightful batch of brownies and we stayed up til a whopping 9pm.

Throughout the night I was restless and had this awful back pain. I woke up a lot, either to pee, to have Ben rub my back or to order him downstairs to pop my heating pad in the microwave. I couldn't lay down so I sat up most of the night. Do you think it occurred to me that I was in labor? Nope!

Finally, around 5am Ben offered to call the hospital and I agreed. I think this took him by surprise because I have avoided these type of calls at all costs in the past, despite some other uncomfortable times. We called my Mom to stay with Carter, and we were off to Charlotte Hungerford to brave the dark, icy morning.

Now, one thing you should know is that I've never experienced natural labor before. With Carter I was induced, so this was one of those decisions where I really wasn't sure. All that came to a profound realization as we drove on Route 8 and it occurred to me that I had full blown contractions which were averaging 3 minutes apart. You could say that panic mode set in right about then.

Long story short...Got to the hospital around 6:30 at 8 centimeters. Panicked that I would not be able to get an epidural and pleaded with a poor unsuspecting nurse to give me one. She gave me a rather vague answer, as if she were scared of me and what I was capable of. Little did she know I was looking for the nearest object to smash over my own head. By the time the doctor arrived, I was 9 centimeters. He was pretty much an angel in disguise, giving me the go ahead to get my epidural.

Then Mr. Anesthesiologist showed up with an attitude problem, telling me that it was silly to get the drugs at that point because I had already done the hard part. A script played out in my head, "I'm sorry kind sir, but have you ever squeezed two children out of your vagina?" Fortunately I kept my mouth shut and so did he. In about 20 minutes I was in seventh heaven and being wheeled down to the O.R. (standard for twins in case a c-section needs to be performed)

The Doc opted not to break my water, rationalizing that it would break as I began to push. In the next few moments I can guarantee he was second guessing himself. As I began to push, an explosion shot out of me, splashing all over the doctor, as if he were hit by a giant water balloon. I couldn't help but laugh and let me tell you, by the time the second bag broke all of the staff learned their lesson and jumped back almost simultaneously.

Reid Bradford was born at 9:17am, weighing in at 5lbs 9oz and Landon Dean came at 9:22am, weighing 6lbs 3oz. Turns out they were the first babies born at that hospital in 2010. While most of my friends were likely to be nursing hangovers from exciting celebrations the night before, I had just become a mother of three boys.