And then there were 8...

Some brief details from June 1, 2010, the day that Zac and Sam entered the world. If you want to skip the nonsense, and get to the good stuff, the pictures are all the way at the end of this post:

5:15 AM - Mandy wakes up and starts preparing to leave for the hospital. We have an 8:00 AM appointment for her to be induced, so we plan to leave at 7:30 AM. I am not even thinking about leaving for the hospital at this point, I am catching up on some last minute e-mail for work

7:00 AM - Mandy is ready to leave, I am not

7:30 AM - Jonathon leaves for school, Eliza and Nathaniel are pretty much ready to leave for school, Mandy is still ready to leave for the hospital, I am still not ready for anything

7:50 AM - I begin to get ready to leave for the hospital

8:30 AM – Nathaniel and Eliza leave for school and we take off for the hospital late (which is obviously totally my fault, I can't even blame it on the kids not being ready), leaving my poor mother home to watch our 2 smallest children, Timmy and Katie, plus Christian, who woke up with a headache and threw up (Sorry Mom! Thanks Mom!!). Grandma Rockwell was there for part of the time as well to provide strategic reinforcements

8:45 AM – This being the first time that we're going to this particular hospital to have the babies, neither of us knew exactly where we needed to go, so we found a parking deck and started wandering around. Mandy had to walk much farther than she should have, though this probably helped her dilate some

9:01 AM – We finally arrive at the lobby of the Labor & Delivery (L&D) area of the hospital

9:02 AM – We enter Room L&D 7, which would be where the doctor and nurses monitor Mandy until she is ready to deliver. Unlike the last few pregnancies, this would not be the room where she delivers, that will happen in an operating room, since they need to be prepared in the event that the doctor needs to perform a C-section. There will be about 10 people in the operating room to assist

9:10 AM - Mr. Conway, as he is referred to when we first met him, is the RN that comes in to get the monitoring set up on Mandy. Mr. Conway looks to be in his late 50s or early 60s

9:18 AM - I get hungry

9:21 AM - Mr. Conway grills Mandy about her last pregnancies and general health history. We determine that, outside of a relatively high number of previous pregnancies, Mandy has a boring health history

9:29 AM - Mr. Conway asks Mandy if she has any piercings or tattoos other than her ears and thankfully Mandy was able to answer no

9:35 AM - Lady across the hall begins moaning and yelling intermittently very loudly in obvious pain for a few minutes. We can hear her in Mandy's room, with the door half closed. Either she's having a baby or she realized that her husband forgot to pack her iPod. The moaning can be heard every 2 minutes, so I suspect the former.

9:52 AM - We find out Mr. Conway's name is Jerry, and that we're permitted to call him that

9:54 AM - I start to eat the beef jerky that Mandy packed for me (thanks hon!). Probably not very considerate, since she can only have ice chips until the babies are born

9:56 AM - Dr. Butt (no, that's not a typo), a relatively young, fairly attractive female resident, comes in to do Mandy's first internal exam of the day. She is 5 cm and the positioning of baby A's head is -2 or -1. We want the baby to be at a +3, which means the baby's head is crowned

10:04 AM - Moaning Lady has now officially been elevated to Screaming Lady. Wow, she does not sound like she's having fun. Her husband must have really messed something up big time

10:08 AM - Jennifer (aka Dr. Butt, but let's stick with Jen) does an ultrasound, and we determine that baby B's head is in a better position than we thought last week, so that is pretty good news

10:10 AM - Screaming Lady is quiet, she either had her baby or is now heavily sedated

10:12 AM - Jerry finally leaves, his work done for the moment. We find out his shift goes until 7 PM, so unless something out of the ordinary happens, he's going to be seeing this thing through with us

10:26 AM - Mandy has been having contractions every 2 to 8 minutes, but not all of them are particularly strong. However, this is officially labor, and she did so without any chemical enhancements. Mandy's ego is assuaged as she wanted to be sure that she could still go into labor on her own, since her last 3 deliveries needed kick-starting with drugs

10:34 AM - Apparently Screaming Lady's sedatives have worn off, she's at it again

10:50 AM - I head out to the dining room in search for something to drink

11:23 AM - I realized I was hungry again, so I went ahead and had lunch at the nicest hospital cafeteria I have ever seen in my life. Even my picky gourmet chef brother would have been impressed. You had to know I wouldn't be able to resist a good meal. During lunch, I checked out a little bit of The Price is Right, but was not impressed. Drew Carey's delivery is just not as smooth as Bob Barker's was

11:34 AM - I arrive back at Mandy's room to find she has turned on the TV and that there's cable with ESPN. Score!

12:40 PM - I wake up from a short nap. It takes a lot of energy watching your wife in labor

12:41 PM - Contractions are getting stronger, and are now regularly about 6 to 7 minutes apart

12:54 PM - Contractions every 3 to 5 minutes, Dr. Aguh, Mandy's OB/GYN, is apparently on his way

1:35 PM - I am officially tired of cooking shows, but honestly, is there anything better to watch on TV in the afternoon?

1:40 PM - Dr. Aguh arrives, Mandy is now 6 to 7 cm dilated and he pronounced the babies as "happy" meaning their heartbeats look strong and normal. He starts her on pitocin (synthetic form of naturally occurring hormone oxytocin, which induces labor)

3:07 PM - Mandy is merrily enjoying her ice chips. I didn't tell her that on one of my trips to the dining hall (yes, I said trips as in plural) I had a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich. Yum!

3:25 PM - Anesthesiologist comes in to give Mandy an epidural. I excuse myself for a bit and take another stroll to, where else? The dining hall to appease my never-ending afternoon munchies

4:03 PM - Dr. Aguh says Mandy is at 9 cm and predicts babies in the next hour or so. Also, Mandy's water has never broken on it's own, and Dr. Aguh says that this time, he will wait until we get to the operating room before he breaks the water so that he has more control over things because he anticipates things happening very quickly once everything gets going

4:15 PM - I get my operating room gear packet consisting of a cap, face mask, shoe covers and a cool looking jump suit

4:23 PM - Yet another cooking show and yet another recipe with bacon. Is there anything that doesn't taste better with bacon? Maybe ice cream, but I think even that's debatable. Bacon is king

4:38 PM - Mandy's feet are like icicles, we had to get her some socks

4:41 PM - Time for some more beef jerky

5:05 PM - Dr. Aguh is back, Mandy is "rimmed" (almost fully dilated), so time to gown up and head back to the operating room!

5:12 PM - So now I'm waiting just outside of the operating room while they get Mandy situated. At this point, my heart is racing a bit faster. The entire idea of having twins has been surreal up to this point, but reality is starting to set. I never imagined this would happen to our family. There's a bit of anxiety and nervousness because we really want them to be healthy, and the idea of Mandy having to go to an operating room is a bit unsettling, but I'm confident that whatever happens is meant to be. Part of me really wants the babies to be born naturally, to avoid whatever extra stress a C-section will cause to Mandy, but again, all will be for the best. She has never had a C-section. I am confident that Mandy will be ready to take on the responsibility of these 2 babies, I pray that I'm ready as well

5:21 PM - Operating room door swings open, a nurse walks out, but not to come get me

5:22 PM - I wonder how silly I look sitting outside of an operating room in the hallway of a hospital typing on a BlackBerry? I wonder what people think I'm doing

5:25 - Heart beating faster, not knowing exactly what's going on inside

5:26 PM - It's nice and quiet in this part of the hospital, must not be too many people here right now

5:27 PM - I feel like the guy in the old movies or cartoons who waits nervously outside for the doctor to come out and pronounce whether it's a boy or a girl. I've never not been right at Mandy's side from beginning to end of labor and delivery

5:30 PM - I've been out here by myself for 18 minutes. Lots of thoughts can go through your head when you're basically told to sit and watch the clock until somebody comes to get you. I wonder if this is what it's like to sit all day in a jail cell?

5:34 PM - 2 more nurses come out, but not for me

5:35 PM - 2 more people in gowns go in

5:36 PM - I just realize that we've been here for over 8.5 hours, but that the last 25 minutes have seemed the longest

5:37 PM - Janitor walks in the operating room area. Even the janitor gets to go in, but I'm not yet permitted

5:39 PM - Out comes the janitor

5:40 PM - No idea what's going on, is Mandy even pushing yet? (And my hand is starting to hurt from typing with my thumbs all day)

5:44 PM - Answered a couple of e-mails from work (I hate these BlackBerries sometimes)

5:45 PM - A nurse comes by and goes in to the operating room to check on things to let me know what's going on

5:46 PM - Nurse comes back out and says "They'll call you shortly, nothing fancy is happening yet."

5:47 PM - They let me in

5:51 PM - Mandy had been pushing for a couple of rounds of contractions, after a couple more, Zachary Scott was born

6:13 PM - After quite a bit more pushing, Samuel Anthony was born. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, and he struggled with his breathing, so the doctors decided to take him up to NICU (ICU for newborns). They are going to run some tests, he may have to spend an extra day or two in the hospital. We'll find out more later on this evening and after the blood tests come back which could take up to 2 days

Those were the thoughts from the day of their birth. Since then, Sam got out of NICU but Zac had to stay an extra couple of days due to high bilirubin count (neonatal jaundice), but it is now Sunday, June 6 and everybody is home. This will be the first night at home with the entire crew, let the adventure begin.

Zac is on the left, Sam is on the right.

Zac

Sam

Best buds forever