Birth Day 4/4/2010

"The moment a child is born,
the mother is also born.
She never existed before.
The woman existed, but the mother, never.
A mother is something absolutely new."
Rajneesh


The boys came as a big surprise on 4/4/2010, Easter Sunday. We went to the hospital and were in the operating room for the c-section 18 minutes later.

Alexander Lee Combs was born at 12:29 pm

Nathan Rudolph Combs was born at 12:31 pm

Jim was able to be in the room and I had an epidural so I didn't have to be knocked out, pretty good considering how fast everything went. Nate and Alex were 4 pounds each, 5 weeks early. The doctors are really happy with how well they are doing. They just need time in the NICU to develop and grow now.

Yesterday was a great day for mommy, I got to hold Alex- kangaroo care- for about 2 hours. At first he kept trying to hold his head up to look at me with his little blue eyes, then he got some good sleep in. Nate started out with a ventilator and they switched him to a c-pap yesterday. They called me in to calm him down after they took the respirator out, so I got to spend about 2 hours with Nate yesterday too. Everything worked well, he's doing great on the c-pap mask. Alex gets his c-pap off this afternoon! They have been under the lights to treat jaundice for 2 days and are now both off of that too.
Nate Day 3 'tanning'

We will have lots of little milestones over the next few weeks but it is so hard to not be able to take them home with us. They will probably stay in the NICU for about 5 weeks. Bottom line is that they just need to develop for a while, there is nothing the nurses or mom and dad can do to help speed that up. Centennial has been so good to us, every nurse that we have had has been great, helpful and supportive. I've been really happy with all the help. I've even been able to sleep from 11pm to 6am for the past two nights. It is so funny- I swear every person on staff on the second floor has come to ask me about my beautiful blonde twin boys!! Apparently it's really rare to have blonde babies!

Nate's blonde hair

Alex's first toy, I'm only 2 days old!

I am so blessed to have great friends who have been the best through this. Sometimes I need to be sad, happy, BOTH, complaining about facebook, laugh or cry and it's great to have people who are just there to listen. Jim's family has been great, I don't know what kind of communication process they have, but every family member seemed to know about our delivery within 3o minutes! Jim's dad and Lynn are so excited for us and can't wait to help out (we'll be ready and waiting soon). My mom and I had a very sweet conversation that was pretty much 30 minutes of each of us crying and my mom wanting to be here and me wanting her here too. She needs to recover from her knee surgery and then grandma and grandpa can visit in a few weeks. Work sent two sets of flowers, Erica sent some beautiful flowers that the nurses all love because they smell so good and Brian, Rachel and Madison brought some beautiful blue hydrangea arrangements yesterday. Janet and Erica are coming by this afternoon and then uncle Russell is going to stop in later this afternoon.


So. Breast milk. Not really something I thought I would talk about but I am so proud that they have been getting all the food they need from me! It's the best best best thing for them and I am so glad that I can do it. The hospital has specialists that help a lot, so thing have been going great.

The boys are the best two babies in the whole world. I'm so proud that they have been doing so well and have been so tough. Alex likes to look around the room until he sees us and he has this tiny whine that sounds like a pony. Nate is really relaxed and lies still unless someone is bothering him by changing his diaper. Nate did kangaroo care with me for an hour and a half this afternoon and didn't move an inch the whole time! He was a very happy little guy. He might be the baby that wants to be held constantly. Alex got to do kangaroo care with daddy tonight.

Alex- Day 3 No more c-pap breathing tube

I'll leave the hospital tomorrow after getting my staples taken out. From there we'll visit the boys every day until they get to come home. I love my new family so much!