FINALLY!!

Alright everyone.

They're heeeeerrrreeeee!!!! Our two little poltergeists.

The Stats

Madeline Rose
Weight: 5lb 4oz
Height: 18 or 19 inches
Time of Birth: 3:48pm, 2008, 23rd Day of September

Gabriel Keats
Weight: 5lb 9oz
Height: 18 or 19 inches
Time of Birth: 3:51pm, 2008, 23rd Day of September

Color Commentary
This day started off with a bang . . . 5 of them in fact. We live near a mess of freeway exchanges and exits called "Spaghetti Junction". At around 6am in the morning a Tyson truck caught on fire and kept blowing up right in the heart of this conjunction. It would've been a random occurrence, only that another car broke down in around the same area, another trailer truck turned over later that day, a police motorcycle was hit by a jeep, and a plane crashed at the commercial airport located near us as well. We were not sure if this was a bad omen.

We decided to stay on the sunny side of life, and, quite insensitively, so it as an opportunity to wake up early and head to the hospital (its our day darn it!!!).

We got there real early and expected to have the babies at 10am as scheduled. The only problem is every twin in Atlanta decided to be born on the same day. It was strange. This hospital usually gets twins in threes (a bit asymmetrical, I know). Only this day they got 5, including ours. One lady who went into very premature labor with her twins understandably needed to be taken care of before us. So, we go pushed back 5 hours.

Do you see the pattern here? Five bangs. Five wrecks. Five sets of twins. Five hour delay. The twins both weigh about five pounds. Ok, the last one was a stretch, but I had to attempt to make five observations. Tell the truth. I know you can here the X-Files theme faintly in the background.

Amalgamations
On a more serious note, the births went well but there were some hiccups. We were prepared for this. Twins are high-risk pregnancies.

Good news. They did both receive a second APGAR score of 9. (Married people you got me; Bachelors, look it up). Still, Gabriel did have trouble with his breathing. The technical term is "retraction". Basically, the lungs were not working well enough on their own. As a result Gabriel was using his stomach muscles to breathe, rather than the lungs themselves. This works for a little while, but cannot go on forever. This is due to fluid still in the lung hindering their full expansion. However, it is mostly due to the fact that most twins are not delivered to full-term and are technically premature babies. In other words, the lungs still are not at full capacity.

But, this is a bit normal. They call it a “transition phase”. The lungs generally catch up. That looks like the case with Gabriel. He is breathing normally. However, they are still watching him. They are also going to keep an eye on Madeline to make sure her respiratory system is also stable. This is good news for high-risk pregnancies.

Poor Steph
She is wiped out. Women are so strong. She was a trooper throughout the c-section and the immediate recovery. Nonetheless, adverse reactions to medication, spinal taps, epidurals, birthing, no water or food all day (IV only), and fatigue has knocked her out. She got to see the babies for a split second. However, complications with the children and her recovery has delayed their real introduction. She tried hard to stay up for them, but they will have to meet tomorrow. And through this all she has been concerned about my well-being. Yeah, my wife and kids birth and delivery have nothing on my pacing. Are you kidding me? They fought the battle. I am just the garrison holding onto their claims. It is time for them to rest and my turn to step up and stay vigilant.

Small Request
Alright everyone. I am not going to post our room number on this PUBLIC FORUM. I hope you understand. Still, if you need to know where we are at, just call us or the grandparents. In fact, it may be better to talk to our kinfolk ratherthan to us. We are restricting the number of calls we are making and taking. Got to focus on other things. Still, do us a favor. When you get our room number, avoid calling our room. You may end up waking up a baby. If you do this, we will call you back and make you put them back to sleep over the phone. So we advise you stick with our mobile phones.