One Year Ago...

August 22, 2006... a day that changed the face of our family. Let me go back a few weeks in time to set the stage. August 9th my water broke. So I was admitted to the hospital for hospital bed rest until the babies were born. My antepartum stay was overall a wonderful experience. The nurses were outstanding and our church family reached out and helped us in many amazing ways.

Back to August 22... at 1:30 I began having contractions. The nurse gave me several shots to help stop the contractions. I never had any pain meds and Jason was by my side the entire night. We called mom and dad to come up about 4am. By 7 am the contractions had slowed down considerably. So Jason finally went to sleep on the bed next to mine.

When my fabulous day nurse, Kathy, came in at 8:30 she took one look at me and walked right out the door. She got my high-risk OB to come in and check me. We were all shocked when the doctor announced, "It's time to have the babies!" I was fully dialated and did not even know it! Immediately 7 nurses rushed into my room. They started giving me shots. There was a lot of commotion - picture a scene from ER. Kathy woke up Jason. We all RAN down the hall, Jason still in his Dallas Mavericks pjs, to the OR.

Rylan was born 30 minutes after the doctor checked me. Jacob was born one minute later. Rylan was 3 lbs. 2 oz and Jacob was 3 lbs. 13 oz. All things considered, the emergency C-section went really smooth.

There were 3 NICU nurses for each baby. They cleaned them up and after a very, very quick kiss from Mommy, whisked the babies off to the NICU. Jacob was put on oxygen, but Rylan never had to have oxygen. That began our 2 month stay in the NICU, but that story can wait for another day.

August 22 began as a painful and scary day, but ended with much joy and excitement. It was our prayer then, and still today, for the Lord to watch over our babies and help us to be good Christian parents. We have full faith that God's loving hand has been on our family and carried us through those scary times.