Yay, Babies!! Oh...Babies! Um...Babies?!? Woot, Babies!!! Pt.1

I would like this post to be a sort of general reference to my frame of mind in the weeks leading up to the birth and the first few weeks at home after the twins' arrival. To do this, I am simply going to quote my own social media postings and then explain each one as I go. Hopefully, this will shed some light on the reality of the situation and the evolution of my feelings at each specific quotation. My emotions ran the entire spectrum through an extremely short period of time as well as the stress levels of myself and definitely my wife. Brief nervous breakdowns were had by all.

Let's begin with this little gem:

"Weekly checkup. 10 days to go until the twins arrive!"

At this point in time, my wife (Let's call her Elle for the sake of this blog) was at a physical breaking point. We had been well aware that we were having twin girls and were careening toward the finish line. Elle and I had gotten far too used to crowded ultrasounds once a week that showed us next-to-nothing due to there being two occupants of her uterus as opposed to just one. While we were both ecstatic and excited for each and every visit to the doctor, we were increasingly nervous and impatient for the girls to just f'ing get here.

"Last doctors visit before the occupancy of our house doubles"

 There are a lot of underlying tones with this post which I was most likely unaware of at the time of writing it. It was the Monday before our scheduled c-section that Thursday. The heat was on. The nursery had been finished for awhile by this time. We had fully stocked a wardrobe for two children clear into their toddler stages. Elle had me practicing diaper changes (of which my total number before the girls was a whopping zero). We were gold, right? No, really. I'm asking. Needless to say, the reality of the situation was hitting us hard despite our constant vigilance and preparation for the imminent arrival. Where once there were two, soon there would be four. A very noisy, confusing, smelly, sweet, heartbreaking, enlightening two would be added to the equation.

"Tuesday is over. Bring on Wednesday. One last hurdle until the big day. Then the real fun begins. — feeling excited" -10pm Tuesday night

This is a tricky little post. You'll see why in the next section. This is also the first of only two posts which has a timestamp on it. Elle and I had gone through our very last doctors visit before the scheduled c-section and were now just playing the waiting game. This day marked Elle's 38th week of twin pregnancy, which is a wonderful milestone to reach as it is considered full-term for twins. Let's face it, any more time in there and we'd have to charge rent to the little buggers. Elle was definitely feeling the kicks and pushes on every part of her body from Tesla and Ruby getting less and less room to maneuver. Her ribs were basically the side of beef that Rocky Balboa used to spar with in the movies. They took a pounding. We were collectively looking forward to the next two days going by quickly and without incident. We both headed to bed that night assured by the knowledge that the babies would soon be in our arms. Boy, were we right.

"That hurdle i mentioned earlier? Yeah, nm. At the hospital now!" -12:30am Wednesday morning

And here is the second post with a timestamp. As you can see, Elle and I didn't have too long to rest and dream about holding Tesla and Ruby in our arms as Elle woke just after midnight. I witnessed her shuffling to the bathroom down the hall (we had been sleeping in separate rooms due to her acid reflux kept her awake and she had to sleep sitting up to get any rest at all) and as she passed the bedroom door, she muttered, "Either my water just broke or I severely peed the bed." While this came as a surprise, we both had heard that first-time pregnancy can take a tremendous amount of time between the water breaking stage and the "time to panic" stage. She got dressed in the most comfortable outfit that she could find and I took a quick shower. We grabbed the bag that had been packed weeks earlier and stashed in the living room in case of a speedy departure. We were on our way.

To hear about the experience at the hospital and the antics that ensued, stick around for Part 2 of this post, coming soon to a blogspot near you!

Welcome to my welcome to the world of fatherhood!

Within many of the blog posts to come, you will be subjected to the musings and possibly even rantings of a sleep-deprived man who is just beginning his journey. This mission, whether I accept it or not is to become the greatest father possible, or die trying. This notice will not self-destruct in thirty seconds, but that would be freaking cool for a blog.

Anyway, I'm Pops. This is my ongoing saga of fatherhood and all that it entails. I know a plethora of good fathers in my life and I appreciate them all in their own way with their respective families, but I also know that each family comes with different circumstances and I need to do the best I can with our circumstances for the sake of my girls.That said, I also know a few fathers which I'm not quite sure that I should call "fathers". Just doing the biological work doesn't cut it. To be a father, you not only have to be there for your children and put in your time. You have to put in the effort too and that is my goal.

Time for a little bit of background. I am a thirty-one year old man with a thirty year old wife. We have been married since 2010, together since 2008. Since the wedding, my wife and I had decided to start trying to conceive. This proved to be more difficult than expected, to say the least. We tried the "natural" way for almost a full year before seeking medical help. After a full battery of fertility tests, IUI's, SA tests (which I will document in full later on), and a crap-ton of bloodwork, eventually we made the choice to try IVF. Our "undiagnosed infertility" (Yeah, try to get an insurance company to pay after that diagnosis) turned out to be a simple but expensive roadblock that we were able to bypass.

In September 2012, we rolled the dice and implanted two of our seven fertilized embryos and eight weeks later discovered that we were having fraternal twins! It wasn't until the holiday season that we found out that they were both girls. Woot! In May, we welcomed Tesla and Ruby into our family and the adventure had begun.

That's enough about me. On with the blogging...