Our Little Boys Are Here!!!

Much to our surprise our little boys decided to come 3 months early! They gave us no warning and we were totally not prepared. We're now wondering if this is going to be what their little personalities are like. They seem to sure like giving their parents a scare!!!

We'd like to introduce you to...

 Ethan Gerald Holden

March 25th, 2011 8:23a.m.

2 lbs 1 oz.  14 inches

Andrew Bruce Holden

March 25th, 2011 8:22 a.m.

2 lbs 7 oz.  14 inches

Here's the story:
During the night I woke up a few times with minor pain...thinking I just needed to go to the bathroom. After the 3rd time at 6:00am I laid in bed wondering what this pain really was. I woke Stephen up about 20 minutes later and we decided to call the doctor. He told us to go to the hospital. As we got dressed and left for the hospital the minor pain quickly intensified and became more frequent. I was just grateful we live only 5 minutes from the American Fork Hospital. When we check in, the nurses tried to do a few tests and quickly realized I was in full labor. They rushed to call the on-call doctor and when he came in to check me he said that I was fully dialated and he could feel a little hand. His guess was my cervix totally gave up with the weight of two babies and my body decided it was done.  There was no time to transfer me to a hospital with a level 3 NICU and they wheeled me into the OR for an emergancy C-section.

I will admit both Stephen and I were scared to death wondering if our babies would even live. So within an hour of arriving at the hospital. I heard each of them cry for a short second after they were born. This was a huge relief to me.  The operating room was full of people. Each baby had probably a team of 6 or 7 nurses and doctors around them. Shortly after they were born they rushed them off to get them ready to be transferred to a higher level NICU. I got to see them for a short minute or two before they left the hospital. Everything happened so fast. It really seemed like a dream. As happy as we are to have these two boys in our lives....this was not how I had envisioned everything. I know that the next few months as they are in the NICU I will be saying that a lot. But this is our life and we have a long road ahead of us. 
The crazy thing is as we look back upon the day or the days ahead. There really was no signs we missed. Just two days before we had seen the Fetal Medicine Doctor. (This is a doctor we'd started seeing in addition to my OBGYN who specializes in "high risk" pregnancies.) The Fetal Medicine doctors/nurses are experts in multiple births and other complications in pregnancy. Each time they do a very in-depth ultrasound and according to them...'everything looks great' and 'you couldn't be doing better' They had check the amniotic fluid amounts, length of my cervix. Everything really was 'just fine'. I guess these two had a little different plan in mind. :) We have really felt the Lord's hand in all that we've been through and know that he is constantly with us.

Anyways,  here's a picture we took before they were born. Who knew this would be the last one we'd take.

 March 13th, 2011 at 25 weeks