Christmas came early...

with the surprise birth of our two baby boys on Christmas Eve. All this time we've worked so hard to stave off preterm labor to keep the babies in long enough for them to get to at least 35 weeks. It was beginning to look like we were going to make it. However, on Tuesday while the nurses were doing their routine monitoring of the boys' heartrates, we discovered that the boys had taken an unexpected change for the worse. After a day of waiting to see if things would get better, the doctors decided to take the babies before they went into real distress. I was in the operating room within 2 hours, giving birth to our little preemies.

Wesley Darrell was born first at 1:23 pm and weighed in at a whopping 3 lbs 7 oz and measured 16 3/4 ". One minute later Samuel Scott arrived a little heavier at 3 lbs 14 oz and measured 16 1/2 ". The rest of the evening was recovery time for me while Jeff made phone calls and took care of details. He and the proud grandparents got to go see the babies later that evening. My first visit took place the following evening. Unfortunately, they weren't ready to be held. It was so hard to see them all hooked up to wires and monitors in the incubator and not be able to pick them up and hold them and cuddle them.

The boys are both doing very well. They are having issues that are typical of 32 weekers but they improve daily. On the day after Christmas Jeff and I were allowed to do kangaroo care with Wesley where we hold him skin to skin. It's really good for the baby and certainly does our hearts good. We're anxiously waiting for the time when Samuel is ready to be held as well. Even though he was born bigger, he's improving a little slower. Wesley is a little fighter and Samuel seems to be more of a mellow, kick-back kind of a guy.

Here are pictures of us with Wesley.