-Crunchy- Bendy- Mommy-: Trip down memory lane...

I decided I'd "introduce" everyone to my children. They were born 6 weeks early. Matilda Raven was born first, at 7:28 pm on 2/23/07, after 2.5 hours of pushing, plus 11 hours of labor. She came into the world pink and screaming, her APGARs were a stout 9 and 10. Oscar Robert was born exactly 2.5 hours later, at 9:58 pm, 2/23/07, after about 2 hours of pushing. But he wasn't born vaginally. I pushed for those 2 hours and unfortunately, he wasn't coming out and his heart rate kept dropping, so he was born via an emergency c-section. My doctor cut me vertically on my stomach but my womb he cut transverse, in hopes of aiding a future VBAC. Oscar was very sick. He never cried and needed immediate intubation and help breathing. By 6 am the next morning, he was on a ventilator. He had developed pneumonia in both lungs with one collapsing and the other 3/4 collapsed. In the meantime, I pumped my breasts and tried to deal with all the stress as best I could. Matilda did excellent, thank God, and 9 days after being born, she came home. She was exclusively breastfed and off the pumped milk, by 2 weeks old. Oscar struggled for 6 days at our birth hospital, and was transferred to Vanderbilt because nothing else could be done where we were and Vandy had ECMO, basically a heart/lung bypass machine for babies. He was there for another 5-6 days and sent back to Jackson after regaining strength and being weaned from the ventilator to CPAP. He stayed in Jackson's NICU another 2-3 weeks and came home to us at a month and a day old, on oxygen and apnea monitors. Those first months were a blur and he refused the breast at first. For months I tried and I was just about to give up when my mother-in-law, who had breastfed her children, came up with the ingenious idea to get him going on a bottle and then switcheroo to my breast. It worked and from then on he started refusing bottles. They are both still breastfed now, at 19 months old, and show little sign of stopping any time soon. I am extremely proud of myself for this accomplishment. I can't express how much I love breastfeeding my children. Don't get me wrong, I rant and rave about some of the negatives like night-feedings and refusing bottles and such, but I still love it. Anyway, here is a picture-filled timeline of the answers to my most oldest prayer...my children.

It's TWINS!