They've hatched!

Welcome to our new blog, which will tell the tale of raising our two new beans--Fletcher and Piper Woodard. Born on August 30, 2010, these two new babies are so good and wonderful, and we couldn't love them more. For those of you wondering how they entered the world, here is Eric's version of the story (we promise not every post on here will be this long):


Piper and Fletcher technically had a due date of September 23, 2010, but because they were twins, the doctors said they would need to be delivered by September 10, 2010. In addition, because both babies were breach, we knew that the would be delivered via c-section.


Keri was on bedrest at home for much of the spring, and then spent most of June and July in the hospital doing her bedrest there. Eric came back and forth to her room every evening. She did a very good job. At the beginning of August, the doctors let her do bedrest at home. And then toward the middle of August, she was able to walk around.


On August 30, we had a doctor’s appointment in Alexandria. At that appointment, the doctor checked Keri’s blood pressure and was worried it was running a bit high. She suggested we head toward the hospital to monitor it for a couple of hours, warning us not stop for any salty McDonald’s French Fries on the way.


We got to Inova Fairfax Hospital fine, and they started monitoring Keri’s blood pressure. Keri and I figured at most, they would admit her again, but there was a small chance that we might have the babies. As we watched her blood pressure over a couple of hours, it was clearly running high. The doctor, Doctor Stas, finally leaned in and said they would deliver Keri at 4:30 pm, because Keri had last eaten at 8:30 am...and they needed to wait 8 hours since she last ate.


We immediately began calling around to our parents to let them know what was happening. Keri’s mom Sue was in Boston and headed immediately to Logan. My folks said they would be out to the hospital around 5:30 pm. We let them know that they might not be able to see us till 7:30 pm - we were worried about visiting hours closing at 8 pm. Keri also talked to Auntie Corinne on the phone. I had just bought a new Droid 2 phone (which was very state of the art) and it was the only phone in the delivery triage area that works (I was very pleased about this). We had about 90 minutes to kill before it was time so Keri and I just sat behind the curtain in the triage area making jokes and trying not to be nervous.


Around 4:30 pm, they said it was time and that I should proceed with the charge nurse to put on scrubs, I would see Keri in the Operating Room after she had had a spinal epidural. They wanted Keri to have shoes on so I helped her put her shoes on, then we kissed goodbye.


While they were wheeling Keri into the operating room, they had me put on this big yellow scrub suit they called “The Big Bird.” Meanwhile, they were giving Keri the spinal epidural in the operating room. At last, they called me in where I sat next to Keri’s head. It was about ten minutes before they announced that the first baby, Fletch, was out. They pulled him to the side and started cleaning him up. He cried right away.


While they were cleaning up Fletch, they pulled out Piper...she didn’t cry quite as loudly at first, but then she did. I didn’t want to look at the babies on the other side of the room because 1) I didn’t want to get in the nurses’ way and 2) I wanted to see them for the first time with Keri. After a few moments they brought Fletch over and I held him up to Keri’s face. Then they did the same thing with Piper.


As Piper was taken away, they had me follow her to the recovery room. I was there as they did the final checks on the babies and eventually wheeled Keri in behind. She was still numb from the chest down. We looked at the babies, and I fed Piper a bottle.


After about an hour the recovery room, the nurse declared that Keri was ok to go upstairs. So, they planted a baby on each side of her and wheeled us Room 341. I called our parents, who had been waiting forever, to let them know that they should meet us there. The nurses said we didn’t have to fret about the visiting hours.


We arrived at our room and got situated, and our nurse Sarah gave us some preliminary instructions about how to handle things with the babies in that ward. Our parents held the little babies and were elated. Upon holding Fletch for the first time, my dad remarked “I don’t want to hold him, I want to fight him.”


That evening the babies slept in our room - we fed them every couple of hours and were so excited - probably too excited to sleep anyway.


Over the next few days, Tuesday night and Wednesday night, we kept taking care of the babies, and learned how to do a few basic things like diapers and bottles. Neither Keri or I had really handled babies before, but we felt pretty natural at it.


By Thursday, the doctors thought we would be ok to come home, and so did we. So, we packed up into our new Honday Odyssey minivan and made the trip home. Keri’s mom caravaned behind us, and my parents met us at home.


Baby first impressions:


Piper is very expressive and extraordinarily sweet. She likes to move her hands gracefully and strikes various poses. She is clearly already too cool for her parents. Often when she sleeps she looks like a little doll.


Fletch is a beast. He has a giant head like his father and looks like a Roman gladiator - but he is still a very good little boy. Fletch seems a little afraid of his arms, which tend to flail about wildly...he likes it when somebody holds his arms so he doesn’t have to worry about them. Though is still a little be skeptical about them...he doesn’t trust his arms entirely.


That's just Eric's story. I also typed up their birth story, which is even longer. If you want to read it, you can find it here.