Happy Birthday Mitchell and Parker!!!

Well at this point some of you know and some of you may not. But December 3, 2007 is the birth date of my first two sons!!

What an experience! When I heard other parents say it is indescribable I thought they were being dramatic, I found out they are right. The feelings I felt were excitement, fear, anxiety, joy, and helplessness and probably more but...thus, indescribable.

Here is how it all went down:

At about 11 a.m. we had the ultrasound and while we were getting the scan done the high risk doctor came in with his posse. At that point I thought well he must have been watching the scan from another room and saw something that made him come in in the middle of the scan. Well, he was just making his rounds. He told Julie not to eat or drink anything in case she needed a c-section and that he would look at the scan when it was done and come tell her if she would deliver that day or not. She had not eaten since the night before. The day kind of slowed down for the next few hours after the scan. Julie got, you might say slightly irritated, when the doctor did not come back fairly quickly to tell her if she could eat or not. So I asked the nurse what the deal was and she said "he was going to see some patients and go to lunch and then come see you". Well, I didn't like that answer too much because why should he eat if Julie had to wait on him, and he isn't pregnant. So I told the nurse that it was "unacceptable" and that she should have the charge nurse come see me. The nursing staff did what they could (we had to apologize afterwards because we felt bad for being so mean...it was one nurse's first day). Ended up that we called Dr. Blake and got some answers by about 3 p.m. we knew we were having babies. By 3:15 nurses and anesthesia techs and doctors were storming Julie's bed. We kept waiting for the "moment" where we could kiss each other and pray together and pray over our babies. It never came...but we were praying together the whole time. At about 3:45 p.m. we left our room on the 6th floor (6201 for historical reference) and headed up to the 8th floor to the OR. Julie then got her spinal block and I had to wait outside during that part. As soon as that was done Dr. Blake opened the doors and said come on and gave me the big come on hand motion. I thought here we go, this is it. I got in the OR and Julie I could tell was worried so I talked to her and acted like I wasn't scared. That couldn't have been further from the truth though. I don't know if I have ever been that scared. I did know though that it would be over before I knew it. We talked and told each other that we loved each other and after a few minutes I calmed down and began making jokes with the nurses and staff. We had probably 14 people in the room 8 from the NICU team, Dr. Blake, an anesthesiologist and tech, an other nurse, and then Julie and I. If Julie wants to post the details of the surgery she can but for her sake at this point I will leave them out, although I will tell you I have seen her guts. So, at 4:36 weighing in at 2 lbs. 6 oz. and standing 15 inches tall Charles Parker Dunn was born and one minute later his younger brother with a fighting weight of 2 lbs 14 oz. and an overall length of 15.25 inches Christoper Mitchell Dunn was born. They came out crying, both of them, which was a great surprise to Julie and I. They both scored relatively well on the APGAR scores and began breathing on their own right away. The NICU nurses are unbelievably amazing, they cleaned them up and let me take pictures. A few minutes later my sons and I were off to the NICU. They have settled in at the NICU and are using a CPAP machine which is to help make their breathing more effective, however they are drawing their own breathes for now and have not had to intubated (which is great). I am going to include some pictures and the boys are probably doing better than the pictures will look so please don't be alarmed they are doing extremely well right now. We have been warned though that probably there will be down days and up days for a while. We will probably have them in the hospital until close to February 4th, which was their due date. So with out further adieu let me introduce you to Mitchell and Parker Dunn.

This was about 3 minutes after they met their daddy. Not sure if you can tell but I and assure you that there was a gigantic smile under that mask.

Thank you to all of you who have called and sent text messages. I could never return all the calls and texts so let this serve as my return communication. And since I have had about 3 hours of sleep in the past two days I am going to sign off and just promise to post more later. Thank you as well for all your prays keep them coming as we are not out of the woods yet.