Live Love Laugh

Since Landon and Zachary were born at 36.4 weeks, we anticipated that there would be at least a brief stay at the hospital. It ended up being 6 days, which wasn't too bad. Life in the NICU wasn't too rough at American Fork Hospital. I really liked the different nurses and thought they took good care of my babies. The hardest parts were all the cords the boys had to be attached to and being confined to such a tiny spot and not being able to leave with them. I just wanted to love on my babies, and the NICU, although life-saving, creates ridiculous barriers between mommies and babies.

My hospital stay was 4 days and the boys' was 6. This wasn't a problem because we were able to pay a small fee and stay there until we could all come home together!

Here are some fun pictures from our NICU experience and the first days of Landon and Zachary's life:

Landon taking his binky!

Mommy and Zachary

Grandma Mari and Landon

Aunt Noel holding Landon and Zachary

Daddy was feeding Zach and he reached up and grabbed his hand. :)

Mommy and her twiners

Daddy and his twiners

Landon and Zachary--our miracle babies!

Their station in the NICU. I loved the name tags a nurse made them!

Mommy and Zachy (Looks like Zach got mommy's nose)

Caught a smile from Landon!

Big brother meeting little brothers!! Zander and Zachary

My boys!

Landon and Zachary got Zander a bear that says, "I'm the big brother" for his 10th birthday! Zander turned 10 on August 15, just 3 days after the boys were born. He was so happy they weren't born on his birthday. Ten years ago Zander was born at the same hospital!

Big brother feeding Landon

Landon

Zachary

My happy place!

Landon and Zachary

Zach and Landon

Zach sleeping on me :)

The birth of Landon and Zachary was incredible! Since around week 32, we were put under the impression that we would need to deliver cesarean because little baby A was breech with little room to move. This was devastating for me because birth is something that I looked forward to and the idea of not being able to deliver my sons was tragic. I tried some gimmicks that are suppose to help babies get into the head down position, but with no success-there just wasn't enough room. Lance all along thought the c section would be a lot safer than attempting a vaginal delivery and I could see his point. So many laboring moms work so diligently at delivering their babies only to have to end up with the c section. Lance felt as if the c section would cut through any laboring and give us the best results. So here we were planning on a surgical birth. Knowing this would be best for my babies, I surrendered, accepting it both mentally and emotionally.

So the story you've been waiting for begins on Tuesday night-the night before the twins were born. I was contracting pretty regularly, and close together. Lance was super excited and kept asking me if I was having a contraction with every sound I made. He was so excited to meet his boys! Uncertain as to whether or not I should go to the hospital, I called both Melissa and Gina to get their opinions. Both agreed that I should pack my bags and go. So with that, Lance and I packed the bags and were about to head out when my contractions settled down. For this reason, we decided it would be best to try to get some rest and see if the contractions would continue or not. We slept through the night, and were happy that we decided to stay home.

This now brings us to Wednesday morning. I woke up with two contractions that were pretty intense, but nothing more. I had a lunch date planned with friends from my ward and decided that I was safe to go. I went out to lunch at Pizza Factory and didn't feel a thing. Right when I got home I sat down on the couch to check Facebook and such on my phone, just relaxing. It was basically then-the moment I sat down that I started contracting and hard. Lance was downstairs, working. I started timing each contraction on an app on my phone. I had a contraction that lasted something like 4 minutes, and had me crying out in pain. I then texted Lance to come up stairs and that we probably needed to head to the hospital. Also, this kept showing up on the contraction app-

I had a feeling that we were in for the real deal! Once Lance came upstairs, he said that these contractions must be far more intense because my face showed more pain with each one. We called our clinic and asked them if we should come in. They said yes and to bring the hospital bag just in case. Easy enough since it was already packed and by the door from the night before! So, out we set to the clinic hoping that we would soon be meeting our boys!

Once at the clinic, Dr. Young checked me only to find that I was barely dilated to a one. Say what?! But, it turns out that its common to not dilate if you have a breech baby. He then had me do a non-stress test to test for contractions. That clearly showed active labor! Woohoo--we were told to go to labor and delivery at American Fork Hospital and that Dr. Young would perform the c section later that night around 8 pm! It was go time!!! And the icing on the cake was that it wasn't happening on Zander's birthday (August 15th) which was a big deal for him. He wanted his birthday to be left alone, and not have to share it with the twiners. I can't blame him.

So up the road we drove and got checked in at AF hospital! We even stayed in the same triage room that they stayed in the day Zander was born. We were there for a few good hours and my contractions kept coming. Lance and I had a lot of fun just being together and anticipating the birth of Landon and Zachary. It seemed surreal. We were moments away from meeting our boys! Heaven was literally opening up.

Once things were ready to go, they finally wheeled me back to the operating room a little after 9 pm. I needed to get my spinal and was heartbroken when they said Lance couldn't go with me. I found comfort in the feeling that my mother would be with me. Early Tuesday morning I had the thought that my mom would be able to be with me, if she so desired. Later that night, Lance gave me a blessing and said that there would be individuals who were on the other side of the veil who would be with me. This was so touching because I had not mentioned a thing to him about my impressions earlier that day. I knew she would be there. So here I was about to embark on a scary part of the procedure and I took great comfort in knowing she would be there with me. I also thought it was neat how I was her first c-section and there I was getting my first (and hopefully last) c-section.

So they wheeled me in, got me my spinal and it was officially go time! Lance then came in and held my hand as the operation was performed. I was so excited! I kept asking Lance to give me a play by play so I wouldn't miss anything. C-sections are the worst for a mother who wants to relish in every little detail of her babies birth. After about 10-15 minutes after the doctor made the first incision, he was pulling out my little Landon. He held him up over the curtain and I saw the cutest little baby ever! One of my first thoughts was, 'okay that's definitely our baby!' Little Landon looked just like Lance from the very begining! Next came Mr. Zachary who looked so beautiful and sweet! He was crying before the doctor even got him completely out of the womb and it was so sweet to hear his first cry! It felt so amazing to have them here with us-safe and sound! We are so blessed!

Lance was able to be by them as they got cleaned and wrapped up. Lance came to me and said that it looked like Zachary had red hair! Once they were wrapped and ready to go they brought them to me and I got to touch their little faces! I fell in love instantly. Then off they went to get CPAPs for some breathing difficulties, with daddy at their side. They then continued stitching me up and wheeled me in to see them after about two hours after they were born.

Seeing them in the nursery was heaven! They looked so angelic and absolutely perfect! We did well!

Zachary Chase Bertola--6lbs 13 ounces, 19 inches long. Named after his big brother, Zander

Zachary 💙

Landon Leonardo Bertola--6 lbs 8 ounces, 18 inches long. Named after his daddy.

Landon 💙

While I was being stitched up and in recovery, Zander got to come and meet them! I was sad that I couldn't be there for their first meeting, but was happy that he got to meet them so soon after they were born. After he met them, Lance brought him into my recovery room and he was being so cute! He said that he had a tummy ache when he first heard that they would be born that night and it got worse as time went by, but then once he met them it went away and he realized he was just nervous! It was so cute to hear his thoughts on all of it! It's not every day that you become a big brother to twins:)