The day has finally arrived and we welcomed the newest additions to the Hemp family, Chase and Cooper Hemp. Â Here are their stats:
Chase Logan – born 7:29PM, 8 lbs 7 oz, 21 in
Cooper James – born 7:30PM, 7 lbs 14 oz, 20 in
Apparently everyone decided to have their babies at the same time. Â I was supposed to go for the induction at 7:30 AM, but when I called the hospital, there were no beds available. Â I called again every hour and still nothing. Â As soon as a room opened up, it was filled again. Â They said we could come at 11AM, but when we got there, again, no rooms. Â We finally got a room around noon and the nurse said she’s been at the hospital for 20 years and has never seen it as busy as it had been. Â They had been crazy busy for over a week. Â Lots of babies being born.
It turned out that the boys were not in the vertex position anymore, so I was to have a C-section. Â I was upset, but had no choice, so we just mentally prepped ourselves for the surgery. Â The whole surgical team was like a well oiled machine when it came time for the procedure, they wheeled me in and a few minutes later, the boys arrived! Â Everyone in the OR was surprised to see how big they were. Â I could hear everyone talking about it and Chris could peer over the curtain to see them. Â They brought both boys over to my head so I could get some skin on skin time with them. Â They were beautiful and had very healthy lungs 🙂 Â Chris was awesome, he was so excited to see them, and assured me they looked really good. Â His excitement really helped calm me down and fueled my excitement. Â I was so happy he was with me. Â And his scrubs were very fetching 🙂
The hospital stay was a blur, but I did feel that it was way less chaotic than our stay with Carter. Â People weren’t constantly coming in and out, it was more laid back. Â I guess because we were staying longer, they could do all the tests and checks more spread out. Â We ended up staying 4 days, so we were discharged on Sunday.
Carter came to visit the boys the day after they were born, on Thursday. Â He was so good with them! Â I think he was most excited about the helicopter. Â He and Poppi got to see the helicopter take off from the landing pad. Â He couldn’t stop talking about it! Â Grammie and Poppi took care of Carter while we were in the hospital and brought him everyday to see his little brothers.
We arrived home Sunday afternoon and introduced the boys to their new home. Â Aunt KK made a delicious birthday cake and we toasted the boys with champagne.
The first few nights were rough. Â It’s really hard being super exhausted, recovering from surgery, and getting up constantly to nurse and soothe 2 babies. Â I am writing this post well after those first few nights so I am sure if I had been blogging at the time, I would have some very choice words. Â But alas, that is behind us. Â The boys are 6 weeks now, which is crazy. Â We are still working on getting through the night with at least some sleep, but we’ll get it figured out.
Taking care of 2 babies is not really double the work.  Grammie and I decided that it’s more like 1 and 1/2 times the work.  You are already changing a diaper, so you just change one more. The boys are more or less on the same schedule, so they sleep at the same time. It usually takes one longer to go to sleep than the other, but at least for the most part, they are sleeping at the same time. They always eat at the same time, even if we have to wake one up. I think that has really helped get them on the same schedule.
We feel so lucky to have such beautiful, healthy babies. All of our boys are doing awesome and we are very happy.