It all started when I went in for my first appoint with Luke. He was my first baby, so the doctor wanted to get a little background on my family and such. One of the questions he asked was if I had any twins in my family. My mom has twin sisters, and I have 2 cousins that both have a set of twins. When I told him this he said, "I'm going to put you in the high-probability range of having twins." We then went in for an ultra sound and saw that I was only pregnant with little Lukey. However, from that day, I always felt like I would have twins one day.
When we learned that we were pregnant again, I immediately had the thought of "what if it's twins." Nate would just laugh it off, and I would convince myself that maybe it was just wishful thinking or something, and that we were really only having one baby. We had just moved to California, without insurance, so we were trying to explore all of our options before we went to the doctor. We went home to Idaho in August for a family reunion and decided to set up an appointment with Dr. Isbell while we were there. We couldn't get in to see him, so we saw his daughter, who also works in his office. I was about 14 weeks so we were able to hear the heartbeat. While she was listening, I said, "Make sure there's only one heartbeat, okay." Nate rolled his eyes, and she listenend a little harder and said, "I only hear one, but that doesn't mean anything." The ultra sound tech was not in the office that day, so we didn't have that option. It's hard to explain, but I really felt like we were having twins. At the same time, I was scared to be confident of that feeling. So everytime I would think I was having twins, I would immediately talk myself out of it. We had moved 9 times in our 3-1/2 years of marriage, so even when I told my mom that I felt like I was having twins she would say, "your life is too crazy for twins."
At the family reunion, we announced that we were having a baby. We went back to California, went about life, and decided that we were having a boy. So, I was in total boy mode. I was thinking about boy names, and how I needed to get coordinating bedding so Luke and the little guy could share a room. ALL BOY!!! Nate's internship ended, and we headed back to Idaho/Utah. Our plan was to do Christmas lights in Utah, and then move to Idaho in January. Since I was due in February, and we didn't want to switch doctors, we decided it was best to just keep seeing Dr. Isbell in Idaho Falls. We had 3 weeks until we were going to start doing Christmas lights so Nate flew out to Texas to sell pest control for a bit. I had scheduled my 20 week ultra sound, and soon realized that he wasn't going to be back in time. We discussed changing it, but decided not to because 1) We would have to make a trip to Idaho in the middle of all the craziness of Christmas lights if we rescheduled, 2) Nate had seen the ultra sound with Luke, and in his eyes if you've seen one, you've seen them all. And 3) we were sure we were having a boy, so it's not like we would be surprised or anything. :)
The day of the ultra sound came and I decided to take my mom and my sisters, Lindsey and Cortney. The ultra sound tech, Rod Anderson, came in and my mom knows him so they talked while he prepped everything. When it was time to do the ultra sound, he turned to me and explained what he was going to check for: ie, making sure the baby was growing as it should, that it had all 4 chambers of the heart, and so on. Of course I added, "and make sure there is only one." My mom and sisters all laughed/rolled their eyes. Rod put the wand on my stomach, started laughing, and says, "You know, I know you were kidding but guess what? You have 2 babies in here!" WHAT?!? You can imagine the flood of emotions from this point on. I immediately got Nate on the phone and he was even MORE shocked than I was. He stayed on the phone while we learned that we were having 2 GIRLS. I have to admit, I was more shocked that we were having 2 girls than I was that we were having twins. What a fun day! I was really sad that Nate was not there with me, but it was fun having my mom and sisters there.
Thursday, December 23, 2010, I had a routine check-up with my doctor. I was 33 weeks pregnant and feeling miserable. Someone, somewhere (I really don't remeber who- maybe I made it up), had told me that 34 weeks was the magic number for twins. So, I was sure that I would go to the doctor and he would tell me that my babies were big and healthy and that he felt sorry for me so he would induce me in the next week or two. HA! Doesn't everyone wish for that toward the end of the pregnancy? Anyway, the appointment was quite the opposite. The doc said that everything was great and that he wanted me to have a "good 15 or 16 pound of baby" in me! Are you kidding me?!? He also told me that he would not even think about inducing me until I was at least 38 weeks! Needless to say, my doctor and I were on 2 completely different pages. I, of course, was happy to have healthy babies, I just didn't want to be pregnant anymore.
We went about our Christmas festivities as we would have. On Christmas day, I came to my senses and realized that Christmastime would be a horrible time to have a birthday. I told Nate, "Today would be the worst day to have a baby. And tomorrow would be the next worst."
Christmas came and went. I was exhausted, so I went to bed pretty early and Nate stayed up playing games witih all the boys. I woke up at 3 AM with the most horrible pain in my leg. (I have no idea what it was, or if it was even related to my labor.) I woke up again at 5AM and the pain was gone. Then, I woke up at 7 AM to my water breaking. Things went so fast from there.
I had Nate, my dad, and my bro-in-law, Jason, give me a blessing before we headed to the hospital. I was so nervous, realizing that 33 weeks was pretty early to have these babies, but I was comforted through the blessing and I knew that everything would be okay.
We got to the hospital at about 8 AM. They checked to make sure that it was amniotic fluid, which it was, and then called my doctor. He got there about 8:30 or so and did an ultra sound. The presenting baby/baby A/Aubree, was breach, so we knew that a c-section was going to happen. However, they wanted me to hold on as long as I could so they gave me a shot of steroids and then a shot to try to slow down my labor. Their goal was to give me one more shot of steroids before I delivered, but there had to be at least 12 hours in between, preferably 24. By this point, I was feeling some contractions and thinking that they were crazy if they wanted me to wait 24 hours.
Around 9:30 AM the nurse came in and told me that the shot actually sped up my labor instead of slowing it down so they were going to prep me for a c-section at 10. So, from 9:30 to 10:00 is kind of a blur. The charge nurse from the NICU came in and explained to me that they would just pass my babies through a window to the NICU. The guy that numbs you (I don't want to attempt to spell that word) came in and had me sign my life away. :)
We got in to the operating room had a little Sunday school lesson. Not really, but Dr. Isbell was a counselor in his stake presidency and happened to be the only one in town because it was the day after Christmas. He had something like 2 missionaries reporting, and one leaving, and I conveniently went into labor that day. :) I was grateful for him as he shared his testimony about the gospel and the organization of the church. He knew that it was the Christ's church, and that his stake would still function without him. My nurse then told everyone that her son just received his mission call to the same mission that the numbing guy's son was in. Only in Idaho Falls, and probably Utah, would the entire staff of the O.R. be members of the church. It was such a tender mercy to me.
I HATED the c-section, but lived through it. I heard Dr. Isbell say, "Incision time: 10:28" and then Aubree was born at 10:31, and Brynlie at 10:32. Aubree weighed 4 lbs 14 oz, and Brynlie was 4 lbs, 11 oz. We laugh now because I was out of the operating room by 11, and we're sure that Dr. Isbell still went and performed his church duties that day.
We were blessed to have healthy babies. They both came off their oxygen the first day. They stayed in the NICU for 12 days to eat and grow, and then they both came home on the same day. We were told that never happens with twins. Of course, hind sight is 20/20, but looking back, we realize how fortunate we were to have things happen the way they did and go as smoothly as they did. I'm so glad I was oblivious to all of the things that could have gone wrong. We have had a few friends have twins this year, and things didn't go as well for them. We feel so blessed to have Aubree and Brynlie in our family. I can't believe they are 1 today.
Here's Luke announcing he is going to be a big brother! He looks thrilled, doesn't he?
Bryn-L, Bre-R
Bre is in front, Bryn is in back
I love how they are in the exact same position here. We would have to get them tested to know if they are identical or not. We don't want to pay for it, so we'll probably never know. :)
Bre-L, Bryn-R
No more tubes or wires! Getting ready to come home.
Aubree, Luke, Brynlie
Finally home! I can't believe how small they were.
Luke was not able to come into the NICU, so this was really the first time he got to meet them. He was really excited to have 2 baby sisters. So excited that he even carried them to us twice. We were grateful that they were only 5 pounds then. We learned to put them where Luke couldn't get to them. :)
We are so blessed!
Until Bryn smacked Bre in the face!
She recovered. 
Opening gifts from Gma/Gpa Cook... New shoes! (I don't know why I don't have a picture of them but they're super cute!)
Brynlie turned into a cheezer overnight. Everytime we get the camera out, she makes that face. This started on Christmas morning. Makes us laugh! 
