Love, Brittney: Mom and dad hold Sav and Oliver for the first time

August 12, two days after delivering, I got to hold Savannah.

I cannot put into words the joy I felt. It's unlike anything I've experienced before.

(That is my wheelchair in the back. I was still in the hospital and too weak from delivery and the magnesium to walk yet)

A day later, on August 13, I got to hold Oliver. Sweet, pure happiness. I waited 3 agonizing days for this.

During these early days, we could usually hold each baby once a day, unless their levels weren't great - which happened a lot with Oliver. So in order for each of us to get to hold a baby a day - one of us usually had to miss a day holding either baby. It was so hard. I'd sit in the NICU all day and just stare at them - couldn't hold them.

My preeclampsia has taken way longer to clear up than I'd anticipated. With NICU babies, you don't get time to heal. You straight from delivery to back and forth from the NICU.

My blood pressure got worse after delivery than it had the week I delivered (it was consistently in the 170's/100's - the only time I saw my blood pressure that high was when I came into Labor and Delivery after my water had broken) and I was still so swollen. I had migraines that wouldn't go away with pain meds.

I was still going into the NICU every day feeling like I was going to die - plus I could barely walk from the delivery. I was such a mess.

But the idea of not coming in and seeing the babies was more than I could handle. Trev was getting up for work at 5am (football) and we have one car - so if I wanted to see the babies early I had to come with him. If I waited for someone to get me it was 10am or later when I'd get there, and I'd just sit at home crying looking at pictures of the twins - so I opted to just go with Trev even though I felt terrible.

One of those mornings when I felt horrible and Trev made me stay at home in the morning to put my feet up to try and get the swelling down, he stopped at the NICU to see the twins and sent me this picture -

When I got it, I just burst into tears and sat there for an hour crying my eyes out because I thought my heart would break from missing them so much. This is one of my favorite pictures (I think Sav looks so much like Trev here) but every time I see it I think of that whole crying episode.

August 14 - Trev gets to hold his son for the first time! He totally man cried. It was cute. And he thought I didn't notice.