It was 12am on Labor Day exactly, and we were headed to the hospital. I had started contracting Saturday night and they stayed consistent all through Sunday morning, so I told Brock I was staying home with the boys from church and we would see what happened.

The contractions remained every 30 minutes apart for most of Sunday, it was annoying honestly. Labor can be such an exciting thrill but at the same time it’s painstakingly filled with unknowns. I cleaned every possible thing I could think of while Brock was at church. Once he got home, we treated it like a normal afternoon/evening filled with errands and bedtime routines for the boys. Although those things happened a little slower than normal as I'd stop dead in my tracks or have to start gimping in the aisle of the grocery store as a contraction would come. By this point I knew I would be meeting Ayden and Elle soon, but I still couldn't figure out when that would be.

When they really started hurting I jumped into the shower as they were every 15 minutes apart. I'm stubborn and never want to be like the boy who cried wolf, so I still didn't inform anyone in case I were to not progress. But less than an hour later, I was at every 3-5 minutes apart and they hurt. Like really hurt. My body was shaking and so was my voice as I called the hospital. They told me to lay down and see how far apart the contractions were after about 45 minutes. They were at every 7 minutes.

So naturally, I got up to do my hair, because who wants to look like poop when you already feel like it! We finished packing our bags, loaded up the carseats, and went downstairs to wait for my mom and dad to come over. I popped a hot ham and cheese in my mouth, looked at Brock and said, "It's go time."

On the way over to the hospital, it literally felt like my under carriage was going to burst open. I told Brock and my mom that if I wasn't dilated I might have to cry. Little did I know, I was 8cm dilated already. The nurses were all shocked and said. "how are you so calm?!" I wasn't quite sure how I was either, but knew I wanted an epidural ASAP.

Nurses are amazing aren't they? I had one who truly fought for me and was able to get my epidural ordered before my blood work results were even back. PRAISE JESUS for those miraculous things and for anesthesiologists who are incredible at administering them. I hardly felt it. The epidural didn't quite have it's full time to work its magic, though, because we started pushing by 3am.

We had to give birth in an operating room just in case anything were to happen. So with four nurses, a doctor, and two NICU teams it was a full house. Our sweet Ayden Matthew was born at 3:41am weighing 6lbs 1oz. Just 10 minutes later our beautiful Elle Marie (yes, she arrived with this strawberry blonde hair) was born at 3:51am weighing 5lbs 15oz. Both were 19 inches long in true twin fashion.

They were able to lay Ayden on my chest and allow him to get his first feeding from me. Elle was lifted up for me to see because she was not breathing well. In what seemed like no time at all, both were whisked away and Brock and I were left in the operating room trying to wrap our heads around what just happened. Brock was so sweet and encouraging through it all. I truly have the best husband.

Around 8am we went up to see our babies in the NICU for the first time. It definitely wasn't how I pictured meeting them, but God had a whole unexpected game plan for us that we had naively not planned for.