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| Julian Gregory Lobato |
Right now Diana would be 39 1/2 weeks. That is if she didn't give birth already to Julian Gregory Lobato and Leon Gregory Lobato on September 23rd of 2010. The babies spent 10 days in the NICU at St. Marks hospital, it was very challenging for Diana to not have them with her 24/7 from day one. The boys came home on Sunday October the 3rd.
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| Leon Gregory Lobato |
My oh my have these last few weeks been life changing. First off the boys came early and what a surprise they were. It didn't seem like any other Wednesday night, I was ready to get some sleep around 2AM. Diana woke me up at 2:18AM just moments after I had started to sleep. Did I mention my brother Reuben had just left minutes before I went to bed? I called him back, in my panick I did what I knew how.. Call for help! I began gathering cameras and Diana called the mid-wife. We both had thoughts of going back to sleep, me because I was tired and Diana because she thought it might be a false alarm.
By about 3:30AM we were checked in and in the waiting room. Diana asked for the epideral and received it shortly after. The nurses that were there should have been a good foreshadow for us of things to come. We asked how long it would be and they gave us the worst case slow scenarios.
Reuben was in the waiting room charging camera batteries and I was texting the family and then later calling home to let everyone know where we were. Could this have been the day? I always had it in my mind the day I would spend several days at the hospital welcoming these babies to this world.
Family begins to show up, and mom didn't forget to call Grandma Martha. She had asked a few days prior to make sure and call her for the birth. So exciting the family is here the epideral is done and i'm..... Falling asleep. I take a quick nap, and then put down a few Coca Cola's to wake me up.
It's about 7:30 or 8:00AM and the mid-wife is finally arriving, she comes in and inspects Diana. Somewhere in this inspection there are is hospital "blues," given to me and i'm told to suit up. Because the babies are babies and not a single baby we have to deliver in the "O.R.," funny I still don't know what that stands for. To the boys if you ever read this, the room was white just like the TV room on the original Willy Wonka movie. Diana hits the right measurements for being dilated and it's gametime.
We are walking my life down the hall and steering her bed around corners to get to the O.R. All my fears are top of mind, she needs to come through this safely and so do the babies. Everyone has there advice and the most recent advice a person gave me was "follow the babies," meaning after the delivery just go wherever the babies are. We arrived in the room and I was surprised as they were still assembling the table. The nurses were asking one another how to install the stirrups on the table and seriously it made me even more worried.
Labor isn't anything like what they show in the movies, atleast for Diana it wasn't. We were fortunate enough to have attended a breastfeeding class the week prior, however we failed to attend any birthing classes. As soon as things were underway it was sad to see Diana having to learn on the fly how to "push." I could tell she was doing everything she could to deliver the babies but was fruitless for quite sometime.
Let me just say how it was so there is no question of how Greg Lobato helps his wife deliver a baby. My contribution was holding her head up when she was pushing. Holding her hand, standing by her side and focusing intensely on her face. My love for her grew exponentially as I was finally realizing what she had done to create life. It should be known that Diana is stronger than I ever will be and that I owe her everything for her going through the battle of labor for our family.
Julian Gregory Lobato - 10:15AM 09/23/2010 5 lbs 2 oz--- We didn't know what his name would be and we often referred to him as Baby A. I was able to hold him briefly before they took him to the NICU to make sure everything was good with him. Oh did I mention we didn't know what the babies would be until birth. Diana set her mind to it that we wouldn't find out until then. "It's a Boy!" My focus was returned to Diana - remember and if I didn't say this before my biggest fear is losing Diana.
Leon Gregory Lobato - 10:35AM 09/23/2010 5 lbs 14 oz--- Leon was delivered and unfortunately they took him straight to the NICU, I was unable to hold my second boy. I was happy that he was being given the care that he needed.
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| Diana Chavez Lobato |
Diana Chavez Lobato -- I stayed with my wife, not that I didn't want to follow the babies but because I wanted to let her know that I'm always going to be there for her. I will never leave her side and i'm sure as scared as I was, she had just done the unimaginable. We waited they fixed her up nice and then we took her back to the room. She did it, we did it, she did it! I knew the boys were in good hands and I felt like a ton of bricks had been lifted from my chest knowing that my wife was going to be okay.
The time between getting back to the room from delivery to about 5pm I have forgotten. I remember around 5pm we still hadn't seen the boys, and Diana was fed up. We had made several attempts to visit them in the NICU but September 23rd was a special day and about 5 babies including ours decided to make their debut. We finally were able to see the babies, they were completely different. There is definitely no way of mistaking one from the other, and we still had no names at this point. I don't know what it's like to be a twin and I never will know. However, I know how good it feels to have an identity and to be my own person. With the boys both being incredibly good looking and still different they were going to be lady killers.
We had a lot of visitors that were waiting to see the twins and had been waiting all day. So after we were able to see them we brought the caravan in to meet the new Lobato's for the first time. I hope the boys know they were welcomed into the world by the best family that has ever been. Like many other children born, they also had parents that were bursting with love for their newborn.
I'll do my best to prepare myself to be a good father for them, Diana is a natural I knew she would be a good mother long before we even got married. Diana is just that once in a lifetime kind of person. Today and the day the boys were born I knew they were lucky to have a mom like Diana. I'll work hard to be the best I can be as well.
