November 16, 2013. The Boys are Born.

We are at the Pavilion for Women at Texas Children's Hospital. The boys are both delivered in the OR on the 9th floor. 

5:20am Charles George Fitzpatrick is born via natural delivery weighing 1lb 8oz.

7:26am Henry Michael Fitzpatrick is born via c-section weighing 1lb 9oz

Boys are immediately placed in the NICU on the 8th floor and Aly is taken to the 12th floor to recuperate. 

There are plenty stories to be told about that day but we are writing to give people updates on how the boys are, so I will stick, mostly, to those details. Dr Marvelous (a name that will come up again and again) went through the same procedure for both boys; get them resuscitated and get lines in them to feed them etc. We were warned that surviving being born was one of the big hurdles that the boys were going to have to get over, so it was a very scary time. Joyous, of course, but scary.

When Charlie was born, Aly was taken back out of the OR to her room. In the prologue that we haven't written, we will explain more about the plan but, briefly, we were hoping that the labor would stop after Charlie was born and that Aly could keep Henry in for a bit longer. So, I went down to the 8th with my new baby boy and Aly was left to try and hope that the contractions stopped.

They didn't.

After Henry was born and stable, he was wheeled in to see Aly before being taken to the NICU - the first time Aly got to see either of them.

It was a crazy and stressful journey but we were parents now and all the hoping that they wouldn't come early was replaced with hoping that they can survive.

Once she was well enough, Aly and I took a trip to the NICU to see both boys and then Saturday ended with us both sleeping in Aly's room on the 12th floor with our two little boys asleep down on the 8th.

Below is a photograph of Charlie as soon as he was born. Dr Marvelous described his skin as "terrible".

This was taken when Henry was brought in to Aly's room;

(D)