august & eve’s first day

i am finally starting to dig myself out of the mountain of photos i have to go through from the first six months of august and eve’s lives. there’s lots of reasons i’ve let it pile up – the chief being the demands of caring for four small children day in and day out! but also, i think i’ve put it off because it is painful for me to realise how much our babies have grown. i look at pictures of them as brand-new newborns and my heart just breaks. i think i did pretty well – as well as i could considering the situation with two babies and also two big boys – at cherishing these perfect tiny humans and all their fleeting newness, but it could never be enough. today i feel like i would kill to hold gus or evie in a little ball on my shoulder, feeling their breath on my neck. every stage is so great and the twins are so fun right now, but man, they’ve grown quickly. so i’m trying to approach this catch-up chronicling with gratitude that special, special newborn time happened, not with sadness that it has passed.

here’s some photos and memories from august and eve’s first day alive on earth. the twins’ birth story is here.

minutes after our twin two was born, a quarter of an hour after her brother. we had some lovely time to hold our babies skin to skin and revel in the powerful miracle we had experienced together.

here’s our setup in our labour room. this photo is taken from the big birthing tub, which i still can’t believe i didn’t end up using (i loved labouring in the pool with gabriel; this time i just couldn’t summon up the energy or break my focus to ask for the pool to be filled!). we brought the ball and some blankets and the fairy lights and it was a cozy little corner.

after a couple of hours we were transferred to the postnatal recovery area. in england when you’ve given birth on the nhs (using the national health service), a recovery room on a maternity ward is shared by 6-8 women and their babies, separated by curtains. it’s pretty tight, and pretty loud! we were eager to get home, especially considering that ian would have to leave overnight due to covid regulations. we ended up leaving the hospital just before visiting hours ended; 24 hours after we’d arrived and 12 hours after the babies were born.

honestly, i spent most of the time we had in the recovery room taking photos of the twins. and i definitely feel like i didn’t take enough, ha!

these photos show august and eve’s personalities that shone through from their very first hours – august soooo chill and eve sooo curious with big wide eyes taking in the world. in fact, i wasn’t surprised to see this when they were born because baby girl was super active in the womb and baby boy was really relaxed and often worrying me with his lack of movement.

the vast majority of our time post-birth at the hospital, these two were cuddled up together snoozing. sweetest, sweetest.

for all the joy and thrill and wonder of august and eve’s birth day, i think perhaps the very most joyful, thrilling and wonderful part was introducing moses to his baby siblings when we got home. we were expecting that both big boys would be asleep when we arrived, but i think mo’s excitement had kept him up. this boy is definitely the most animated, expressive person i’ve ever met … but i’ve never seen him more unbridled and effusive than the night he met august and eve. he was bursting with joy.

first he held baby sister:

and then baby brother!

and then both baby sister and baby brother! he delighted – i mean delighted – in their every – i mean every – move. those few minutes were and perhaps will always be the sweetest moments of my life.

gabriel did sneak out of bed but was very, very timid about the babies – like almost scared. “gabes, do you want to hold them?” “noooooo.” “do you want to touch them?” “noooooo!” he warmed up gradually but pretty rapidly – that first night was just mostly about moses and his babies 🙂

and also the babies and their dotting grandparents, who had been in england for five weeks before the birth, waiting the arrival of grandchildren numbers 33 and 34. moses gave each baby a little stuffed animal for their photo with g&g 🙂

after we all got a bit of sleep, gabriel was ready to get near the babies the next morning. all four kids piled on the couch with daddy and we sang “happy birthday” to august & eve (who, at that point, were just “brother” and “sister” – they were nameless for about a week!)