The hospital camera adds ten pounds.

I was up at 4:30am to take Madge to HUP. She had a procedure today- the moles on her fanny (actual fanny) she had removed a month ago didn't have definitive borders so they wanted to go back and get a little more skin to make sure she didn't have cancer...on her fanny. Nothing like talking about your mother's fanny. Gross.

She lead me to believe it was less of a big deal than it was...we got to the hospital and they explained how the general anesthesia would affect the rest of her day. Wait, what? She's going under? Uh, Ma- and you wanted to take the Market Frankford line?

Madge, ARE YOU NUTS? Rhetorical.

So, back to the significance of February 17, 2010. Flash back to July 28, 2009. Many of us were celebrating my husband's birthday on this day- it was his 29th. Lauren called me just HOURS before we went to the bar to find out that she was pregnant. I was thrilled for her. At best, she was nervous. It was NOT planned-but nothing good ever is, as far as I'm concerned. She and her new-ish boyfriend were just about to move in with each other. She was excited about the progress of the relationship and was a little concerned how quickly this would force things to progress. To add a little more insult to injury, the day before Nan was found dead in her condo- passed from natural causes in her sleep. Although it's never easy, the blow of the passing of our grandmother certainly was softened at the discovery of the babe on the way...

Nan always had a funny, backhanded way of complementing a person- and I appreciated that she told it like it was (whether you wanted to hear about it or not) in a way that was unique to her. She promised that she'd dance at our weddings and when the time came, wished that we'd each have a baby one day...just like us (I suppose in retribution for all of the heartache we caused our parents.) Unfortunately for my sister Lauren, Nan didn't get to see the fruition of these promises come true while she was still with us...or so we think.

In October I got a call from Lauren. Although we were fighting something fierce, she called a truce just long enough to tell me that she was not expecting one baby, but two. I kidded with her that Nan was with her- and that she wasn't going to have just one baby just like her...but she'd have TWO just like her. And I thought she deserved every second of it ;-)

Lauren's water broke on Sunday night, February 14th. She was 33 weeks and 3 days pregnant. The goal was to try to keep the babies in until Thursday- 34 weeks is a pretty good week as far as gestation goes. Lauren called me on Tuesday to explain they were going to induce her at 9pm- and that usually the babes would arrive about five hours later.

Todd and I got to the hospital around 11:30pm on Tuesday night. we all sat around basically biting our nails listening for people walking by hoping they'd bring us news. Shortly after 1, Big Todd (note to reader, Lauren's BD's name is Todd also. My Todd = Uncle Todd, Her Todd = Big Todd- he's 6'7") burst through the doors informing us baby A was a boy. Fifteen minutes later, baby B arrived and was a girl.

Rewind an hour and a half. Although waiting to hear about a baby is really the only news you need, I was relived and happy once midnight hit. You see, Nan's birthday was February 17th. And now so are Caitlin and Jacob's. Nan didn't get to dance at Lauren's wedding...but they will whenever that day is.