Twins Birth Story!
I love birth stories and wanted to share the twins with you. I do want to preface with a couple of things. If you follow me on social media, you know that I take self-care seriously. And in this pregnancy more than my others, I got serious about taking a lot of vitamins, taking care of my body physically, having a positive mindset and advocating for the birth I wanted all the way through. This included hiring a doula for the first time! I think all of this may have made a huge difference in the outcome I had. I’ve thought about it a lot and I don’t think this was all a coincidence. God definitely made it possible, but I do also believe that there are things you can proactively do to increase the odds of having an awesome delivery!
So, with that said, I’ll start this story with a bit of a backstory. My second baby, Mary was a C-Section, so now all of my pregnancies are considered vbacs (vaginal birth after cesarean). When my last baby, Ethan, was born, our local hospital was not allowing first time vbac patients. So, we decided to deliver him at Bell Hospital in Ishpeming so that I didn’t have to go through another C-Section. At this point I really really wanted to have a natural birth. I hadn’t done it yet though, so I was willing to travel to ensure that I could try. (Read more about Ethan’s birth here). After Ethan’s successful natural delivery, both Matt and I were hooked. My delivery was way better and quicker. I recovered a lot more quickly. We left the hospital 24 hours later. It all added up to ‘Yes! Let’s do it like that again!’
I found out we were having twins on December 16th. To say I was shocked may be an understatement. I swore at the doctor and bawled. The fear hit me like a ton of bricks. Matt on the other hand was soo excited. He couldn’t stop grinning. It just sounded like so much work- and overwhelming! After the shock wore off, I decided I still wanted to have these babies naturally, if possible. At first, the doctor thought we could deliver our twins naturally at Portage Hospital (close to us), as long as the babies were healthy. Then, after a meeting with colleagues, it was decided that I would be a mandatory C-Section if I delivered there. I was pretty disappointed, as I felit like they weren’t looking at me as an individual and more making the decision out of fear. But, I called Bell Hospital and again, they agreed to deliver me! After we figured that out and as the months went by, I started to get excited. Especially at the ultrasounds. They were always super healthy, doing well and active. I began to become a lot more thankful that everything was going so right in my pregnancy! For me, it felt like a normal pregnancy. I didn’t feel way bigger. I didn’t feel super sore or tired either. At the end I was definitely more tired, but that is to be expected. I had some aches and pains but it wasn’t consistent. Massage and chiropractic care kept me feeling awesome!
The waiting game started earlier this time, but my husband Matt works out of town- so that added a bit of stress. We did have a game plan for our doula, Anna Kangas, to drive me down to Ishpeming if he was gone, but having your husband there is important! He is gone for nine days at a time and home for five days straight. I have never gone early with my other babies, but I didn’t know what would happen, we were having twins! So every time he was home, I would hope and hope for labor to start. It never did. I had lots of braxton hicks, but it never turned into anything. So, on June 8th, we headed down to Bell Hospital to be induced. I was nervous about being induced, as I’ve heard other people’s experiences with pitocin that weren’t great. Mostly just that it can make labor feel so unnatural and a lot harder. But, 38 weeks and two days was as far as they were willing to let me be pregnant, so I headed to be induced. I did have contractions on the way down to Bell, but just light ones. I slept most of the way down there to keep my energy up as much as possible. We arrived at 6am, checked in and got settled into our room. The doctor came by to check me, I was surprised that I was already dilated to 5cm! Half way there and not feeling anything yet. Not bad. Anna arrived at the same time pitocin was starting at about 8:30am. We all settled in and got ready for a day of labor! I didn’t have any pain medications, I wanted to wait and see how the pitocin went. If it got unbearable I wasn’t against the idea of getting an epidural, but I also really wanted to have these babies on my own as well.
As the day started, I didn’t feel anything with the pitocin. Eventually I started feeling slight contractions, but I could hardly tell. It was amazing because Anna would tell me, “You’re having another contraction.” I would reply with, “I am?” And she’d say, “yes, your foot just twitched and you tensed up slightly.” I was blown away with her intuitveness. At this point I was sleeping on and off for a while, as I didn’t know how long of a day we would have. The night before I hadn’t gotten much sleep because I was so excited. Yes, I get excited for labor! Back to labor, it continued to progress, but was very manageable. I didn’t have to breath through contractions at all, I just enjoyed the process.
We had the most amazing nurse, Ev. She allowed me to get up and walk, bounce on the ball and just be out of bed. I wasn’t able to do that last time, and it was such a huge game changer. Everytime I got out of bed I thought labor had stopped because the positioning made it that much easier for me. But, they were still being tracked consistently on the monitor! I also loved Ev because she didn’t stress if one of the babies monitors slipped off for a few minutes, or make me get back into bed. She would come in only after a little while of one baby being off of the monitor. At one point, I labored on a ball and while standing for a while. It was starting to amp up at this point, but the contractions still weren’t really painful. I would go into a zone with each one and just relax into them and let them wash over me. Anna laughed at me one time, when after a contraction I said, “Wow! That was a good one!” Not hard, or painful, but good! Haha! It was around this point that Ev had put my pitocin up to 13, but the contractions were on top of each other at that amount, so she dialed it back down to 11. I had told her she didn’t need to, they weren’t painful, but it isn’t good for previous c-section scars to be under that much stress.
I moved back into bed after this. I wanted to rest again. I didn’t know why, but now that I look back at it, it must have been my body intuitively telling me things would be happening soon. My doctor was making her rounds again, so I decided to get checked. I told her, “I’m not feeling much, and am definitely not near active labor, but I just want to see where I’m at and if I’ve progressed at all.” I thought I would maybe be a 6, but when she checked me, I was an 8!! I was completely shocked. I had also told Matt that I would get my water broke if I was an 8, which he promptly reminded me, so I did. This was at about 12:30pm, four hours in.
After they broke my water, they knew it could progress quickly, so they started getting everything ready to bring me to the OR. Delivering twins in the OR is standard procedure with twins. That way, if anything goes wrong, they are right there and ready to do a quick C-Section. They especially wanted to do this because I am a vbac patient. Also, Gus (Baby B) was breech, so that added a dimension. If he didn’t flip after Hallie was delivered, we had agreed to deliver him breech, but also could have also resulted in a C-Section. So, I got rolled down to the OR. There was so much going on around me. At this point, I was so thankful to have read the book ‘Hypnobirthing’ by Marie Mongan, as I just zoned everything out that was going on around me and focused on breathing and rolling with the contractions. There were so many people (Matt and I counted about 15 people in the OR later on) getting ready for our babies to arrive, but it didn’t bother me in the slightest. Between contractions I would look around a bit, then go back to my zone. Contractions were getting more intense at this point, but I was still able to breath through them and not feel overwhelmed by them. I still felt in control. Between contractions, I transferred over to the OR table. Then, transition started. Transition is so intense. This is when I started grasping Matt’s hand, breathing hard. But, after the first hard contraction in transition, I told Matt, “She’ll be here in the next few contractions.” I was on my left side. In the next contraction I could feel her coming down quickly and told Matt she was coming. Our care team quickly got me onto my back and with the next contraction, Hallie Kathleen was born at 1:32pm. Matt laughed afterward saying that the nurse was still trying to get the end of the bed off while our doctor was catching Hallie!
Right after Hallie was born, our doctors immediately tried to get Gus to flip with external version. It was pretty intense, but not unbearable. But, after a few minutes of trying unsuccessfully, they gave us a break. Gus’ heart rate was dropping so they wanted to give him some time to relax. For those few minutes of rest, I was able to hold Hallie. That was amazing. Then, I handed Hallie off while they tried one more time to flip Gus. As they pushed and pushed on my belly, without him flipping, I could see the doctors start to look at one another, like “Okay, what do we do? Are we actually going to deliver this baby breech?” At the same time in my head, I was thinking, “Oh it’ll be okay, don’t get stressed.” A few seconds later, Gus kicked open his water and our doctor yelled, “he broke his water! Oh there’s a foot, here he comes!” After one hard contraction, his body came sliding out (Anna coined Gus coming out “slip and slide style”, LOL!), then with one more push, so did his head. He didn’t let anyone get stressed. Instead, he made his own decision and came feet first. Gus Jacob was born at 1:43pm.
I was ecstatic to be done and to have my twins here! We were able to delay cord clamping with Gus and I just snuggled him for a few minutes. The best. Both babies were looking great! The nurses kept telling me what good job I did, I just grinned. I had a natural twin delivery! I had a breech delivery! My twins were healthy! I just lie back and enjoyed the moments. Both babies were taken to the nursery to be checked over and weighed. We had two big (for twins) babies. Hallie came in at 6lbs 9oz and Gus was 7lbs 11oz. When Ethan was a baby, I had told Matt, “someday, I want a little baby! A 7lb would be so little!” (Our smallest had been 8lbs 10oz before the twins). Well apparently I needed twins to have little babies!
After the babies were born and we settled in, I was able to rest and later on take the bath I always take postpartum. It feels amazing! We let our families know and enjoyed those fresh baby snuggles. It was so cool to hold two babies at the same time, there is just no way to describe it. The only pain I had was from my uterus contracting down! Oh, and nursing. Those first couple weeks are so painful!
Our babies didn’t need any nicu stay or anything. Gus had slightly low blood sugar, but after one dose of glucose, his numbers went right back up to normal. I figured we’d be in the hospital for a few days, but that night they asked if we were ready to go home the next day! I was shocked, so I told them I would let them know. But, the next morning, I knew I wanted to go home. So, after the 24 hour testing came back normal, we took our twins home. We were so so thankful to be leaving the hospital 24 hours after birth, with our healthy twin babies. My pregnancy, labor and birth (except for the 33 week hiccup-see Instagram for that story) couldn’t have gone better and we knew to appreciate it.
I’ve been told that my story is somewhat of a unicorn story for how well everything went. However, I do believe that trusting in God’s plan, having a positive mindset, envisioning an amazing labor and delivery, self-care, vitamins, staying active and more also have something to do with it. I know that every labor and delivery is different. I know that not all deliveries go as planned. Everyone has their experience and that’s amazing. But, you can also advocate for yourself and give yourself better odds of having an amazing pregnancy, labor and delivery. For me, I was aware of what could have happened. I didn’t ignore it. I acknowledged all of the possible outcomes, but didn’t dwell on them. Instead, I chose to focus on what I did want. With God’s grace, we are so so blessed to have had the experience that we did. And we are eternally grateful for that.
Since their birth, Hallie and Gus have been the best babies. They are so content and sleep well. I healed super well too. Matt stayed home for the month to help me, which made a huge difference in my mental sanity. We were able to do tons of beach days, get house projects done, visit family and most importantly love on our babies and kids together. Matt travels for work, so he will be leaving next week again, but I am feeling ready now. That month was one of the best of our lives! Another thing to be thankful for.
I had mentioned in one of my posts a few weeks ago that I was going to try placenta encapsulation. I did do it! I personally, have been loving it. I call them my happy pills, because if I miss a day, I notice a lot of anxiety creeping in, which was normal for me to get after other babies. It was never debilitating, but not having it this time made such a big difference! I just take a couple capsules right before bed, with my other vitamins. If you are local and want to try this, I hired Melinda Britton with Marquette Doula’s to encapsulate for me. She came right to my house, which was super convenient. She is super professional and sanitary. I would highly recommend her if you want to try this!
There you have it, my experience on birthing twins. We are amazed how well it went despite some of the risks and chances of a nicu stay. So grateful to have healthy and happy babies!
XO,
Nikki
