Well, the twins are officially one month now, so I suppose it’s time for me to come out of hiding. By hiding I mean not sleeping.
I cannot TELL you how thankful I am now that they were born the beginning of March because shortly after, this quarantine took effect. My midwife is being flooded with people who want to do home-births now because some of the hospitals here are not allowing anyone to accompany the mother in labor. Most of them are allowing one person (like a spouse) to be there. The worst part is that, if the mother had not recently been tested for the virus everyone is concerned about, her baby will immediately be taken and isolated. She won’t be able to see the baby for TWO WEEKS, or at least until the test comes back negative, which is typically five days. My heart goes out to those that have to birth in a hospital right now. Back to my birth story..
I had envisioned birthing my twins in the comfort of my own home, waking up the next day in my own bed, being able to shower in my own shower, and the freedom to labor however I wanted with little intervention. Many of you may have seen a previous post found here regarding some of the things I was doing to prepare for this birth.
But I guess we all know that things don’t always work out as planned. At about 35 weeks I had a blood test done and it confirmed I had developed a condition in this pregnancy called Chloeostasis. I guess it’s more common with twin pregnancies because the mother’s kidneys and liver are filtering for 3 people and can get overloaded with hormones and bile.
Upon this discovery, our birth plans had to change because of the added risk. We were able to speak to the Doctor our midwife recommended over the phone and go over our thoughts and fears of birthing in a hospital. I had met with him several times prior to this diagnosis for good measure. I knew he was special when my daughter pointed out the Young Living oils in his office and my son noticed a singing bowl. This doctor was a perinatologist that specialized in breech births and high-risk cases. He put to ease a lot of our concerns about birthing in a hospital and upon the completion of that phone call, and we both realized that we were definitely in the right hands.
Oddly, the week prior, I had gone to get a manicure and pedicure at this organic spa and the lady that did my nails had just birthed twin boys three months ago and had him as her doctor as well! She told me her labor story, which included the second baby being born breach. These were her first and will be only babies.
I felt like I was very gently being led down this path, which makes me think of the verse in the Bible Isaiah 40:11 when it says that, ‘he gently leads those with young.’
The biggest risks with this diagnosis are stillborns and postpartum hemorrhaging. The risks dramatically increase each week after 36 weeks, so we needed to make a decision on whether or not we were going to induce and what that would look like.
We went ahead and decided to induce because I had two more blood tests taken and they both showed a dramatic increase in the problem. Within less than one week, my levels went from measuring 10, to over 100!
I was hoping to push off an induction because the longer I waited the easier it would be to induce naturally, and I didn’t want any added chemicals to my body, because I know it’s very difficult to get that stuff out of your cells long-term, and then it would also be a much more painful route. There are studies done by a terrible man named Alfred Kinsey that showed that when the hormone oxytocin was used along with opioids (epidurals), that it would provoke cross species mating urges and promote homosexuality in animals. I definitely didn’t want to go that route. Clary sage essential oil is a much better option, as it is a bio identical oxytocin stimulator, and I was taking large amounts of it, but because I was only 36 weeks, it was not enough.
We were admitted to the hospital and began signing all the paperwork. Travis extensively read through the piles of paperwork and we ended up refusing some things and crossing certain pieces out. Did you know that it is standard for various organs to be harvested out by hospitals and even sold? I had learned about this through stem cell research and lo and behold, the paperwork we were about to sign would’ve given the hospital the legal rights to do whatever they wanted with our placentas and cords after birth. So I’m sure during the process of us revising all of this paperwork and then agreeing upon it, we fondly became “that couple” to the staff, haha. What was amazing was that the nurse that initially gave us the paperwork to sign actually agreed with us and didn’t even realize a lot of these things were written up in this paperwork.
There are very few options to getting induced. I chose to get pitocin. The nurses told me that the highest level they will drop the Pitocin is a 10 for someone who has already had a c-section before, but my Dr. ended up allowing mine to go up to a 20, which was max for anyone and I also wasn’t given any liquids to dilute it. If someone is not in a crisis situation like I was in here, I would highly suggest never going this route. One of the problems with using Pitocin, which is a synthetic version of the hormone oxytocin, is that it makes the mother stop producing her own oxytocin. I really noticed this after the birth. It can lead to problems breast-feeding and bonding, which thankfully was not the case in my situation, but I did notice that the high that I usually get after giving birth, where I feel like I could take on the world, did not happen this time.
After this experience, I was convinced pitocin was a 4 letter word and I could completely see why even the most determined woman would chose to get an epidural. The babies were born 28 hours after the pitocin started. In my experience with natural labor, especially during my longer labors, my body would sort of, give it self a little bit of rest and space out the contractions. with these induced contractions, they were every two minutes and extremely intense. No rest.
When my doctor arrived to check me I was at 7 cm, almost 8 and it was very discouraging to me because it was so long and painful. Then, the coolest thing happened. My doctor several times referred to a term he called “Grand Multipara” which refers to a woman who has given birth five or more times. So this is what happened:
The staff began prepping for delivery, which included transferring us to the OR, which is now hospital policy for twins to be born in. My Dr, however had been delivering twins in the birthing rooms for 25 years. When they told me we were ready to go to the OR, I told the staff I was "not going anywhere", which was firmly echoed by Travis. As they left the room and were scrambling to figure out what they were going to do, the Dr. (kind of) jokingly told me I’d better start pushing before they got back. In all seriousness, I asked him if I could really do that, since I was only dilated to an 8, instead of a 10. He said that I could because of my “Grand Multip” status. He used to practice up in NY where there were many Jewish people with large families and he was very familiar with helping women with this badge of honor.
So without even feeling an urge to push, I did. As hard as I could. The Dr. guided me through the pushes and it didn’t take long. He used his hands to help stretch me out a little bit and I was amazed that he basically just coached us through it and he even had Travis mostly deliver the baby! What an experience!
He told me prior, that if I had wanted to keep the cords attached for a while, I absolutely had to hold the 1st baby while birthing the 2nd or he couldn’t do it. I will talk about lotus births in another post. When Travis placed the sweet, warm, slimy baby on my chest, it was the best feeling, but I wanted them both out ASAP! I asked the Dr. how I could get the 2nd one out. He laughed and said, oh, you’re already ready? That was answered with a resounding YES! He said he could break the water and get things going and that I could just start pushing.
Baby “B” was completely breech. The Dr. stuck his hand up there and broke the water, which came gushing out like he said it might. I began pushing with everything in me and to my surprise, a head began to surface! The baby had completely turned on it’s own! Baby “B” ended up being born 5 minutes after his brother. I was completely amazed!
He was then also placed on my chest. Both babies looked SO healthy and were very alert! As I was discussing with the doctor and midwife about birthing the placentas (which were still intact) the most amazing thing happened! Both babies, on their own, inched their way up, attached themselves and began breast-feeding! Everyone in the room was astonished! They were very strong for not only being twins, but also being born one month early!
I was completely drained because during this process I lost an alarming amount of blood, which is a risk of the chloeostasis. Once the placentas came out, the midwife put them in a container and stayed near the babies and advocated for them. She also kept a very close eye on me because the nurses kept trying to sit me up and move me down to the baby floor, but every time they tried to do so, I nearly passed out. Thankfully, because of Travis and the midwife, they allowed me to sleep. I slept for about two hours straight, without even being washed off, covered in sweat and yuck. That sleep was so so so important. They did not end up being able to move me down to the other floor until about eight hours after the babies were born, which is very unusual.
We had requested several different types of supplements and things for my mother to bring and she came to the hospital at this point. I immediately started taking stuff, which made a dramatic difference. by the next morning, I was finally able to sit up OK. Still slightly dizzy, but the more time went on, the better that got. At around lunchtime I was able to actually stand up a bit. Travis and I were both so very thankful and amazed that the doctor agreed to discharge us that afternoon, so we were able to go home 24 hours after the twins were born! Huge answer to prayer!
I have seen Travis in numerous highly stressful life and death situations. Oddly, we have found ourselves witness to, or arriving upon the scene of many accidents, and Travis is always the one that immediately takes charge of the scene with his cool calm and collective nature, prays over the people and gets everybody the help that they need. I was super thankful for his strength and levelheadedness in this entire situation. I was also incredibly thankful that the doctor was the same way. Apparently before becoming a doctor he was special ops in the military for quite some time. Both of these men were cool as a cucumber during what could’ve been a fairly frantic situation. I’ve never had a more “risky” birth before, but I really feel because of the strength and demeanor of the key players, it ended up being a very smooth, beautiful process.
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