independence day for twins!
spamelita on Jul 04 2007 at 6:23 pm | Filed under: birth story
the twins were born this morning!
mom’s water broke night before last, around 10.15pm with no contractions. she continued to leak fluid yesterday and started having contractions every 3-4 minutes around 1 pm. I arrived at her house at 3pm.
At 9.30 last night, she asked to be checked. 7-8cm, head of first baby very low.
Contractions continued through the night, but were irregular in frequency and intensity. Asked to be checked again at 7.15 this morning - 9cm with baby lower. Mom said she was done. Wanted to go to the hospital.
Arrived at the hospital, nurses were supportive and really hoping for a vaginal birth. mom wanted a cesarean.
Baby boy A, Samuel, weighed in at 6lbs 9oz. Baby boy B, Ezra, weighed 6lbs 6oz.
They are beautiful.
Send love and healing energy to this new mom as she recovers from the birth and starts her journey with these two sweet boys!
ETA: To answer some questions, mom’s labor just had some difficulty staying strong. In the morning she admitted she was fighting it and even after offering some herbs to get her to sleep (though she had been sleeping between contractions as much as she could) and then maybe do some stuff after that, she said she wanted to go to the hospital.
I think if she could have been given an epidural (they didn’t want to because she was so close to birthing), she would have taken it. Instead, she was struggling with not eating in 18 hours and having low fluid intake, etc.
What was interesting was the doc that did the cesarean and the nurse that was with us both had twins - the doc started noticing that she was keen on “wanting this over with” and began talking about quite possibly how her uterus was “too tired”, etc., and this further confirmed with mom that a cesarean was what she wanted.
I have theories about what could have been going on, but most of it is confidential and while mom said I could share her story, there are some things that I’d rather not reveal.
How do I feel about it? Like we did everything to support this mom and have her lead her labor/birth. I am disappointed, of course. I think it’s important that all women go as far as they’re ready to with birth and then are listened to regarding their needs…even when those needs are different from ours.
i am glad her babies are here and safe and beautiful. Will you tell us why she wanted a c? How was this for you?
Oh man! I’m so happy the twins are here, but I was so hoping for a homebirth… I don’t know… It doesn’t make sense, but I feel cheated somehow, and it wasn’t even my birth!(?) I don’t know any of you, so this feels very strange. In any case, love and healing energy on the way to the twins and mama!
I am so thrilled to have found you. I can’t even remember how. I’ve been interested in pregnancy and labor and delivery for a long time. I’m not a mom, yet. I had to quit nursing school due to illness but, I’ve always wanted to be a midwife.
I really like the way you stated your final comments about how moms need to be supported to go as far as they can go, and listened to. I am a doula who has been practicing for over a decade, and I’ve been struggling lately with a spate of clients who have had cesarean births. It’s so hard when you know you have supported a woman in what she felt she needed and wanted at the time, but in retrospect, a year later, she looks back and wishes it could have been different. It seems to me that supporting a woman through the long process of integrating a birth experience into her life is such a vital part of being with women at birth. I love your blog…thanks for the good work you do!
Oh, my heart goes out to this mom. Seems like there is even more added pressure with unusual births like twins in the natural birth community to make it happen, you know?