The snowgoose need not bathe to make itself white. Neither need you do anything but be yourself. – Lao-Tse
I arrived at the hospital at 7:30 am for a scheduled induction. I had to have monitors attached to continuously monitor the babies’ heart rates and my contractions. This meant that I was pretty much confined to bed for the whole experience. I was about 2 cm and 80% effaced. The Pitocin drip started at 8:21 am. As had been the case during my NST’s we had a hard time keeping Baby A’s heartbeat on the external monitor because she was down so low. My OB came in, and we decided to break my water so they could attach an internal monitor to Baby A. She broke my water at 8:52 am. I felt a warm gush of liquid. My cervix was 2.5 to 3 cm, 85% effaced, and Baby A was at -2 station.
I thought I might have felt my first contraction around 10:30. I was dilated 4 + cm, 98-100 % effaced, and Baby A had moved to zero station. I was very excited by my progress, but my contractions were becoming increasingly painful.
I asked my family to leave the room at around noon because I was having really strong contractions and I wasn’t getting a break from them. I was in more pain than I have ever felt before, so I asked for an epidural. The anesthesiologist came in to insert the epidural around 12:30. I had to lay on my side curled up as much as possible around my almost 39 week twin baby belly while dealing with extremely painful contractions. Wei-Yand stood in front of me and held my hand. Getting the epidural wasn’t really painful (although I did feel a bit of pain from time to time), but it was uncomfortable. I could feel pressure and brief shoots of pain. I was told that the epidural could take about ten minutes to take effect and that I could expect the contractions to start feeling shorter and less painful. Ten minutes came and went, and the contractions were only getting worse. The anesthesiologist had to redo the epidural, this time with me sitting up. Apparently, he had to go in really deep (12 cm!), and the first one wasn’t deep enough. I finally started to feel relief at around 1:15 pm.
I let my family come back in the room, and they were surprised by how calm and happy I was. I was so happy to not be in that much pain any more, that everything was great. My OB came back to check on me at 2 pm, and I was complete! 10 cm and fully effaced. I labored down to get ready for pushing.
I had to deliver in the operating room because of the increased risk for an emergency c-section with twins. We did a few practice pushes in the delivery room, and then we were ready to move to the OR to start pushing. I was wheeled to the OR, and Wei-Yand got dressed in his OR gear and met me there. There were quite a few people in the OR. We had the anesthesiologist, two OBs, a team of nurses for each baby, a respiratory therapist, and a few other nurses for me. The epidural was still blocking all pain, so I couldn’t feel my contractions.
I only pushed through three or four contractions, when I started to feel pressure to push. After two more contractions, Harper Charlotte entered the world at 4:43 pm. She let out the cutest little cry and Wei-Yand cut her umbilical cord. OB #1 showed her to me before Harper was taken over to the warmer to be checked out. I sent Wei-Yand over with her to take pictures, and I kept trying to lift my head as much as possible to see her. She was such a good baby during the examination. She hardly made a peep. She weighed 6 lbs 6 oz and was 21.5 inches long.
In the meantime, OB #1 performed an internal to determine Baby B’s position. OB #2 performed an ultrasound. OB #1 was concerned because she felt a hand presenting rather than Baby B’s head. OB #2 confirmed that Baby B’s head was a little off to the left of my cervix. Baby B was still pretty high up in my uterus, and her bag of waters was still intact. The OBs discussed whether to break my water and see if her head would move down and her arm would move out of the way. The problem with this option is that if her arm came down first, I would require an emergency c-section.
Wei-Yand brought Harper to me, and I got to hold my sweet baby girl for the first time while we waited to see if Baby B would move into position. The OB’s decided to break my water, and the nurses prepped the room for a c-section. This was a little scary because I really didn’t want to have both a vaginal birth and a c-section.
OB #1 broke Baby B’s water. I didn’t feel anything this time. Luckily, Baby B’s arm moved out of the way, and her head moved into position. Unfortunately, she was still high up. My contractions slowed down, and I moved back to the laboring bed and asked to feed Harper. My nurse helped to position her, and I nursed her for about 20 minutes. The nurses had restarted the Pitocin, and nursing Harper helped increase my contractions. I noticed that I could feel the contractions again, and we realized that the anesthesiologist had turned off my epidural. A little after 6 pm, OB #1 decided I should push again to see if Baby B would move down further into the birth canal. However, Baby B had a different idea. Every time I pushed, she slipped up rather than down. OB #1 presented the option of performing a c-section, but since the baby and I were both doing fine, I wanted to wait to see what would happen. My nurse was great; she was a real advocate for giving me time to see if Baby B would move down. Since we didn’t know how long it would take for Baby B to move down, we decided I could move back to the labor and delivery room to labor down. At around 7:30, the anesthesiologist bolstered my epi, and I held Harper while we moved back to my labor and delivery room where my family was waiting. Everyone was instantly in love with her. She slept almost the whole time while the family passed her around because everyone wanted to hold her all the time. At about 8:00, my cervix had dilated to 10 again, and Baby B was at 0 station. I nursed Harper again to help increase the strength and frequency of my contractions, which I again couldn’t feel.
It was time to push a little after 9 pm. Since I only had one baby inside me at that point in time, OB #1 decided I could stay in the labor and delivery room for the delivery since it was the equivalent of a singleton pregnancy. I decided to let my mom stay in the room with me and Wei-Yand. My mom held one leg while I pushed, and Wei-Yand stayed up by my head to support me. I only pushed for a few contractions, and Tannah Claire joined us at 9:21 pm. She weighed 7 lbs 7 oz and was 20.5 inches long. My mom said that Tannah looked at her as soon as she came out, and Wei-Yand cut her umbilical cord. Tannah was just as perfect as her twin sister, and I can’t imagine being more in love with them.
The four and a half hours between my girls was very long, but worth it to me to have the delivery that I wanted. I think my Mom jinxed us because earlier in the day she had asked how far apart twins usually were and what was the longest the OB had seen between twins (8 hours!).
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