Life after Mariage: July 24th 2016, the twins birth.

So i had Twins!!! Often that statement comes with the stats of having had them premature in the hospital.. luckily that wasnt the case for us.
Many of you read our post from Emeryns birth and know we had her at a birth center, and that was great. We tried to go that route again but found that they had to abide by hospital rules for multiple deliveries as they could provide prenatal care but not delivery at the birth center for the twins... unfortunate.
so we tried to see an ob closer to home, figured if we had to fight hospital policies might as well be at home and not an hour away. I started with talking to them on the phone and was told they agreed that as long as there were no complications in the pregnancy they would let me go natural. But alas a few weeks into their care I was informed that "as a practice" all the docs there decided I had to have an epidural with a twin delivery, so I started looking for another option again. ( i have a fear of needles by my back ever since having a spinal tap as a kid, so epidurals just made my blood pressure soar)

My sister found a midwives group that did multiples, and after interviewing them and getting to know them some we decided to plan a home birth. To be honest I was getting more hands on care with them than I was at the obs office. the midwives spent an hour each apt and touched and felt the babies move. and on top of that I was having regular ultrasounds at the hospital to keep track of babies positions... but I recommend the website spinningbabies.com, it teaches you positions and exercises to help encourage babies into ideal positions, which is what I felt helped the most....

well, since I had Emeryn at 38 +3, we thought i'd have the twins just as early if not earlier. So my wonderful Mom came out when I was 36 weeks, after spending time at my brothers helping his wife after surgery, so she was already tired of traveling, lol. And the babies decided to stay put. two weeks went by with my mom in town and I still had no contractions. My back was starting to ache a slight bit more than usual so I did joke with the midwives that it wouldn't surprise me if it happened this week, and my main midwife said that was awesome as long as it wasn't sunday cause she really wanted to go to a wedding. Saturday night I went to bed about 9:40, about 11:30 I woke up thinking that was kind of a strange pop sensation. so I got up to go to the bathroom. I felt a little drip drip and thought I really needed to pee and just couldn't hold it, but then quickly realized it was my water breaking. I went back to my room and turned the light on, matt jumped and angrily said, "what are you doing?" haha joke on him," My water broke", he quickly got serious and said," I guess we are doing this"
Matt started working on blowing up the birth pool and we made the bed together with plastic under the sheets while it was filling, and I texted the midwives that murphys law sorry no wedding for them cause I was having these babies. I got in the pool as soon as it was ready cause the contractions were no joke, fast and strong. I sent a few texts back and forth with the midwives for about 20 min before i said it is definitely active labor, and they asked if they should wait or come over. um yea come over!!

it all was a blur after that, matt woke my mom at some point and got ahold of his sister to come take pictures, and the three midwives showed up, and they took over Emeryns room, so it was god that my mom moved her to the spare room. contractions and everything started to feel a little different, and I'm very silent besides heavily breathing through contractions, and i had been terrified of pushing with Emeryn, so i told matt, "get them in here" and the midwives just came in the room as i was starting to push Chloe out into the world. A little over four hours since my water broke! and baby #1 was already here, so fast! 3:46 am. Then it was a blur again as we went from bed to pool to bed to pool again to help baby #2 come. the contractions this time around were only in my back, and my body tensed up with every single one, it was a very physical challenge to make my body try to relax through these contractions, and ultimately we decided to break the second babies water. Once back in the pool i was able to consciously relax and feel myself open and that baby start to come down. At one point he was almost out, i stopped pushing and back up he went. One of the midwives went to listen for the heart beat again to check on him and i said " hes coming next contraction anyways" so they stopped and with one big push out came the little guy at 6:40 am.

i think the worst part though was delivering the placentas because they push on your belly, well this time they weren't really coming so i was moved to the bed where once the placentas came out i started to hemorrhage a little. "Pitocin" was all the midwives said and everyone jumped into action. i was given a shot, and then some oral pills to help stop the blood (which made me really nauseous) and then more Pitocin, and more pills, and then made me drink some herbal tincture (really really nasty) Matt said he never felt worried because they seemed to have it under control. In total i lost about 6 1/2 cups of blood, which they said was a significant amount, and put me on bed rest until they came back, they even wanted me to use a bed pan but that wasnt gonna work, so once i didn't feel to dizzy when sitting up i had matt walk with me to the bathroom.
recovery felt like it took longer for me to feel up to par this time around verses emeryn, and i attribute that to loss of blood.
I would totally do a home birth again, and am so proud that i gave my body the chance to prove that a multiple pregnancy doesn't automatically mean a C-section. babies and my body cooperated and it turned out great! Not every multiple pregnancy can do a home birth, but not every one should be a c section either.
here are some birth pics :)not in any special order :)