My Birth Story: Delivering Twins

When I found out we were expecting twins, one of my concerns was labor and delivery options. Twin or multiple pregnancy is considered high risk so there are various factors that come into play with delivery. With multiple birth, you can never really plan how delivery would go, but one thing I did not want, was to deliver one vaginally and then have the other via c-section (double whammy). I had a pretty uneventful pregnancy except a few scares here and there which I will talk about in my pregnancy blog post later. With my daughter, my labor and delivery was about 28hours. I started praying for a fast and easy labor with my twin pregnancy.

Induction date was set at exactly 37weeks due to baby A had IUGR for most of the pregnancy, so they were concerned about her growth. With twin pregnancy, 36 weeks is considered full term and there were risks associated with going to 40 weeks, so most doctors delivered multiples by 38 weeks. With my first pregnancy, it was barely progressing, so I had to be given Pitocin, that experience was enough to convince me that I did not want to be induced this time. I walked around, bounced on a stability ball, did exercises to go into labor after 36 weeks but nothing worked. 

INDUCTION DAY

We arrived at the hospital on Wednesday evening ready to meet our babies hopefully by Thursday. Thankfully at my previous appointment both babies were head down so I could try for a vaginal birth. However, I had been assigned with a doctor that could do breech extraction if baby B flipped after baby A came out due to having more space. Baby B for whatever reason had flipped back and forth at every ultrasound appointment I had while Baby A stayed head down the entire time.

LABOR

We checked in and filled all paperworks. The nurses and everyone were so over the moon when they heard we were having twins and each one hoped we delivered during their shift. We were moved to the labor room to start to prepare for labor. 

At about 8pm, They inserted cervidil to help soften the cervix for labor. They began to monitor the babies and my contractions. Being that it was twins and baby A was quite active and moving a lot, it was hard to monitor and hold the sensors on my belly throughout. Some hours later contractions started, they were quite bearable but got intense about 6 hours later. I also began to have intense nerve pain in my right leg, they gave me some Tylenol to help with the contractions and leg pain, but it didn’t help much. At some point I started crying and Goke who was trying to catch a few sleeps woke up and was trying to help me through it.

At about 4am, the nurse came and saw me crying, asked if I needed more pain meds to which I said yes, she eventually came back and said my doctor had approved the epidural and asked if I wanted it now. Of course, I do loll, with my daughter’s labor, I had refused the mention of epidural in the room for about 12 hours before I finally caved in). I got the epidural and immediately felt so much better. 

At about 8am, they started the Pitocin to move labor along, my parents and brother also came in to join the labor wait party lol. The doctor came in several times and I was still at 4cm dilation. I was not allowed to eat anything besides ice chips and jello which tasted awesome at this point. 

My doctor was apprehensive about breaking my water because she was concerned if she did so, baby A who had IUGR may not be able to handle the contractions. She therefore let me continue labor by upping Pitocin all day. Eventually they paused the Pitocin when I maxed out on it, then started all over again, this sometimes helped the body rest and helped things move faster. Although this was not the case with mine. My parents and brother eventually left. Around 11pm, I was still at 4cm, the doctor decided to give me till 6am at that point she will break my water and we may have to do a c-section. 

I was finally able to get some decent sleep in between the nurses coming to adjust the babies sensors. At about 3am, I was watching a movie and realized all this while I had not really prayed to move from 4cm, I said a quick prayer and kept watching the movie. 

BIRTH

At about 4:30am, while the nurse was adjusting the sensors, I felt a lot of fluid down there, I called the nurse’s attention and told her I thought the catheter had busted and my pee was coming out. She laughed and said well it was most likely not my water (at this point, everyone had written me off and figured I was either going to end up as a c-section or continue labor for another couple of hours). She checked me and said it was my water that had surprisingly busted, then she put her hand to check dilation, she immediately looked shocked and paged my doctor asap to tell her she could feel baby A’s head! The doctor was super shocked.

Now it was time to wheel me into the operating room (twins or multiples are usually delivered in the operating room in case anything goes wrong and they need to do an emergency c-section). Hubby had always wanted to wear those blue overall and finally got his chance. 

My doctor was rounding up a c-section, so we had to wait a while in the operating room for her. The operating room was full of so many people, as each baby had their own set of nurses. The room was FREEZING, and I was shaking uncontrollably, they put warm blankets on me even though they didn’t help much. Hubby was scared watching me shake so much and at a point I was closing my eyes to rest, he kept saying “Don’t sleep o, don’t sleep o” in Yoruba. Now if you watch Yoruba movies you know why lol. 

Finally, it was time to start pushing, my doctor was finally here, and she instructed me to start to push when I felt a contraction coming. At this point my epidural was wearing off and I could feel all the pressure and burning down there. I pushed a few times and baby A was out, then I went back to 7cm dilation and we had to wait to progress back to 10cm. We waited about 30minutes, during this time they began to feed baby A some formula as she was smaller and they were not sure how long it will take for baby B to come out.

Then my doctor said baby B’s hear rate was dropping and she may need to do a vacuum to bring him out, she began to say the risk of brain bleed when suddenly his heart rate came back up thank God. Finally I was able to push and after just a few pushes, he came out, mind you he never flipped or needed any intervention. Definitely a miracle birth. It ended up being a labor of about 32hours but it was all worth it.

HOLDING OUR BABIES

They took both babies to clean them up and wheeled me back to the labor room while we waited for my postpartum room to be ready. I was finally able to carry both babies in my arms to nurse after all these months. All the numerous doctor visits, scares, urgent calls etc. were finally all worth it. We made it to 37 weeks of pregnancy and they both required no NICU time and I was able to have them both vaginally as I had always prayed for.

Twin pregnancy labor and delivery