Some of the babies first photos

The birth of Ryah and Luca

As thankful as I was that I made it to 37 weeks (on the dot!) in my twin pregnancy, and that my water had broken on it's own, it was also one of the most stressful situations I have ever been in! (I can only think of one time in my life to rival this!)
After arriving at the hospital, I was happy to see that Dr. Keever was the OB on call. She supported my decision to try to go it naturally, and offered to call Dr. VanDuuren for me. Since he had the most experience delivering breech twins, he would be the one for the job. But she voiced to me that she was concerned that Ryah was still feet down, and that I was not dilating at all. She said that in her opinion, a c-section would be the safest route for the three of us, and then left me to decide. It was the hardest decision I have ever had to make in my life.
I spent 9 months preparing for a natural birth. I even considered home birth before I knew that it was a high risk twin pregnancy. Of course I knew that c-sections are common among twin moms but I was set on defying the odds. I have a most wonderful friend who happens to be a doula, Logan. She had helped to prepare me for what was to come. She was going to be there with Josh and me to get us through the most painful time in my life. I was even praying that they would not make me deliver in the OR like they typically do, and that things would go so smoothly that I would have the chance to hold and nurse my babies right away.
After an hour of deliberation, and the pressure of knowing that they needed to call in an OR team or Dr. VanDuuren, I took Dr. Keever's advice with a broken heart. The risks were just too high in our situation to justify putting the babies or myself at risk. It turns out (thank God) that I made the right decision.
Ryah's umbilical cord happened to be wrapped around and in between her legs. This would have prevented her exit from the womb. They would have been forced to cut the cord prematurely, leaving her without oxygen during the birth oft he rest of her body and head. As much as I wanted a natural birth, I know now that if I had gone that route it very well might have ended in an emergency c-section anyway, despite my efforts. That would have been twice as stressful I think.

Here is my account of the birth of my babies:In the delivery room, I met the anesthesiologist (wow I spelled that correctly on the first try) Since I hadn't prepared for an operation and had eaten and had water recently, they had to give me some very sour medicine that was supposed to help avoid throwing up. They got me started on an IV and got Josh into a set of scrubs. I was then wheeled to the OR area with Josh there by my side. Apparently though, he was not allowed into the OR until they had completed my spinal and were ready to start, so in I went, all alone.
From the moment that my water broke, I became so nervous that I started shaking violently. It was as though every muscle in my body was tensing as hard as it possibly could, causing me to just shiver uncontrollably. That was probably the most uncomfortable part, and because I was still in early labor I never felt any 'real' contractions.

Once in the OR, the anesthetist and his assistant started engaging me in conversation to help easy my shivering. They asked what type of music I wanted, and I remember saying "I get to choose music?!" and they said "Yeah! We have satellite radio!" So I promptly said "reggae!"
They asked me to sit on the edge of the table, and gave me a pillow to hug. They said to hunch my back over as far as I could and to hug the babies. This would allow a space to open between my vertebrae which is where they would inject the spinal. The Dr. saw my treble clef tattoo and as he worked we talked about music. I told him about how I was a music major in college, and he told me that he played the cello. "That is my favorite instrument!" I said. "I even had one at my wedding." I recall that the spinal did not hurt at all. Perhaps my view of pain had changed since becoming pregnant with twins, because the spinal was less painful than sleeping had become!
They had warned me that once the medicine was in place that they were going to ascend on me. And they did. Suddenly, I was on my back, readjusted and lots and lots of people were now around me quickly getting prepared to operate. I am glad they warned me because otherwise I may have thought that something went wrong. They actually strapped my arms down at the side since my upper half was still mobile, and I was still shaking and chattering violently.
They FINALLY let Josh in, and it was the most welcome distraction of my entire life.

I recall that at one part, my heart began to race, causing me to feel out of breath. I said something out loud and the anesthetist told me she had injected my IV with epi, because my blood pressure was dropping, but that it was normal. I kind of wish that she had told me ahead of time, because it almost caused me to panic and think I was dying. Perhaps she didn't tell me for that very reason though.

After lots of tugging and pulling sensations, they announced that if Josh wanted to see, he should look now. He had always thought that he wouldn't watch, but his curiosity got the best of him! It is one of the only times that I have ever seen a tear in my husband's eye! I recall very vividly that as Ryah began to scream (the most beautiful sound ever!) The Jacob Miller song "Tenement yard" came on. Then I heard Lucas little voice, slightly lower in register than his sisters.

They quickly showed me each baby before taking them over to where Josh would cut the remainder of their cords, and watch them be weighed and measured.

Ryah was bigger at the time, at 6 lbs 5 oz and Luca was 5 lbs 13 oz. (Oh how quickly that would change!)

Twin Pregnancy Time Lapse

So luckily for me, my twin pregnancy was (relatively) uneventful. The first 25 weeks were peachy, really. I gained about 60 lbs with the babies. As you can see in the illustration above, I made it a very deliberate point to document the pregnancy as best I could. Look at the jump in size between weeks 15 and 17. Look at how my stance gets gradually wider all the way to the end. I am so glad that I took the time to track my progress in time lapse.

Toward the very end however, I developed some mild high blood pressure, so I left my job at the Mountaineer Publishing Co. to go on bed rest. Bed rest sucks! By week 35, my mom traveled from the Piedmont to help out since Josh works 45 minutes away, and it was getting more and more difficult for me to maneuver and move around the house. I even needed help in the tub because once I was down, that was it! I remember one day when I was down on the floor cleaning out bunny's cage, and I thought that I was going to have to call Josh in from outside to help me off the floor!

It was a blessing to have my mom around to help me. In the last week of my pregnancy, it became too much to even sit up. Doing so made my blood pressure rise, and I was doing everything in my power to make it until my water broke on it's own. I had some fear that they were going to schedule me for a c-section, or try to convince me to induce because of my borderline pre-eclampsia. After going into the hospital on Chritmas Eve (at 33 weeks) with some false labor pains, I was still not dilated at all but having almost constant painless contractions. They ordered a fetal fibronectin test, which came back negative. I still can't believe that I made it a full 28 more days until my water broke! It was the longest 28 days of my life.

Mom helped me when the nesting phase hit and I was not able to get out of the bed. She helped organize the nursery and deal with the daily stuff around the house like cooking and cleaning and making sure the rabbit was fed. I stayed in the bed, and very occasionally on the couch until week 37 on the dot!

The week before the babies were born, I was into the doctor every other day until they arrived. On the Tuesday before, Dr. Modugno was suggesting that we schedule a c-section for Friday. I was not at all happy about it, so I agreed to come back in on Wednesday to discuss it with my regular doctor (Dr. VanDuuren) He was very awesome during the entire pregnancy with my decision to try to deliver twins on their own time and without intervention. He assured me that he had delivered plenty of sets of twins without problem, even when baby A was breech on some occasions. Ryah was indeed breech and was showing no signs of flipping. He agreed that Wednesday to let me hold out as long as I was monitoring my blood pressure frequently and would come in immediately if something alarming happened. My water broke that night!

So eeaaarrly on Thursday morning, around 3 am, I woke up to go to the bathroom, and as usual, it was torture getting out of the bed. It took all of the strength in my arms to lift myself up. I soon discovered that my water had broken! I told Josh and decided to lay back down, then get back up to make sure. It really had broken! The babies got to choose their own birthday after all!

Twins?! Wha!?

Well, it has taken until now (that the babies are five months old) for me to finally get up the nerve to finally write up my birth story. It did not end up as I had intended and I guess it has just taken me a little while to come to terms with how it all went down.

I will start with finding out that we were pregnant. About a month after returning home from our honeymoon to Cancun, I had a little hunch. My hunch was correct! After a minor freakout, a call to my friend Mandy, and about 7 BFPs later, it finally hit me that I was pregnant. Josh was right there beside of me for those few days of "that looks like a line? Is that a line? I think that's a line... is that a LINE!?" and while we were not trying NOT to get pregnant, we certainly didn't think that it would happen immediately after our honeymoon!

So I schedule an appointment to confirm the pregnancy. I go by myself that day, because I really just thought they would take a urine sample and say "yup, you're pregnant!" which I already knew. What I did not think would happen, is that they would ask to do a dating ultrasound that very day. "Well, alright!" I say.

The only thing that I have ever had an ultrasound for in the past was my gallbladder when I had it removed. Needless to say, it looked nothing like this:


When Shea said "oh my..do you see this? Do you know what that is?!" and I replied "ummm are there supposed to be 2?!" to which she replied "well...you're 4 weeks pregnant with twins!"

So after picking my jaw up off the floor, and heading out to my car, I realized that there was no way that I could make it all the way to the end of the day without telling Josh. I didn't want to call and tell him to come how now, or he'd think that something was wrong. So my option was to call and tell him. It went something like this:

Me: Are you driving?
Josh: No..why?
Me: Are you sitting down?
Josh: No, should I be
Me: Maybe so... it's twins.
(long silence)
Me: I know. I'm freaking out too. I can barely drive.
Josh: Are you joking?
Me: I am serious as a heart attack, I have the ultrasound right here to prove it.
(I hear Josh's women co-workers in the background wondering what is going on)
Josh: Ummmmmmm
Me: I know. Come home as soon as you can

So that was the beginning!
From that point forward, I lived for the two babies in my belly. Twins run rampant in my family, so I knew that it could happen, but really never expected it to!

Read on for more ultrasound photos and pregnancy stories and pics!