For hosp births of twins-birth in Oper Room?

Yup, I had the same problem. I went to 40 weeks, no problems,
twin A head down and ready to go. Even though my OB, who
I'd shopped around for carefully would have let me, hospital policy
wouldn't allow me to stay in the birthing room. My OB would
have let me stay in the birthing bed, though after they wheeled me in
the OR. But when I arrived fully dilated my own OB couldn;t get there in time. The on call guy was very conservative., and I wound up flat on my
back on the hard, cold operating table under the bright lights, arguing
the whole time, practically spitting fire. Well, if they'd let me do my
own thing, those babies would have been out quick as a wink...in a
sitting position it had been all I could do to hold them back...but
I pushed for over an hour and eventually Twin A came out just fine.
I'm still convinced Twin B would have turned on her own if
they let me walk around, but again, the OB and the huge staff of
doctors in the room won the argument and she wound up a "breech extraction", meaning they pulled her our by the feet. This was extremely
painful for me (while they had their hands up there, trying to grab her feet), wound up breaking up my placenta, and my baby wound up with a
birth injury to the nerves in her arm (since healed). *BUT* I didn't wind
up with a c-section or any meds, even with the anesthesiologist standing
over me like the grim reaper the whole time. AND I got two beautiful
healthy, vaginally birthed babies weighing 8'7" and 9'3". It could have been
a lot worse. Still, sometime I want to have a fourth child just to be able
to finally birth the way I know I can!

My advice, assuming a home birth is out of the question at this point,
is to really get your doctor on board as much as possible regarding issues
like: must you actually be on the operating table? can you still move around? what happens between twin a and b, can you take a break to
be with A? (In my case a was whisked away, against my wishes). Get it
in writing, with docs sig (although this didn't help me, it might sway someone for you).

Good luck! You'll do it.

YES :

Their explanation to us was the whole "just-in-case B's stuck" allopathic nightmare scenario...sigh

After knowing this policy, we changed the birth plan to make it as comfortable as we wanted it without getting lawyers involved...lol
We closely looked at their legal jargon (FIL is a lawyer) and found any spots we thought were kooky, and called them on it.

Birthplan - We very clearly specified items we cared about and made all the people who would be present read them. especially the peds team who would assist in the "resuscitation room" ugh.
others included: DH would always be with them, they would not be bathed ~ leave the vernix, no eye crap, no shots, nothing in their mouths and they would nurse IMMEDIATELY, my hands would not be tied down, I would not get any morphine or drugs that would enter breastmilk and no unexpected procedures would be performed without our consent on the boys or myself in the OR. They followed it. I tandem nursed the babies while they closed me up, much to the anesthesiologists dismay...hahaha.

so unfortunately, I had a csec due to transverse breech on both.
I still have grief over it, but that's just me...luckily I had whipped them all before going in. I was walking around within 3 hours, though.

Wave that birth plan around, whether you go to the OR or not.

Good Luck, Mama....it will all be fine!

Maya

Thanks for the support ladies!!

kesmith - Great weights on your babes! Thanks for sharing your story. I've added your list of questions to my current list. Thanks for the ideas! And I'm glad you got to go vaginal if nothing else. BTW Helena was on my list of girls names. Love it! But I'm going with Angelena instead - nn Lena.

Maya - That's awesome you got to nurse while they closed you up! Way to be persistent! I just added more items to my birth plan. I just don't get the 'Just in case B is stuck' thing. I mean a singleton has the same chance of getting stuck don't they? My ds was 8lbs12oz and once I was fully dialated he came right out. My twins aren't that big so they should be able to pass thru pelvis just fine. I guess they think the cervix will start to close after Baby A is born??? :

I just hope I don't go into labor tonight before I get a chance to hash this out with doc. I've been so concerned with other aspects of what's going on with the babies and me that I let this part slide.

Thanks again and any more input is welcome!!

37w4d today!

YEP - us, too, it's so ridiculous My doctor agrees with the ridiculousness of it but it's hospital policy and couldn't be avoided. Having said that, it went fine for us. I arrived at the hospital at 8cm, spent about an hour in the birthing room and then went to the OR when fully dilated. It was all set up for a c-section, including the extra staff but my dr shooed them all out, dimmed the lights and we continued as if we weren't in an OR. We had a great birth and stayed about 36 hours in the hospital. The hospital stay was okay though we had to ignore a fair bit of bad breastfeeding advice

wow! i am so impressed with all of your birth plans... i did not know what i was doing at all, and after we found out we were having twins all my ideas of what i wanted just kind of went out the window and i just blindly trusted my OB... (where's the "cringe" smilie?? : ) i also was told i had to birth in the OR from the very beginning... hospital policy, etc. my water broke at 36 weeks and the baby A was transverse-breech so we ended up having a c-section in the OR anyway. everything was fine until right after they lifted micah out (baby A) when they shot me up with something that just messed me up... i don't remember much of anything else after that until post-op where i spent an hour shaking uncontrollably. no one brought babies to me until four hours later a nurse came in, woke me up and asked me if i was going to breastfeed and i think i said yes because the next thing i knew she had jonah in one hand and my boob in the other and was practially shaking me trying to get me to wake up saying, "if you want to nurse these guys honey, you gotta snap out of it..." then, to top it off, some other nurse came in while i was still really woozy saying she needed my signature on something which turned out to be an authorization for both boys to have Hep B vac which i did NOT want them to have! so now that i've rambled way off topic... (sorry... ) i would absolutely check to see that it is ACTUALLY hospital policy that you must birth in the OR... our OR was literally 10 feet away from the birthing rooms, so i don't think, had i been able to have a vaginal birth, that there would have been any real reason to birth in the OR. these are not your first babies and you haven't had problems... i would fight them on that one. also, i would definitely have someone along to be your advocate in case for some reason you do end up having a c-sect. i really, really wish i had told my mom (dh was so enamored with babies, he wasn't paying attention to anything else. ) what i'd wanted and had her stay with me and make sure people respected my wishes because i was completely unable to fend for myself.

so how did your visit with your doc go??

Hi Carmella

Today is your DueDate, so wanted to send out some hugs and hope you are doing well - email me if you need anything!

Maya
[email protected]