[kristimon]

I'm expecting my first babies in March and would love to talk to as many moms as possible who have birthed twins naturally. I have some questions, and would really just love to hear your stories, advice, and experience. Respond, e-mail ([email protected]), or chat (yahoo ID steve_said_so). I look forward to hearing from you!
Thanks

Kristi

 

[JoDoula]

Congrats! I had a wonderful natural birth with our twins. My story is not up on the website yet, but my doula/good friend's is.

Hughestwins.homestead.com... homestead is experiencing some tech difficulties, but try it later. Best of luck!

 

[mommybritt]

Congratulations! I also had an amazing natural birth with my twins

I'll e-mail you the details when I get a sec.

 

[ElizaBird]

I'm planning to a home waterbirth of my twins early this february. It's great to know there are actually lots of other mommas out there doing this. It's totally possible and NORMAL, just surround yourself with people who only have good things to say. It's easy to get paranoid about all the supposed risks, but listen to your body and your intuition and your midwife/doc, you will know what and how to do it. Congratulations on your baby blessings!
Eliza
homebirthing momma of twins EDD 2/9/05

PS- for a little story- i know a woman to had her twins at home at 40 weeks, first baby was breech, second baby was transverse, and eveything went beautifully and everyone was healthy! yay. good luck.

 

[JoDoula]

Eliza- That is awesome! Our homebirth with our twins was so amazing. I was 39 weeks 6 days and my first baby was vertex, and my other was transverse. I had 3 wonderful midwives and it went as smooth as could be! Are these your firsts?

 

[fernlink]

I had my twins naturally and it was wonderful. I had a homebirth with my first born. I was seeing a midwife when I found out I was carrying twins and because she was not comfortable with a homebirth more than 30 miles from a hospital, I choose to have them in a small town hospital. I worked with a doctor who is a friend of mine and the new nurse midwife. I wrote a birth plan and the nursing staff really read it and help accomodate me. They helped me blow up a swimming pool so I could labor in water as I had with Gavin. We agreed to compromise on some things. I would also run some things by my homebirth midwife. It turned out great and I wouldn't do anything different, even though I was really sad to give up my homebirth dream.

Good luck!!!

 

[milk4two]

Congratulations. I'm planning to deliver my twins at home next month.

 

[veebee]

I gave birth naturally to my identical twin boys almost exactly 7 yrs ago!!!
My older daughter was born in a free-standing birth center, quickly and easily at 37 weeks gestation.
I planned a homebirth for my second birth, but found out at 24 weeks gestation that I was carying twins. My homebirth midwife was not comfortable attending twin homebirth, so I transfered care to a CNM at a Baby-friendly hospital. Despite their best efforts to "mainstream" me as "high-risk", I managed to get an agreement to a basically "hands-off" approach. They were willing to do Baby B vaginally if he were breech (he had been bouncing up and down from vertex to footling every other visit!). After having regular u/s and Non-stress tests for a few weeks, I got fed up and stopped having them.
At 37 weeks, my water broke. Contractions started within an hour, and we did the half hour drive to the hospital with my mom and daughter. Dh met us there. My homebirth midwife was my doula, but she missed the birth!

Unfortunately I was required to birth in the OR and I did consent to a hep-lock, but other than that, I was free to labor in my room, move around, get in the tub, drink/eat, etc. (hand-help doppler rather than constant EFM).
Both babies were vertex (yay!) and born 4 hours after I arrived at the hospital. I was zoomed to the OR when I was complete and had the urge to push. Baby A were born less than 20 minutes after I got the OR, then Baby B was born 13 minutes after. They weighed 5-13 and 5-7 (which was more than my single who was 5-7).
We went home less than 24 hours after their birth. Breastfeeding went great and they nursed exclusively until 6 months, and naturally weaned before their 4th birthday (about 6 weeks apart).
The first 2 years were very challenging (although the challenges were frequently changing!)--and it got gradually easier through that time. Now that they are almost 7, it is such fun! We homeschool, and they love having a best buddy around! It's easy to forget that at 18 months, it was constant draining work.

As far as that natural birth of twins, it can totally be done! I am a doula and I was at two twin births last year. They were as different as night and day. Each mother had her own priorities and world-view. One had a quick vaginal hospital birth, the other had a long induction and epidural, with one vaginal birth and one cesarean births. Both were satisfied with their births.

One more thing--if there is one big thing that carrying, birthing, and parenting twins has taught me, it is that we do not have control over many things in our lives. Control is an illusion, for the most part.
Planning every detail of our lives (or birth) is not a productive use of our energies. What is valuable is delving deeply inward to explore our internal resources, as well as gathering external resources. Knowing that you have a bundle of coping skills is what will get you through birth and parenting 2 babies.
Knowing that I cannot control life, but that I CAN deal with whatever comes my way is the greatest gift that my twins have given me.

Feel free to pm me, if you want more info! I am a doula, IBCLC, and childbirth educator.

~Veebee

 

[kesmith]

Congratulations! I'd hoped for a homebirth, but DH was opposed to it with the twins. I found a good doc and had a good (if insanely uncomfortable at the end) pregnancy, going into labor at 40 weeks 0 days. My labor was quick and easy (esp. compared to my older daughter's birth, which was induced with pit and long and painful). We got to the hospital with me feeling the urge to push. They made me birth in the OR, and because it all happened so fast, my own doc couldn't make it in time and I wound up with the very conservative on call doc. Luckily, he was open to arguing with me, so I avoided lots of routine interventions, and was given no meds. It wasn't quite what I'd hoped for but did have unmedicated vaginal births. Twin A was vertex...after he'd come out, they "tried to turn" Twin B (who was tranverse)...I still think it would have been better to let me walk around and see if she turned herself....but eventually, they pulled her out footling breech. But both were born vaginally and were healthy (although my breech daughter did have an injury to her arm, it was basically paralyzed but this resolved itself in a few weeks). Unfortunately, they whisked both babies away and I didn't get to see them for a few minutes, which definitely wasn't my plan, but I was too caught up in everything to argue for them to be with me. Twin B's placenta had broken up (probably the doctor's "trying to turn" business caused it), and it was pretty painful getting it manually extracted afterwards. Also, all my arguing (and probably the placenta extraction pain) caused my blood pressure to go through the roof at this point, though it'd been steady all through the pg. So I wound up magnesium *after* the birth, which really sucked. Luckily, when my own doctor finally arrived, he ordered me off it, so I was only on a few hours instead of 24.

Things never go quite the way you expect, but if you advocate for yourself,
you can optimize the situation and definitely, unmedicated vaginal birth is possible. But unfortunately, I have come to believe that the only way to have a "natural" birth, especially of twins, is to do a homebirth.

 

[msrog]

here's mine: http://www.mothering.com/discussions...ighlight=twins

My contractions were so manageable that I thought I was in early labor until I was on the toilet and needed to PUSH. Maybe it was so easy because they were smaller, or because I was sitting here at the computer on a birth ball, or because I had read more and knew what was happening better...??

I also would have loved a home waterbirth, but couldn't. dh opposed, didn't know providers here who would...

I had a good birth plan, too. My doc agreed to let me push in the l/d room, as long as it was the one across the hall from the OR.

The whole thing was so easy! I was quiet and smiling through pushing out the twins, but yelped when I got a couple stitches. The placenta was huge.

 

[hotmamacita]

i don't have my story up anywhere...been a bit busy.

anyway, in brief, went past due date...daughter was born frank breech, 8 punds 3 oz, ..her bro was born an hour plus later...footling breech, 8 pounds, 10 oz..some breathing complications...awesome midwife...no need to transfer...stayed at home in small apartment...

 

[ElizaBird]

Kristi- hope all is still going well with your pegnancy and babies. I just wanted to report that the birth of my baby boys went really beautifully, we had no complications, and though i labored hard for 17 hours, all i have is great memories of the experience. the midwife was wonderful and the whole thing was so empowering. Turns out i got out of the tub to finally push the babies out, but it was great to have it to labor in.
Orion James Murphy was born january 27th at 9:02 am 6lbs 10oz
Jonah Green Murphy was born january 27th at 10:15 am 6lbs 14oz

Blessings and best of luck to you- Jonah is waking up, i gotta go.
-Eliza

 

[johub]

It is now mid march so you have probably already delivered, but I had a pretty good natural birth with my twins so I wanted to share.
I had hoped on a homebirth with this baby and was planning to switch to a lay midwife from my cnm who had attended me during my last birth at a freestanding birth center.
But at 28 weeks I was measuring really big and at 32 weeks I was diagnosed with twins. In my state lay midwives are licensed, which is good, but it is bad that the state then decides what they can and can't do. Well they are not licensed to attend twins in my state. I didn't have time to find someone willing to skirt the system so I stayed with my cnm midwife and planned to deliver at the most natural birth friendly hospital in my area. (the midwives had been "training" the staff there for years)
I still had homebirth on my mind and I Hated hospitals so much that I really hoped for a "quick" labor and an "oops, we didn't make it on time" unassisted homebirth. I probably would have done it too if I had gone into labor on my own.
Anyway when I hit 40 weeks and hadnt delivered yet I agreed on an induction. I really didnt' want one. but I had spent that past 5 weeks waiting to go into labor "any second now" and I just couldn't take any more. Add to that the backup OB had wanted me induced at 38 weeks so I was pretty lucky I didnt have to fight to go as long as I did.
I had tried everything at home by the way. Walking the zoo, sex, black cohosh, castor oil, evening primrose oil for weeks along with red raspberry leaf tea.
So we checked into the hospital with my birth plan a mile long.
My doula was there with us too.
I did get induced so I had an IV and monitors whether I liked it or not. But I did not let that keep me in bed. Just like at the birth center. I walked around. I danced with my DH to music we brought. I tried a birthing ball to labor on, I moved around a lot. I ate and drank whatever I wanted. (no ice chips for me).
When the babies came I insisted that I have my DH, my doula and my MIL in with me and I also insisted on staying in the LDR room. We chose a day when the backup dr would be agreeable to this.
Both babies were vertex and Aidan was born after only about 10 minutes of pushing. My ctx stopped a short while and we cuddled and nursed. His cord clamping was delayed a little per my instructions and I even nursed him for a couple of minutes before handing him off to DH. The staff did try to put him in a warmer but I made sure MIL stayed right with him. No baby was allowed to leave the room or get any treatments without my explicit permission.
I had to push about 30 minutes for Branwyn, and that was the worst part because they had to increase the pitocin because my contractions werent strong enough and I had to push with almost my own force. She was really high and they had the doppler pressed to me the entire time. (that was a PAIN, but at least no scalp electrode). But she came out and went right to my arms too.
The babies were never taken out of the room or even handled by the staff.
I nursed them right away and dh even took off his shirt to warm Branwyn to keep her out of the babywarmer.
Everybody we cared about was in to watch.
We left the hospital about 20 hours after the birth.
There were a couple of thigns I would happily have done without. But for having made those compromises in agreeing to be induced, I think things went particularly well.
Oh and no epis either with the twins.
Part of me still wishes I had waited it out and done it at home, but I am ok with it.
Joline