Milo and Fizz make their grand entrance - eventually!
Since Ellizabeth's twins were her seventh and eighth babies, she reckoned on a fairly quick birth. Her twins, however, had other ideas!- Induced on Friday the 13th!
- They wouldn't budge!
- The babies couldn't understand why they had been disturbed!
As soon as we knew at 12 weeks that we were expecting twins, we knew that this would be no ordinary pregnancy or birth. We were not disappointed! Excessive sickness and total fatigue gave way to constant worries about lack of movement. Then there was the diabetes and anaemia to deal with. When I got to 32 weeks, there was the danger of cord presentation ...
Despite all these concerns we surprisingly made it to 36 weeks, with the consultant booking an induction date for two weeks' later. This was not to be, however. I had already developed constant itching and believed it to be a side effect of the drugs given to help the babies breathe, should they be born early. It turned out that I had obstetric choleostasis and was asked to come to hospital on Friday 13th, at 36 weeks, to be induced as it was important these babies be delivered asap.
These being my seventh and eighth babies, I naively thought I would be holding the cherubs sometime Friday eve. The prostin pessary, designed to get things moving, simply sat in my body achieving nothing. I slept in the labour suite overnight and repeated the process of induction again on Saturday morning. Still, by mid-afternoon, no progress! The babies were still too high up to attempt breaking my waters (remember the cord presentation threat?) and they were refusing to budge downwards.
By teatime, the midwife examined me and thought I had progressed far enough to go ahead with the epidural. She thought I could expect to have the babies by late into the night. I had the epidural fitted - something I have never wanted or needed before - but this was NOT a 'normal' delivery because there were two babies not just one! It helped me rest as the contractions were now every five minutes but not achieving a lot at all. A hormone drip was put up after inserting another pessary early Sunday morning, hoping to get things moving. I had started taking antihistamines by now to control the itching as I was drawing blood!
The babies couldn't understand why they had been disturbed!
By 10am on Sunday, no progress had been made and baby one had actually moved right up into the uterus. There was no way he was going to engage again. The consultant suggested upping the dosage on the drip, expecting junior to take advantage of an invitation to come out. Guess what? An hour later we were getting no where, and I was exhausted (and hungry). It was agreed that the big boss would need to be consulted, but I'd already decided that I was not going to hold on any longer. I actually wanted a c-section! Shows how tired I actually was!
Within an hour we had been whisked to the theatre and Daniel made his appearance at 1.35pm, followed by Zoe at 1.37pm. I did not enjoy the experience at all. I can't say it was completely without pain but the anaesthetist was brilliant. The babies were absolutely oblivious to the whole situation, simply couldn't understand why they had been disturbed!
Where to next?
- Read the full birth story
- Read accounts of different types of birth
- Read accounts of other caesarean births