On a Life Without Pink - No Girls Allowed

I always imagined myself (if I imagined having kids at all, which I didn't typically) with a daughter.  When my grandmother passed on jewelry to me, I couldn't help imagining passing it on to a future little girl.  I devoted many a free moment in my adolescence and early adulthood writing in journals, and always in the back of my mind I knew I'd pass them on to a daughter.

When I became pregnant for the first time, I was just sure it would be a girl.  After all, I was the first born in my family, and the first born in Paul's family had been a girl as well.

When I found out at the 20 week ultrasound that we were pregnant with a boy, I did have a fleeting moment of disappointment, but by 16 weeks I'd actually kind of already realized I was pregnant with a boy (all those eggs I felt compelled to eat - it just had to be a boy!)

And when Pierce was born I just loved having a little boy.  Sure, girl clothes and names are cuter, but I love playing trains and Diego.  And it's not like pink is my favorite color. 

Fast forward a couple of years to my pregnancy with the twins.  Now, surely, I thought one of them would be a girl.  Or maybe both.  After all, the pregnancy from the beginning just seemed so much easier and different than my pregnancy with Pierce had been.  So at a routine 16 week ultrasound to check heartbeats (my doctor did an ultrasound every visit, because he didn't trust the dopplar with twins) I asked Dr. Harding to peek at the sex.  He found the first one no problem.  A boy!  I held out hope as he rotated the dopplar to zoom in on twin B.  Another boy!  Yes, another second or two of disappointment, but overall I was okay.  I had a boy, I loved my boy, I knew boys!  I could handle boys! 

Paul and I aren't planning on having any more children.  As he so eloquently puts it, once you start popping out two babies at once you get done having kids really fast.  And I am so thankful to not have any more pregnancy in my future.  Done with that! 

My three boys are perfect and I adore them.  We zoom cars and run in circles and have dinosaur fights.  I can't imagine my life any other way.  I read this article sent to me by my friend Ginger about these women who went into huge depressions over having had boys, women who actually said they wished they hadn't had them, that they only wanted girls.  When I read it, I felt such tremendous sorrow for those little boys.  To be unwanted over such a selfish, stupid thing.  Can you imagine?

I'm at a point where I feel like our family is complete, just the way it is.  My boys and I have many adventures in front of us...adventures that don't involve much pink.  But hey, maybe I'll get lucky and one of them will take to horses.  If not, I'm okay with that too (just please please please don't like soccer boys - hello, sooooo boring).  Mentally, I have let go of the wispy image of a daughter.  I have waved goodby to the mini-me idea, and I've made my peace with the lack of pink in my house.

Just one thing though.  Do you think its too much to demand my two brothers present me with nieces? 

On Giving Birth Naturally, Drug Free, to Twins. The Birth Story.

So as I have mentioned before, I wanted to write about my birth story because when I was pregnant with twins all people told me were horror stories.  Everyone I met had something scary to say.  Or at least that was how it seemed.  And I desperately wanted to avoid a c-section - yet out of probably 40 fellow twin moms, I only found one who had managed to deliver without one.  So I want to write my birth story because YES, it is quite possible to give birth to twins completely naturally!  Have a seat and settle in, this is gonna be a lengthy blog.
At 2 am on August 8th (the day after my 13th wedding anniversary) I got up to pee. I was 38 weeks, 4 days pregnant.  So I dragged my whale body out of bed (no small effort).  When I sat on the toilet, there was a gush that was beyond the usual tiny preggo trickle of pee, and I knew then my water had broken. I called my mom and told her no rush, but she should probably head on over from Blacksburg (an hour drive). Then I hopped in the shower. Once I got out, the contractions started. Right away they were about 3-4 minutes apart. I grabbed one of Paul’s t-shirts and a pair of shorts and made my way down to the guest room to wake him up (he was banished from our room at the end because my sleeping was so poor). Every time I would stand up big gushes of water would run out. It was gross. I sat on the couch and waited. Our living room was consumed by the humongous tent that I'd given Paul as an anniversary gift.  It took up the entire living room.  It seemed like a very long time before my mom got there. The contractions were intense. She finally showed up around 3:20. In between contractions I made my way to the car. The drive to the hospital is about 20 minutes, but being buckled in a set position was kind of rough, as was the drive over our mountain – really bumpy! Contractions were 2-3 minutes apart at this point, and lasting well over a minute. Paul was getting very nervous and almost went airborne driving over a big hill on the way to the hospital.  I was like, "Don't worry, slow down, I'm not going to deliver in the car!"  Paul dropped me off at the hospital main entrance and went to park the car.

This hospital is the largest employer in the Roanoke Valley (much larger than where I birthed Pierce) and I had kind of expected someone to be waiting with a wheelchair or something when I walked in the doors. But I guess that only happens in the ER. So I walked in and it was completely deserted. I made my way to the elevators (Labor and Delivery is on the 13th floor). Along the way I had a monster contraction and started hugging this decorative Roman column in the middle of the foyer and moaning. LOL, good thing no one was around to see it. I got up to L+D and picked up the phone on the wall. I was like, “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrgggg I’m in labor, let me in”. They opened the doors and somehow I walked in before they shut on me. I headed to triage.  Finally someone found me in triage (I was making so much noise moaning I can’t believe it took them so long) and they decided to check me right away. I was 4.5 cm. and was like “that’s all?!?”


Paul showed up then and they hooked me up to monitors to attempt to track the babies for 20 minutes. After 10 minutes I was making so much noise they decided to move me to a labor room, even though they hadn't done any of the admittal paperwork or put in the hepalock in case I needed an IV later. My doula showed up at this point. I was hot. Inferno hot.  They told the doula I was 4.5 and she asked them to check again. They did and I was already at 6. I was moaning and panting and sweaty. I asked for ice chips and they showed up right away, thanks to an incredible OR nurse named Madeleine. All the sudden I started feeling the urge to push. It had only been like 45 minutes since I got to the hospital. I was starting to really get loud with verbalization at this point. I was gripping Paul’s hand, the bed, the pillow, anything I could wrap myself around. The doula asked the nurse to check me again and she said, “interior lip”.  Crystal, my doula, said, "You're going to have these babies SOON!"  Slightly delusional, I said, "Really!?!"  They wheeled me down to the OR. With twins, there are so many opportunities for things to go wrong that they require you to deliver in the OR.  I was still in my street clothes...I hadn't even had time to put on a gown.  The on call doctor for my doctor’s practice was not there yet. This was the point where things got a little crazy for me. It was like my body became possessed. It started pushing without me…I was just along for the ride but along that ride I was doing these guttural yells that have taken over my body like something out of the Exorcist. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before…completely primal. The weird thing was...the yelling felt good.  It was the only way of expressing the experience my body had I think.  I heard the Crystal telling Paul (who was kind of freaking out) that the labor had gone so quickly that my body hadn’t had any time to make any natural endorphins and that I had no natural pain relief whatsoever. Meanwhile, the doctor hadn’t shown and the hospital was busy but the twins wouldn't be held back. So in came this young resident who had this look of surprise on his face. He said he was Dr. Johnson and looked a little pale but fortunately the on call doctor for my ob/gyn practice, Dr. Walsh, walked in right after him. I’d never met Dr. Walsh before but it didn't matter. Believe me, it REALLY didn't matter.  They immediately got me into position to push. No stirrups.  Crystal and Madeleine held my feet.  My doula reminded me not to push too hard this time to prevent tearing. I was trying to find a balance but it was so hard to know. I could feel the ring of fire, something my doula said that most women don’t have their first pregnancy but feel their second, an indication that the baby is crowning. I was thankful to know what it was because it felt bad, but at the same time I felt focused. I was totally okay to push through it because I wanted the possession of my body (i.e. the screaming) to stop. I was pretty sure they could hear me in Alabama at this point. The doula told me to reach down and feel Baby A’s head. I felt him crowning. His head came out with his hand by his face, which caused some facial bruising. The rest of him slid out pretty easily. The relief was immediate, and I got to hold him on my chest right away. Paul cut the umbilical cord.  Brave hubby!  It was 4:52. The doctor gave me a couple of minutes and then I handed off Reid and Dr. Walsh broke the water of Baby B. The doctor told me I need to go ahead and push out Baby B right away. Thankfully, he was head down (if you'll recall, he'd been breech just a week previous). Everything was already sore but Baby B was smaller, so he was easier to push out despite the tenderness. He was a little blue, so he had to get oxygen before I could hold him. Cort was born at 4:57. Once again, Paul cut the umbilical cord.  They told me Reid weighed 6 lbs. 14 ounces. Cort was 5 lbs. 12 ounces. Both were bigger than their older brother when he was born.

I looked at Paul and said, "We did it!"  Everyone in the ER laughed.  Paul and I with the twins, shortly after their birth:

Dr. Walsh had me deliver the placenta, and I asked to see it, weirdo that I am. He was all excited that I was curious. He gave me a lecture about what an amazing organ it is. You could see both umbilical cords. Then I got stitched up for a tear. I went ahead and got lidocaine for that. The tear wasn't too bad but seemed like it took forever to stitch. At least I got to nurse the boys while being stitched. We took a bunch of pictures. Reid latched right on.
Here is a picture of my doula, Crystal holding the twins:

Meanwhile, I was bleeding pretty heavily. All over Paul's favorite shirt that I'd swiped (we got the blood out but still refer to it as the hemorrhage shirt). They moved me back into my original labor room. Still gushing blood, so I got a shot of pitocin and they were really working over massaging my abdomen. When the bleeding still wouldn't stop they called Dr. Walsh back in. I knew from my obsessive online research of twin births that hemorrhage is very common after birthing twins.  Dr. Walsh went up inside (oh so painful) and at the same time they were massaging on the outside. After working me over, he pulled out and then had me ‘deliver’ about 6 large blood clots. Seriously, they had me push them out. They were like the size of double whoppers. Ick. Finally, I was left to recover.

In all my imaginings of what labor and delivery might have been like, I never would’ve imagined anything like this.  It was absolutely perfect, to tell you the truth.  I wouldn't change a thing.  Two healthy boys, an all natural birth, and what would be an easy recovery.

I'll save a few tidbits on what the first few days with twins was like for another blog :-)
If you missed the pregnancy story, click HERE to read about the 3rd trimester with twins.

Twin Birth Story, A Prelude of Sorts

I want to write a bit about the birth of the twins, because I want to give hope to others out there who want to be able to give birth to twins naturally. It seemed that wherever I turned when I was pregnant, there wasn't a soul to be found who hadn't had a horrifying twin birth story that ended in c-section. But before I talk about the twins, I need to talk about Pierce, because so much of what occured in my pregnancy with him affected my decisions in my pregnancy with the twins.
My husband and I were married almost 10 years before deciding to have children. The first 14 weeks of my pregnancy were marked with constant morning sickness. I wore seabands, sipped Gatorade, tried ginger pills, took unisom/b6, and on a couple of occassions when I had to present in court for my job, took Zofran. I had nausea so bad that a couple of times I woke up in the night and the waves of queasiness wrapped around me so hard I was scared to move for fear I would vomit all over myself. It was a long, long first trimester. Sometimes I would just sit there watching the seconds tick by on the clock, wanting the illness to let up and wondering if I would ever feel normal again. And then finally, it lifted. And while the second trimester was an improvement, I've never been one of those people who enjoys being pregnant. I love the end result. But not the pregnancy. I actually longed for labor, looked forward to it, just so the pregnancy could be over. My blood pressure, which seemed to jump up the day I conceived, continued to rise during the 2nd trimester. I'd never had high blood pressure a day in my life, but pregnancy seemed to be a contributor to hypertension for me. By early in the third trimester, I was preeclampic. At 32 weeks, I had alarming swelling all the way up my legs and in my face. I looked like the Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters (and in fact, didn't allow any pictures of myself after this point). My doctor had me come in and my blood pressure was 170/110. And so I was put on partial bed rest. The bed rest helped, a lot. But I couldn't stay away from google and spent a lot of time horrifying myself with stories online of preeclampsia that had tragic endings.
By 37 weeks it was very clear that Pierce wasn't growing well anymore because my blood pressure was so high. An induction was scheduled for 38 weeks 2 days. My doctor was scheduled for neck surgery at the same time, so I had my second choice doctor (which was a good thing, since the other 3 doctors in the practice I didn't like). I went in on a Monday evening at 5:00 for Cervadil. The next morning, with no dilation, we decided to proceed with Pitocin. At 4:30 that afternoon with only 3 cm dilation, they broke my water. I had two epidurals, neither of which took, yet they caused issues by giving me a fever and causing some heart decelerations in Pierce. I never knew at the time this was a potential risk of epidurals. Ill-prepared to deal with the pain, I waited and waited for the doctor. At 9:30 she rolled in, and I had been ready to push for a while - but no one checked me and they ignored my claims and tears that the epidurals did not work. We were fortunate, though. A couple of pushes and Pierce was out safely at 9:40 pm. What a long 28 hours 40 minutes it had been. Due to the growth restriction from the preeclampsia, he was only 5 lbs. 11 ounces.
I recall that his fingernails were totally black when he was born. Yet he was healthy and safely in the world, so that was all that mattered.
I made a commitment to myself that if I ever had another child, I would be better prepared. Since I knew that epidurals didn't really work for me (and was now aware of some of the dangers they posed), I wanted to go in ready to proceed with a completely natural labor and delivery.
Look at my big boy, Pierce, now. Sniff. I love this kid. :-)