A positive birth story: My scheduled and elective C-section with twins

Before I start, I suppose it would be good to explain why I chose to schedule a c-section even though I was totally good to go for a vaginal birth.

So at my OB/midwives office, if baby A is head down (baby A is the one closest to your cervix, aka the exit), the docs are totally cool with you attempting to give birth vaginally. But with the birth of my first born son, who was born vaginally, I had an extremely long and traumatic labor (36 hours total with 6 hours of pushing, and begging for forceps to pull him out once I had nothing left to give) and I did NOT want to go down that route again, and especially with twins. My exhaustion level after that labor made everything extremely hard for me mentally, I was a mess even when we got home from the hospital because our new life as a family of 3 started at an extremely negative energy level and sleep deprivation is NO JOKE! My midwife who was at the delivery suggested I come in for a check up at 2 weeks postpartum, 4 weeks earlier than the usual 6 weeks because she was worried I'd develop postpartum depression because of it. So when it came to the twins, I felt that there were so many opportunities for surprises to pop up during labor with them that I wanted to avoid all of that...the main thing being baby twin B getting stuck after twin A already came out and having to do both a vaginal AND a c-section birth. Or having gone through 30 something hours of labor only to need a c-section in the end anyway. So I decided to schedule a c-section so I would be in control. And it was seriously the best decision for me.

Ok! So there you go! Now here's the twins birth story:

I had my c-section scheduled for June 13th at 7:30 in the morning (I was 38 weeks and 1 day pregnant), but we had to check in at 5:30 to get prepped. I actually slept pretty well the night before to my surprise. We drove to the hospital and walked ourselves up to labor and delivery to check in (so weird!) and was immediately brought to a room to change and be prepped for surgery. I never once had any signs of labor starting on its own, to which I was thankful.

They took my blood pressure, put the babies on a monitor and got my IV started. The IV was actually the hardest part of the entire process. I had a vasovegal response and almost passed out once they got it in. Once that passed I felt a lot better and they gave me some oxygen which made the babies feel better too; they started kicking and moving on the monitor much more.

The anesthesiologist came in to go over everything that would happen while I was in the OR. He's very nice and matter of fact. Then Dr. V, the surgeon, came in at some point to ask me if I was ready and I said yes, so I walked back to the OR with a nurse. Upon seeing all the bright lights and tools in the OR I started getting nervous and began to cry. My nerves had finally caught up with me. But the staff was very nice and talked me through it.

I hopped up on table and the anesthesiologist give me some numbing medication in my spine first and then gave me the spinal, which started working fairly quickly. I felt tingling starting in my toes and then within a matter of seconds it went up my legs, which just made them feel very heavy, and I rolled over on my back with their help.

After a few more moments I felt literally nothing from my sternum down, which was a very strange feeling but not as scary as I was anticipating. I was anxious about feeling like I couldn't breathe but it wasn't all that bad. I actually was wondering if I was even covered up. I kept feeling like maybe I was lying there completely naked but I wasn't.

At some point they put a urinary catheter in, which I didn't feel, and put their surgical drapes on me. I requested that they not restrain my arms because I'm claustrophobic and that would've caused me to panic. So my arms were free and I just held them still.

If I tried to move my feet it felt really weird not to be able to so I found it best to just not try and move anything and not fight it. When I tried, it almost felt like I had super strong pins and needles in my feet. At some point Dr. V came in and asked if I was ready and I said yes, and she asked if I could feel this or that and I said yes, but it was a weird sensation where I felt the pressure of her tapping but not actually any pain or temperature change (she rubbed a cold alcohol wipe on my belly and asked me if I could feel if it was hot or cold, which I couldn't).

Brian came in the room and sat by my head and for a moment I didn't even recognize him behind the mask. The surgery started after they asked me to tell my name and birthday as a double check. I didn't feel a thing I was just lying there looking up at the ceiling and holding Brian's hand. Then all the sudden I heard crying and Sadie was born first. They put a hospital hat with a giant bow on her and brought her over to my head so I could see her and she was completely covered in vernix. I believe they took her over to be weighed after that and then as her brother was being born they put her on my chest so I held her. Then 2 minutes later Cormac was born and I heard him crying and I noticed how tiny he was but he was okay. He didn't have any vernix on him.

I started laughing and crying and noticed how strange it felt in my diaphragm to do that because it was basically numb so my laughing was very slow and drawn-out like ha....ha...ha.

And then in a few more moments they were finishing up and the anesthesiologist says do you hear that? They're closing up your incision with staples and you're nearly done. It went so fast and was so straight forward! Easy peasy!

A bed was wheeled into the OR and I was slid off of the OR table and onto the bed and each baby was placed on either side of me and I held on to them as I was being wheeled into the recovery room. In recovery they had me cough in order to get my diaphragm working again which was so weird! And I had the shakes pretty bad for about 5 to 6 hours after that but it wasn't as anxiety inducing as it was last time, it was just tiring to keep feeling like I had to move my body with the shakes. The nurses said it was normal and it was the way my body was getting rid of the spinal medication.



I spent a few hours in the recovery room and after that they wheeled me into our room where we would stay for the next 4 days. We had a huge room but it shared a wall with an elevator so we kept hearing the elevator run all throughout the day and night but it didn't even matter because we were so tired that we slept through it. At first I thought it was a really windy night but then Brian realized it was an elevator shaft.

The first night both babies stayed with us in our room and the nurses came in periodically to check their body temperatures and blood sugar levels. Sadie's results were normal but Cormac kept getting low blood sugar levels and he had to be admitted to the NICU where he stayed for five days. But during the four days we were there, the nurses offered to take Sadie to the nursery at night for a few hours so we could get some sleep which was nice. Of course I felt guilty but I realized I should accept the help and get the rest.

The first two nights after my surgery were the worst pain wise. The nurses had me on Norco and ibuprofen which seemed to help take the edge off but I was still really achy and had really bad period like cramps. The cramps hurt more than the incision. It made it hard to sleep because I couldn't get comfortable lying on my back and there was no way I could lay on my side because of the incision and the pain. But by the third night I was able to slightly roll up on my side and sleep a little bit better. A week later I was completely off all my pain meds including Motrin and I felt pretty good and normal for the most part.

I took my first shower after my c-section a day afterwards, which was also when my catheter came out. Let me tell you how amazing it was to not have to get up to pee for a full 24 hours after having spent the last three months of my life peeing every 10 to 15 minutes. I admit, I was kind of scared to look at my incision scar but it really wasn't so bad. I had staples which I expected to look like Frankenstein, but they were really tiny so it wasn't as scary as I was expecting it to look. The day that I was discharged the nurses took them out which didn't hurt at all. My doctor gave me a prescription for more Norco but I never ended up filling it because I didn't need it. Two weeks later I went in for a scar check and everything checked out.

If I had to choose between having a vaginal birth like I had with my first son and a C-section like I had with the twins, I'd choose the C-section. I'm sure the fact that it was a planned C-section made a big difference recovery-wise for me in comparison to if it were to be an emergency C-section, but I found my recovery to be much easier physically as well as mentally with the C-section because right off the bat I wasn't dealing with the complete exhaustion that came with my extremely long previous labor. I just went in, and 3 hours later the babies were out. Yes I was recovered faster from vaginal birth, but the C-section recovery really wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be and was totally manageable. Like I said before, getting the IV and the anxiety before hand was the worst part of it. The procedure itself was easy and extremely positive for me!