We had all been waiting for months for the twins to be born. Poor Loranda was getting more and more uncomfortable. I was so excited that she’d asked me to be there for the birth and every night before bed I made sure my cell phone and the house phone were on the bedside table in case I got the call. For a couple weeks Loranda’s doctor had been suggesting an induction, but there were so many signs that labour was just around the corner and so Loranda always opted to wait. After a kind nurse gave her a call at the request of her doctor, Loranda finally agreed to come in to the hospital to see if they could get things going. Twins are full-term at 37 weeks. Loranda was days away from 40 weeks.
On August 16th Loranda and Orlando came to our house around noon. Loranda was obviously nervous and had a few tears. We convinced her to eat some pizza (bad idea) and then we got in the car and I drove them to the hospital. The whole way there I tried to be very positive and upbeat saying “we’re going to meet your girls soon!” and “today is the day we are having babies!”. We got to the hospital, got checked in and were admitted at about 1:30pm. We were brought to Loranda’s room - the same room where my son Jackson was born almost exactly 8 months before - and got settled in.
Loranda’s belly was fitted with heart rate monitors around 1:45. I love hearing the sound of baby heartbeats. Her poor, PUPPPS-covered belly looked so sad. Loranda’s doula arrived and shortly after, her doctor came in to discuss the options. His preference was to break Loranda’s water and then see if her body would get the hint and go into labour. If she wasn’t progressing, then she’d be given oxytocin and actively monitored to ensure that labour was continuing.
There were some tense moments while the doula and doctor butted heads. Poor Loranda was stuck in the middle, unsure of what the right decision was and getting a lot of pressure for and against induction. As much as I am pro-natural-labour, the doula was rubbing me the wrong way. She was very opinionated and disputing the facts the doctor was presenting. Loranda’s doctor is one of the most highly respected obstetricians in all of Vancouver and I was pretty confident that he knew what he was talking about. In the end Loranda looked at me and asked what I thought. I said “well, we came here to have babies”, and later Loranda told me that was exactly what she needed to hear. I was nervous, because had she had complications, or a bad experience, I really didn’t want her to have regrets or to feel pressured into something she wasn’t ready for.
At 2:50pm the doctor broke Loranda’s water (baby A’s sac). At 3:10 the heartbeat monitors were swapped for mobile devices with the hope that by walking around labour would start. I left the hospital an hour or so later to let her and Orlando have some time together and to wait for her contractions to get going. When I got back to the hospital, we went outside for a walk and Loranda’s contractions were picking up. We’d stop when one would start and sometimes she’d lean on Orlando for support.
I was surprised and worried Loranda would be discouraged when at 10pm she was still dilated only 3cm. It was around this time that it was decided that they’d start her on oxytocin and at 10:30pm they started her drip. I stayed until midnight and I remember being nervous about how to help Loranda best. Earlier on she had decided not to call the doula back and so Orlando and I were her support team. When Loranda had asked me to be there for the birth, I had assumed I would be the errand girl; not on the front lines, but manning the phones, taking photos, fetching food. Without the doula, I needed to step up and I was so grateful for the amazing nurses, particularly Nancy who was there at the beginning and again at the very end and who, it turns out, was also the nurse that had called Loranda to ease her fears about coming in to be induced. We tried many different positions, but Loranda was so tired that between each contraction she wanted to rest but that made it very uncomfortable for her during the contractions. I could tell she was getting upset and I wished that I’d prepared more in terms of learning helpful labour positions and tricks to soothe the labouring mom-to-be. In the end I settled for holding her hand and running my fingers through her hair. She’d drink gatorade or water occasionally and was sick a couple times.
It was very interesting watching Loranda labour. While my labour was extremely short and fast, and each contraction was longer and stronger than the last, Loranda’s seemed to come and go, some being very long and intense and others being only minor blips on the monitor. I found myself relying on the monitor to determine when she was contracting, only to learn at one point that the monitor was displaying the readings coming from the woman next door. While I had expected a single contraction to climb in intensity, peak, then taper off, many of Loranda’s contractions intensified rapidly, stayed intense then VERY gradually eased off. Other’s would peak and then ease off, only to peak again right away before finally giving her some rest. Apparently these double contractions are very typically of a labouring mom carrying twins. The uterus is so stretched that it just can’t contract fully and tires before a good strong contraction can take place. After a while I just learned to watch her cues and would rub her hand, hold her legs and help as best as I could until she was comfortable.
When I got back to the hospital at 4:20am, I learned that quite a bit had happened since I’d left. At around 2:40am, baby A’s heartrate dropped. Loranda thinks it was B’s, so it may have been, but I know they wanted to monitor A more closely, so they attached an internal heartrate monitor. At 3am when they checked her she was 5cm dilated. They turned the oxytocin off for a bit here and did an ultrasound which showed that baby B was in a footling breach position. Prior to this it was thought that both babies were head down. Loranda knew that once baby A was born, B could get mixed up and flip in any direction and she was seriously considering an epidural since the manual manipulation of the baby is very painful. It was the discovery that B was already breech that encouraged Loranda to get the epidural. When I arrived, she’d just had it inserted and the medication was starting to take effect and the oxytocin was turned back on. Loranda was able to rest more and so I went home again. At 6:30am I was on my way to the hospital when I got a call saying Loranda was comfortable and resting and that I didn’t need to be there just yet so I returned home. The nurse also told me she was still at 5cm.
I returned once more to the hospital at 8:30am and was so pleased to hear that Loranda had dilated to 8cm. We met a new doctor, Dr Rosenberg and we all really liked him. At about 10 Loranda and Orlando talked with the doctor, resident and the nurse about how when the babies were born they wanted some time skin to skin with Loranda before they were taken away and the cords cut. The doctor agreed that they’d do the best they could to make that happen. It was a good conversation and I think Loranda was happy. By this time the next morning she was starving and exhausted but seemed re-energized by the reminder that the birth of her girls would be the outcome of the ordeal she was enduring.
I was really amazed to watch her labour with the epidural and chuckled to myself wondering why every woman didn’t choose one. They had started the oxytocin the night before at a very low dose, but since then they’d been increasing it every half hour to an hour. As her contractions would grow in intensity, she was able to cope by increasing the dose of the medication coming through the epidural.
At 11am she was at 9cm with just a lip left on her cervix. I could feel the excitement building! At 11:30 she started feeling pushy but the doctor wanted to wait just a little bit more. I’m not sure if it was just the transitional period in her labour where the contractions ease off a bit, Loranda’s exhaustion, the effect of the epidural, or possibly a combination of all of those, but Loranda was able to nap (as well as Orlando and I) from 1pm to about 2:30pm.
Her nap was just the rest she needed because when she woke up, with the help of Nancy she tried a few pushes. At 2:50 Dr Rosenberg came in and the pushing began! I absolutely cannot complain because obviously Loranda was doing all of the work, but wow, my muscles were sore the next day! I was on one side holding her hand with her foot up in my hip and with Orlando on the other side, with each push we’d pull her forward by her hands and push against her with our hips as she pressed and pulled against us. I think it was around this time that Loranda was burning up with fever. Her water had been broken over 24hrs before and apparently a fever is quite common. She was put on antibiotics and the pushing continued. I remember Orlando giving her ice chips and between each push we’d massage her hips. Dr Rosenberg came and went during the first hour and a bit of pushing, and with Nancy’s help we got into a good routine. Blankets on while she rests, back into position and blankets off while she pushes. It sounds silly but it was shocking to suddenly realize that soon we’d see a baby, and then another!! I think it’s easy to get so wrapped up in the contractions that you forget what it’s all for. There were a couple pushes around this time where, with Nancy’s help, Orlando and I caught our first glimpse of head. Wow. Orlando seemed speechless, I got choked up.
After a while we could see on the monitor that baby B’s heartrate was dropping after each contraction. By this time there was quite an audience gathered in the delivery room, and more people waiting outside. Twin vaginal births are exciting! We’d met the pediatrician and his resident earlier and by now they were in the room getting the warming bays set up. Sheila, the obstetrics resident was front and centre helping Loranda push. When they were no longer comfortable waiting because B’s heartrate continued to drop after each contraction, Sheila placed the vacuum on A’s head and helped guide her down around the pubic bone. A couple more pushes and she was out! At 4:34pm Carmen Eva was born. I followed her over to the warming bay and watching the pediatrician rub her dry and try to get her to react. She was quite blue and more than a little shocked. I remember thinking, “come on baby, come on baby, BREATHE!!” and I realized I was saying it out loud. Loranda was talking, asking me what she looked like and to describe her. She was small and wrinkly with dark hair and I told Loranda she was beautiful. I heard a big splash as B’s sac broke releasing amniotic fluid all over the floor and Dr Rosenberg’s shoes :) When I turned around, I could see B’s two feet and very quickly she was out too. At 4:37pm, Lena Lynn was born. Carmen was given to Loranda and I went to see Lena. She was so tiny, but her eyes were open and she was pinking up quickly. The pediatrician took Carmen from Loranda and gave her Lena. They were concerned that Carmen just wasn’t reacting as well as she should be and so although torturous to Loranda I’m sure, they took her to the NICU and got her started on antibiotics.
My body was so full of adrenaline and I raced outside to make the phone call home where I knew the whole family was waiting. “We have babies!” I shouted! I proceeded to text everyone Loranda had asked me to notify with the same message. Immediately texts started coming in, one after another. It was wonderful. The family was on it’s way and I waited outside, giving Loranda, Orlando and Lena time together alone.
After everyone had had their visit, and the grandparents were brought to see Carmen in the NICU we left to let Loranda and Orlando rest and absorb the events of the past day and a half. When I visited the next day they told me that Carmen was still on antibiotics but that she was brought up to their room around midnight so the whole family was finally together. Both babies were nursing well, and the adventure of parenthood had begun!
On August 16th Loranda and Orlando came to our house around noon. Loranda was obviously nervous and had a few tears. We convinced her to eat some pizza (bad idea) and then we got in the car and I drove them to the hospital. The whole way there I tried to be very positive and upbeat saying “we’re going to meet your girls soon!” and “today is the day we are having babies!”. We got to the hospital, got checked in and were admitted at about 1:30pm. We were brought to Loranda’s room - the same room where my son Jackson was born almost exactly 8 months before - and got settled in.
Loranda’s belly was fitted with heart rate monitors around 1:45. I love hearing the sound of baby heartbeats. Her poor, PUPPPS-covered belly looked so sad. Loranda’s doula arrived and shortly after, her doctor came in to discuss the options. His preference was to break Loranda’s water and then see if her body would get the hint and go into labour. If she wasn’t progressing, then she’d be given oxytocin and actively monitored to ensure that labour was continuing.
There were some tense moments while the doula and doctor butted heads. Poor Loranda was stuck in the middle, unsure of what the right decision was and getting a lot of pressure for and against induction. As much as I am pro-natural-labour, the doula was rubbing me the wrong way. She was very opinionated and disputing the facts the doctor was presenting. Loranda’s doctor is one of the most highly respected obstetricians in all of Vancouver and I was pretty confident that he knew what he was talking about. In the end Loranda looked at me and asked what I thought. I said “well, we came here to have babies”, and later Loranda told me that was exactly what she needed to hear. I was nervous, because had she had complications, or a bad experience, I really didn’t want her to have regrets or to feel pressured into something she wasn’t ready for.
At 2:50pm the doctor broke Loranda’s water (baby A’s sac). At 3:10 the heartbeat monitors were swapped for mobile devices with the hope that by walking around labour would start. I left the hospital an hour or so later to let her and Orlando have some time together and to wait for her contractions to get going. When I got back to the hospital, we went outside for a walk and Loranda’s contractions were picking up. We’d stop when one would start and sometimes she’d lean on Orlando for support.
I was surprised and worried Loranda would be discouraged when at 10pm she was still dilated only 3cm. It was around this time that it was decided that they’d start her on oxytocin and at 10:30pm they started her drip. I stayed until midnight and I remember being nervous about how to help Loranda best. Earlier on she had decided not to call the doula back and so Orlando and I were her support team. When Loranda had asked me to be there for the birth, I had assumed I would be the errand girl; not on the front lines, but manning the phones, taking photos, fetching food. Without the doula, I needed to step up and I was so grateful for the amazing nurses, particularly Nancy who was there at the beginning and again at the very end and who, it turns out, was also the nurse that had called Loranda to ease her fears about coming in to be induced. We tried many different positions, but Loranda was so tired that between each contraction she wanted to rest but that made it very uncomfortable for her during the contractions. I could tell she was getting upset and I wished that I’d prepared more in terms of learning helpful labour positions and tricks to soothe the labouring mom-to-be. In the end I settled for holding her hand and running my fingers through her hair. She’d drink gatorade or water occasionally and was sick a couple times.
It was very interesting watching Loranda labour. While my labour was extremely short and fast, and each contraction was longer and stronger than the last, Loranda’s seemed to come and go, some being very long and intense and others being only minor blips on the monitor. I found myself relying on the monitor to determine when she was contracting, only to learn at one point that the monitor was displaying the readings coming from the woman next door. While I had expected a single contraction to climb in intensity, peak, then taper off, many of Loranda’s contractions intensified rapidly, stayed intense then VERY gradually eased off. Other’s would peak and then ease off, only to peak again right away before finally giving her some rest. Apparently these double contractions are very typically of a labouring mom carrying twins. The uterus is so stretched that it just can’t contract fully and tires before a good strong contraction can take place. After a while I just learned to watch her cues and would rub her hand, hold her legs and help as best as I could until she was comfortable.
When I got back to the hospital at 4:20am, I learned that quite a bit had happened since I’d left. At around 2:40am, baby A’s heartrate dropped. Loranda thinks it was B’s, so it may have been, but I know they wanted to monitor A more closely, so they attached an internal heartrate monitor. At 3am when they checked her she was 5cm dilated. They turned the oxytocin off for a bit here and did an ultrasound which showed that baby B was in a footling breach position. Prior to this it was thought that both babies were head down. Loranda knew that once baby A was born, B could get mixed up and flip in any direction and she was seriously considering an epidural since the manual manipulation of the baby is very painful. It was the discovery that B was already breech that encouraged Loranda to get the epidural. When I arrived, she’d just had it inserted and the medication was starting to take effect and the oxytocin was turned back on. Loranda was able to rest more and so I went home again. At 6:30am I was on my way to the hospital when I got a call saying Loranda was comfortable and resting and that I didn’t need to be there just yet so I returned home. The nurse also told me she was still at 5cm.
I returned once more to the hospital at 8:30am and was so pleased to hear that Loranda had dilated to 8cm. We met a new doctor, Dr Rosenberg and we all really liked him. At about 10 Loranda and Orlando talked with the doctor, resident and the nurse about how when the babies were born they wanted some time skin to skin with Loranda before they were taken away and the cords cut. The doctor agreed that they’d do the best they could to make that happen. It was a good conversation and I think Loranda was happy. By this time the next morning she was starving and exhausted but seemed re-energized by the reminder that the birth of her girls would be the outcome of the ordeal she was enduring.
I was really amazed to watch her labour with the epidural and chuckled to myself wondering why every woman didn’t choose one. They had started the oxytocin the night before at a very low dose, but since then they’d been increasing it every half hour to an hour. As her contractions would grow in intensity, she was able to cope by increasing the dose of the medication coming through the epidural.
At 11am she was at 9cm with just a lip left on her cervix. I could feel the excitement building! At 11:30 she started feeling pushy but the doctor wanted to wait just a little bit more. I’m not sure if it was just the transitional period in her labour where the contractions ease off a bit, Loranda’s exhaustion, the effect of the epidural, or possibly a combination of all of those, but Loranda was able to nap (as well as Orlando and I) from 1pm to about 2:30pm.
Her nap was just the rest she needed because when she woke up, with the help of Nancy she tried a few pushes. At 2:50 Dr Rosenberg came in and the pushing began! I absolutely cannot complain because obviously Loranda was doing all of the work, but wow, my muscles were sore the next day! I was on one side holding her hand with her foot up in my hip and with Orlando on the other side, with each push we’d pull her forward by her hands and push against her with our hips as she pressed and pulled against us. I think it was around this time that Loranda was burning up with fever. Her water had been broken over 24hrs before and apparently a fever is quite common. She was put on antibiotics and the pushing continued. I remember Orlando giving her ice chips and between each push we’d massage her hips. Dr Rosenberg came and went during the first hour and a bit of pushing, and with Nancy’s help we got into a good routine. Blankets on while she rests, back into position and blankets off while she pushes. It sounds silly but it was shocking to suddenly realize that soon we’d see a baby, and then another!! I think it’s easy to get so wrapped up in the contractions that you forget what it’s all for. There were a couple pushes around this time where, with Nancy’s help, Orlando and I caught our first glimpse of head. Wow. Orlando seemed speechless, I got choked up.
After a while we could see on the monitor that baby B’s heartrate was dropping after each contraction. By this time there was quite an audience gathered in the delivery room, and more people waiting outside. Twin vaginal births are exciting! We’d met the pediatrician and his resident earlier and by now they were in the room getting the warming bays set up. Sheila, the obstetrics resident was front and centre helping Loranda push. When they were no longer comfortable waiting because B’s heartrate continued to drop after each contraction, Sheila placed the vacuum on A’s head and helped guide her down around the pubic bone. A couple more pushes and she was out! At 4:34pm Carmen Eva was born. I followed her over to the warming bay and watching the pediatrician rub her dry and try to get her to react. She was quite blue and more than a little shocked. I remember thinking, “come on baby, come on baby, BREATHE!!” and I realized I was saying it out loud. Loranda was talking, asking me what she looked like and to describe her. She was small and wrinkly with dark hair and I told Loranda she was beautiful. I heard a big splash as B’s sac broke releasing amniotic fluid all over the floor and Dr Rosenberg’s shoes :) When I turned around, I could see B’s two feet and very quickly she was out too. At 4:37pm, Lena Lynn was born. Carmen was given to Loranda and I went to see Lena. She was so tiny, but her eyes were open and she was pinking up quickly. The pediatrician took Carmen from Loranda and gave her Lena. They were concerned that Carmen just wasn’t reacting as well as she should be and so although torturous to Loranda I’m sure, they took her to the NICU and got her started on antibiotics.
My body was so full of adrenaline and I raced outside to make the phone call home where I knew the whole family was waiting. “We have babies!” I shouted! I proceeded to text everyone Loranda had asked me to notify with the same message. Immediately texts started coming in, one after another. It was wonderful. The family was on it’s way and I waited outside, giving Loranda, Orlando and Lena time together alone.
After everyone had had their visit, and the grandparents were brought to see Carmen in the NICU we left to let Loranda and Orlando rest and absorb the events of the past day and a half. When I visited the next day they told me that Carmen was still on antibiotics but that she was brought up to their room around midnight so the whole family was finally together. Both babies were nursing well, and the adventure of parenthood had begun!
4 comments:
I should have included that Carmen was born at ~6.5lbs and Lena at ~4.5lbs. Tiny, beautiful babies. And Loranda was AMAZING. Strong, focused, determined and absolutely amazing.
Wow, they were little for 40 weeks! We had a scheduled c-section at 38 weeks because baby A was breach. Ours had an almost 2lb difference as well. Christopher weighed 8lb 2oz and Anastasia 6lb 7oz.
Perfect story. Wonderfully written Jen. Thanks for making me tear up as I sit at my desk in the lab :P
Wow amazing story. Making me cry my head off!
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