Twin Birth Story Part 1

In honor of my Twins' birthday today, I'm posting my birth story. I love my birth story. It is long and so I've split it up into 5 smaller parts. Happy Birthday my babies!

For 5 ½ long years my husband and I had the same conversation: should we have another baby or not? I was firmly on the “yes” side and he was firmly on the “no” side. It seemed we were at an impasse. I had decided that if we couldn’t come to an agreement by May of 2007, I’d let it go and be at peace with it. One day, around Christmas 2006, Tim came into my office early one morning and asked me, “so when does the Chinese Conception Chart say that we’d need to conceive to have a girl?” I consulted it, feeling some pressure, and came up with a month. And then he said, “Okay.” I couldn’t believe it. I started shaking and crying and laughing all at the same time. It was a moment I honestly never thought would come and I will never forget that feeling. I knew what a huge sacrifice this was for him and I also knew that once he said that little word, he was on board. He’s not the type of guy to go half way so “Okay” meant more than just “we can have a baby.” It meant that he was in it all the way. He’s a great dad so I knew already what that would look like and I was amazed and so, so happy.

Having made that decision, I had some serious thinking and planning to do. I knew that this would be my last pregnancy and birth. I’d had 2 natural hospital deliveries before and they were fine. That’s about it. Just, fine. Nothing earth-shattering neither on the good nor bad side and, as I would come to find out through my research, I was pretty lucky. I decided that what was most important to me was to have a water birth. Water calms me. When I don’t feel well, I take a bath. When I want to relax, I take a bath. On a hot summer day when I want to cool down, there’s nothing better than slipping into a cool swimming pool. Yep, a water birth was going to be right for me. There are 2 hospitals that do water births in the Twin Cities. I chose one and as I researched it more, I realized that they only had one or two tubs and if you don’t fit into their specific parameters or if they’re taken, you’re out of luck. This was my last birth. I wasn’t getting another chance at this and I’d be damned if another laboring mother was going to take that experience away from me! So I decided on a home waterbirth. This was January.