Twin Birth Story Part 2

After deciding on my birth location and ambiance, I started reading. I read Ina May Gaskin, I read Peggy O’Mara, I read every book on natural birth I could get my hands on and it all felt so right. Yes, this was the experience I was looking for. I started researching homebirth midwives and I somehow had the self control not to call any of them at this point because I wasn’t yet pregnant. My IUD was still firmly in place, so we had a little time. We were taking a trip to Costa Rica with my family and I had decided that I didn’t want to be pregnant for that trip so we decided to wait until we returned home and we did. About 2 days after we returned home, I had my IUD removed and it all took off from there. I’m very, very blessed to be highly fertile. My husband teases me that if I walk by a men’s bathroom, I get pregnant. But, we wanted to be a little careful. We were, after all, trying to conceive a girl here. We had 2 wonderful boys and thought that it would be fun to at least try for a girl. You know, to have a different experience this time around. I got pregnant right away and I knew it. I took 3 pregnancy tests. 2 were too early and the 3rd malfunctioned but I knew I was pregnant. I could feel the change in my body and in my spirit. I knew another life had joined me and I didn’t need a test to confirm it. I started calling midwives.

I called several and interviewed 3 before choosing the first person I talked with. Jeanne was just right for me and I knew it from the start. She’s the perfect mix of nurturing and no nonsense that really fits my personality and as it turned out, she was exactly who I needed. I was lucky to not be too sick during my first trimester. I only had about 2-3 weeks of a really yucky tummy that kept me on the couch but at 9 weeks pregnant, we headed to Disney World and on a Disney cruise and luckily, my stomach cooperated and so did the seas which were very, very calm – thank goodness! We returned from our trip in the middle of our kitchen remodel and moved in with my in-laws for a couple of weeks. Truly, I was so blessed to not be down and out during this time because it could have been just awful but it was bearable and I was able to do all that I needed to do…between naps. My biggest complaints from that first trimester were that I was so constipated and bloated that I really felt big already. So much so that I just caved and went into maternity clothes at 9 weeks and it felt so much better not to have any pressure on my bloated belly! Well, that’s when all of the talk started. First, at Disney, we kept seeing twins everywhere. My mother-in-law kept pointing it out because it really was eerie just how many sets of twins we kept seeing. I ignored it. Then my mom started in when I started showing so quickly. I wrote it off to being my 3rd baby and kept insisting that I really was just bloated…but I was big. When I started to feel movement and it was everywhere, I wrote it off to a very active baby. I finally had my first appointment with Jeanne at about 18 weeks and she even said that I was big but didn’t measure too far off and she only felt and heard one baby but left me with the comment that twins usually present themselves by about 28 weeks so we’ll just see. And we did.