Birth Stories

Welp, here I am, almost 30 weeks pregnant with twins! It’s truly crazy how fast it has flown by. As the months have passed, I’ve talked to my doctors, read a book or two, and scanned plenty of posts from other twin moms. I have openly accepted that this birth will be much different from my last two. I will either deliver the twins via C-section or vaginally with an epidural, and I will deliver them in the OR either way. I am ok with either scenario. It will mostly depend on the position the babies are in. But I thought I’d share my experience with natural birth and impart my advice if there are any moms out there...

My nature, for the most part, is to worry, collect data, worry some more, create multiple scenarios in my head, worry even more, make a plan for each possibility I can imagine, and then act. Works great in my profession, not so much in everything else. I spent most of my pregnancy in this cycle, but there really weren't a lot of actions I could take, only to wait. From pregnancy to birth, my son helped me realize an important lesson: learning to surrender. This baby had been breech the whole pregnancy. At 38 weeks, one day before we were going to schedule a section, he flipped head down on his own. So now we wait for labor to spontaneously...

My older son will be 4 years old in a week and, like so many parents, each year I find myself looking back at pictures and reflecting on his birthday. What does his birthday mean to us? How has this day impacted us? How have we spent every birthday before this one? In June of 2014 we got the exciting news that we were expecting our first child. We went through the first half of our pregnancy thinking everything was perfect. At my 20 week anatomy scan, we were told that our son had a two vessel umbilical cord. Most babies have three blood vessels: one vein, which brings nutrients from the placenta to the baby, and two arteries that...

I opted for natural childbirth with my first-born. I never really questioned if I would be able to do it – that’s the stubborn in me, I guess. We took the Lamaze classes and I read all the books. Without really knowing what to expect, I was “prepared.” I just kept telling myself it was like running a race, mostly all mental. And it certainly was a mental game of focus. But it was obviously very physical, too. Nearly a week late, the little man wasn’t leaving his cozy home without a fight. Or at least a hand on top of his head to get him stuck a few times on the way out. It was nine hours of...

When my oldest son was born, everything happened so fast. I was only thirty-seven weeks gestation when he was born, and it was quite the experience. Outside of extra monitoring and progesterone shots, I had a pretty normal pregnancy, until my 35 week appointment. My ultrasound revealed a possibility of some type of blockage in baby's kidney, and the next thing I knew I was in labor and delivery.  Everything was fine but in the next two weeks, I was triaged two different times for high blood pressure. At 37 weeks, I was finally induced due to low amniotic fluid. After only an hour after my induction began, the baby's heart rate dropped and the next thing I knew I...