Like a c-section.
Up until maybe 32 weeks, the girls didn't stay in a consistent position for more than a few days at a time. After that point, both decided to hang out either breech (hard little head smashed into my ribcage) or transverse (butt jabbing out the front of me, feet kicking wherever the hell they seem to want to). By now, almost 36 weeks along, R and I have tried basically everything there is to try to get them to flip. Moxibustion, inversion (i.e. dangling my massive pregnant self upside-down and then flailing like a turtle on its back until someone helps me up), cold packs by their heads, playing music into my lady-parts, chiropractic manipulation, massage, and now, just flat-out begging them to comply. If at least one of them flips head-down, I will be allowed to attempt a vaginal delivery, but if not, it's a c-section for me.
Now, let's note the language in that last sentence. I will be allowed to attempt a vaginal delivery if the girls are in a position that makes the doctors comfortable. This whole pregnancy has been on other people's terms: which doctors are comfortable taking care of me, when I need to be checked up, what I need to eat/drink/do to take care of myself and these babies, and even when and how I can give birth. Up until this week, I had a c-section scheduled for 38 weeks on the grounds that it is easier and more convenient to do the surgery (not the birth - the surgery) at a pre-determined time so that everyone needed could be present. Even just having a date on the books was driving me insane. How dare the medical world tell me that I needed to have my completely healthy babies by means of a massively traumatic process just because it was convenient for them not to give them more time to potentially be ready for a natural birth?
After all the bullcrap I had to go through while pregnant with H (up to and including my "induction," to which I arrived already in labor, apparently out of stubborn defiance of doctors' desire to pump me full of drugs), the idea of having so little ownership of this birth made me want to flip a table. In what world is a child's birth dictated by the needs and comfort of medical professionals, not those of the parents? Sadly, the answer is "this one." I've been researching twin breech births, and really...it's not that it can't happen, but that doctors are just not trained in how to help it happen safely. If I showed up in a hospital somewhere in Northern Europe in labor next week, I would be "allowed" to pop them out as they are. Sure, it might be more painful and difficult, but isn't birth kind of a bitch to begin with?
It took a fairly blunt conversation with one of the OB/GYNs I'm working with (part of a practice that everyone in the area describes as "okay, I guess, if you NEED to go to an OB/GYN and not midwives...") to have her cancel my scheduled c-section. According to her, it's standard practice to deliver twins at 38 weeks, and to have the surgery scheduled in advance so everyone they need can be available. What this translates to, as I have learned, is that doctors prefer to avoid the potential complications of large twins past that point, and that they like to be done with surgeries early in the morning. I was originally scheduled to be at the hospital at 6:00AM, which would have meant not giving H a kiss before we left, which was just insult to injury. Beyond that, even though I don't necessarily expect these girls to hang in for that long (who knows?), having a c-section scheduled for before I am in labor just feels like the doctors are cheating. There are so many good hormones and other healthy stuff that babies get being part of their birth process...so why deny that if everyone is healthy and otherwise doing well?
Long and short, I've at least temporarily reclaimed some of the ownership of my birth experience. I know that I might walk into the hospital in labor and still have exactly the birth I don't want, but I also know that having the time and space (mentally and physically) to let the girls settle out where they want to be and choose their own way out is going to let me accept whatever their birth needs to be. It scares me so much to hear other women talking about their birth experiences - heck, their entire pregnancy experiences - in terms of what their doctors wanted or would let them do. Self-advocacy is so critical that I want to scream and flail around uncontrollably and publicly until every woman planning to give birth knows to walk into her OB/GYNs office wearing brass knuckles and a chip on her shoulder...or better yet, to just work with midwives and never let a trained surgeon anywhere near this utterly non-medical life event unless there is a real need. Leave your IV ("that we're going to put in now just because it's easier than when you might need it later") at the hospital, go to a birth center, cop a squat in your living room, and just have a damn baby on your terms.
Up until maybe 32 weeks, the girls didn't stay in a consistent position for more than a few days at a time. After that point, both decided to hang out either breech (hard little head smashed into my ribcage) or transverse (butt jabbing out the front of me, feet kicking wherever the hell they seem to want to). By now, almost 36 weeks along, R and I have tried basically everything there is to try to get them to flip. Moxibustion, inversion (i.e. dangling my massive pregnant self upside-down and then flailing like a turtle on its back until someone helps me up), cold packs by their heads, playing music into my lady-parts, chiropractic manipulation, massage, and now, just flat-out begging them to comply. If at least one of them flips head-down, I will be allowed to attempt a vaginal delivery, but if not, it's a c-section for me.
Now, let's note the language in that last sentence. I will be allowed to attempt a vaginal delivery if the girls are in a position that makes the doctors comfortable. This whole pregnancy has been on other people's terms: which doctors are comfortable taking care of me, when I need to be checked up, what I need to eat/drink/do to take care of myself and these babies, and even when and how I can give birth. Up until this week, I had a c-section scheduled for 38 weeks on the grounds that it is easier and more convenient to do the surgery (not the birth - the surgery) at a pre-determined time so that everyone needed could be present. Even just having a date on the books was driving me insane. How dare the medical world tell me that I needed to have my completely healthy babies by means of a massively traumatic process just because it was convenient for them not to give them more time to potentially be ready for a natural birth?
After all the bullcrap I had to go through while pregnant with H (up to and including my "induction," to which I arrived already in labor, apparently out of stubborn defiance of doctors' desire to pump me full of drugs), the idea of having so little ownership of this birth made me want to flip a table. In what world is a child's birth dictated by the needs and comfort of medical professionals, not those of the parents? Sadly, the answer is "this one." I've been researching twin breech births, and really...it's not that it can't happen, but that doctors are just not trained in how to help it happen safely. If I showed up in a hospital somewhere in Northern Europe in labor next week, I would be "allowed" to pop them out as they are. Sure, it might be more painful and difficult, but isn't birth kind of a bitch to begin with?
It took a fairly blunt conversation with one of the OB/GYNs I'm working with (part of a practice that everyone in the area describes as "okay, I guess, if you NEED to go to an OB/GYN and not midwives...") to have her cancel my scheduled c-section. According to her, it's standard practice to deliver twins at 38 weeks, and to have the surgery scheduled in advance so everyone they need can be available. What this translates to, as I have learned, is that doctors prefer to avoid the potential complications of large twins past that point, and that they like to be done with surgeries early in the morning. I was originally scheduled to be at the hospital at 6:00AM, which would have meant not giving H a kiss before we left, which was just insult to injury. Beyond that, even though I don't necessarily expect these girls to hang in for that long (who knows?), having a c-section scheduled for before I am in labor just feels like the doctors are cheating. There are so many good hormones and other healthy stuff that babies get being part of their birth process...so why deny that if everyone is healthy and otherwise doing well?
Long and short, I've at least temporarily reclaimed some of the ownership of my birth experience. I know that I might walk into the hospital in labor and still have exactly the birth I don't want, but I also know that having the time and space (mentally and physically) to let the girls settle out where they want to be and choose their own way out is going to let me accept whatever their birth needs to be. It scares me so much to hear other women talking about their birth experiences - heck, their entire pregnancy experiences - in terms of what their doctors wanted or would let them do. Self-advocacy is so critical that I want to scream and flail around uncontrollably and publicly until every woman planning to give birth knows to walk into her OB/GYNs office wearing brass knuckles and a chip on her shoulder...or better yet, to just work with midwives and never let a trained surgeon anywhere near this utterly non-medical life event unless there is a real need. Leave your IV ("that we're going to put in now just because it's easier than when you might need it later") at the hospital, go to a birth center, cop a squat in your living room, and just have a damn baby on your terms.
