my twin birth story: embracing the unexpected

Welcome to the June 2012 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Embracing Your Birth Experience
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have written about at least one part of their birth experience that they can hold up and cherish.

I've been working up the courage to put my birth story to page (or screen) for almost a year. I journaled throughout my pregnancy, all the way up until we brought our daughters home from the NICU. It was such a sacred and scary time, and even though I'm not opposed to sharing -  I want to share, to encourage other twin and NICU mamas - it was MY birth, MY time staring through the windows in their incubators, MY tears that stained the journal pages as I pumped like a mad woman and cried over their teeny bodies, and the questions to my husband in the middle of the night, the what if they're crying and I'm not there, and nobody hears them? I felt like no one would understand, or if they did, it still wouldn't be enough for me.

But I look at my girls now and see their mountains of rolls, chubby cheeks, and milky skin, and I feel so incredibly fortunate that they were and are healthy. Many mothers who give birth early are not so lucky. So now, I'm ready to share.

For me, I think the most fulfilling way for me to tell my birth story is to divide it into four parts: today's summary (for those who don't love reading birth stories, this is for you), the pregnancy, the preterm labor, bedrest and delivery, and finally, the NICU. That way, I'm not writing oodles of words and making your and my eyes cross.

Today's post, along with being a submission in the Carnival of Natural Parenting, will kick off the series and serve a bird's eye view of our experience, and to get you thinking about this little gem of a sentence that truly saved me:

Let go of expectations and embrace reality.

There are so many ways this rang true for us. When I first found out I was pregnant, I had some grandiose visions about pregnancy, birth, and parenting. I saw myself achieving a calm, nurturing, and creative pregnancy and a gentle, midwife-assisted water birth.  When we saw two heartbeats on the ultrasound screen, my dreams and reality clashed head-on.

While pregnant, I wanted to be super crafty and make amazing gifts for my daughters, glitter spilling on my swollen tummy, and take creative belly shots every month to track my progress. The crafts didn't happen: I could barely get up from the couch to press "play" as I watched the entire Gilmore Girls series over and over. We took some pictures, but not enough to make a clever Pinterest-inspired photo collage. I did my share of relaxing, but so much for the creative pregnancy!

In Oregon, midwives can't assist a twin birth in a birth center, so my only option was to have a home birth. While I admire those women who do, it was definitely not something I was comfortable with. Scratch off the midwife-assisted birth. After a ton of research, I found myself a wonderful OB who would vaginally deliver a breech twin B confidently. Then, unexpectedly,  I went into preterm labor at 31 weeks. Three days of magnesium sulfate and then three weeks of hospital bed rest is how I spent the month of June. It was not nurturing, and it was not a calm environment, but we made do in little ways until at 34 weeks, they finally let me go home. Five days later, my water broke.

But the most vivid illustration of letting go of my expectations came in watching the evolution of our birth plan. It started out as a manifesto: three typed pages, 10-point font, with every single detail spelled out. A few months later, it was down to two pages. When I went into pre-term labor at 31 weeks, it looked like I might not get to have a birth plan at all. They were able to stop the contractions, and for the next two weeks, I created three different plans while reclining on the hospital bed. Birth Plan One: To be used for if birth happens prior to 34 weeks with a C-Section. Birth Plan Two: To be used if a vaginal birth happens prior to 34 weeks. Birth Plan Three: Anything that happens at 35+ weeks, with sections for both vaginal and C-section.

When my girls were finally born at 34 weeks and five days, my birth plan had been whittled down to a one-page list of "hopes", with the only bold font being "please use donor breast milk in the NICU." Even though the circumstances were not what I had envisioned, I still feel fortunate enough that the three things dearest to my heart happened: two healthy daughters, a vaginal birth, and successful breastfeeding. I was thankful beyond belief, and could have cared less about page two, bullet-point five of the birth plan.

Next time, perhaps!

***
Visit Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:
(This list will be live and updated by afternoon June 12 with all the carnival links.)

• I Had A C-Section. So What! — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama rewrites her birth story now that she has worked through the feelings of inadequacy and disappointment of not having the “perfect” birth.
• The Perfect Birth — Kellie at Our Mindful Life reflects on how a birth can be far from what we imagined, but still perfect.
• Own Your Birth: My Hope For All Expectant Moms — Andrea at Tales of Goodness shares how she owned her birth spiritually (while navigating it physically) in order to have a joyous experience.
• Carnival of Natural Parenting: My Birth Experience — It wasn't what Lily at Witch Mom wanted, but it was everything she needed.
• The Painless Natural Homebirth of BabyE — Shannon at GrowingSlower wants women considering natural birth to know painless births are possible.
• Reflections on Jemma's Birth ... 20 Months Later — It took a second pregnancy for That Mama Gretchen to fully embrace her first birth experience.
• Loving My Unnatural Birth Experience — Erika at Cinco de Mommy cherishes her very first birth experience, in all its unnatural glory!
• Be Careful What you Wish for in Birth — Amber at Strocel.com had two births, and it was the one that went to plan that she struggled with embracing.
• Redeeming an unexpected hospital transfer — Lauren at Hobo Mama looks back at her first, interrupted home-turned-hospital birth, and finds the beauty in what happened.
• All of it — Laura from Pug in the Kitchen had to learn to embrace the whole experience of birth even though it meant being naked . . . with an audience.
• Birthing Dreams & Realities — Momma Jorje never had a "dream birth," but she wouldn't change a thing about her births.
• Memories of Birth: Calm Amidst the Storm — While neither of her children's births had been quite what she expected, Cynthia at The Hippie Housewife cherishes one moment in particular from each of her birth experiences.
• Embracing Our Birth Stories — Luschka from Diary of a First Child shares a sensitive post on her recent birth which both did and didn't go 'to plan', and writes about the journey of coming to terms with the good and the bad.
• Two Beautiful Births — Sheila at A Gift Universe remembers how her mother brought out the beauty in each of her children's births, and tries to do the same with her sons' birth stories.
• Embracing My Supernatural ChildBirth Experiences... — Jenny at I'm a full-time mummy shares her fond memories on both her supernatural childbirth experiences
• Embracing the Hospital Birth Experience — Jenn at Monkey Butt Junction believes that sometimes a medicated, induced hospital birth is the right choice for a natural parent.
• Carnival: Embracing Your Birth Experience — Stephanie at The Other Baby Blog embraces the birth experience from a paleobiologist's point of view and takes a look at how humans defy their anatomy.
• Reflections on My First Birth and Preparing for a Second — Abbie at Farmer's Daughter shares the strength she didn't realize she had until she gave birth to her son.
• becoming a mama - embracing my birth experience — Meegs at A New Day remembers the birth of her daughter Gwenivere, and the empowered feeling it left her with.
• What About Us? A Poem About Birth — Kat at Loving {Almost} Every Moment shares a poem she wrote about healing from an unexpected and emotionally painful birth experience.
• Be a Man: One Father's View of Birth — Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children shares her husband's advice to other fathers and partners.
• A Birth Monologue — Kat at MomeeeZen shares a monologue she wrote during the process of healing from her birth experiences.
• Forgiveness: My Birth Journey — Leah at The Crunchy Farm Baby discusses what happens when her planned homebirth doesn't end up the way she wanted, and explains her journey of forgiving herself for losing that "perfect" birth.
• Patching together a perfect birth — KrissyFair at Think Mama, Think learned that sometimes a perfect birth happens in pieces.
• Celebrating and Sharing the Possibilities of Perfect Birth — Terri from Child of the Nature Isle joyfully shares details of her perfect births and wishes to inspire a more positive cultural expectation about birth.
• Instinct - Embracing Your Birth Experience — Laura at Laura's Blog reflects on instinctual moments during and after the births of her two daughters.
• I was Foolish Then — ANonyMous at Radical Ramblings describes how foolish lack of preparation for childbirth led to a feeling of powerlessness and fear, but that in the end she had her baby in her arms, and that's one thing she can celebrate.
• Sometimes no plan is the best plan — Tat at Mum in search contemplates that maybe she doesn't need a birth plan for her upcoming birth.
• Disturbing the peace — Kenna at Million Tiny Things thought she would be a calm, quiet baby-haver. Ha!
• Accepting the Unexpected During Birth — Emily at S.A.H.M i AM imagined herself laboring on a birthing ball but she never imagined where she'd really be most comfortable when the time came...
• Sacred This Time, Too — Kimber at The Single Crunch learned enough to know that the way she birthed wasn't they way she wanted to; but she also knew to enjoy it for what it was.
• The Birth Partner: A Great Natural Labor Companion — Justine at The Lone Home Ranger thinks that the secret to her pleasant natural labors was having a great support system.
• the Best Thing About My Labor Experience — Crunchy Con Mommy realizes that amidst all the things that seemed to go wrong with her labor, the love and support of her husband was the one thing she could always count on!
• Your Birth Was My Favorite — Dulce de leche describes some of the highlights from each of her four births and explains why despite the differences, they are all her favorites.
• Birth Story: Part One - Moon on a Stick! — Gentle Mama Moon tells the first part of her birth story to share some of the delight of labouring at home.
• Embracing My Birth Experience by Sharing My Birth Story — Dionna at Code Name: Mama made peace with her first birth by sharing the story with her son.
• Focusing on the Beauty of Birth — Julia at A Little Bit of All of It shares the beautiful aspects of her birth center water birth.
• A Joyful Induced Delivery — Amy Willa: Me, Mothering, and Making it All Work notes the meditations and perspective that helped her achieve an unmedicated birth despite being induced for medical reasons.
• Finding Joy in an Imperfect Childbirth Experience — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now tells what she learned from her two very different childbirth experiences.
• What's to like about a c-section? — Jessica at Crunchy-Chewy Mama is glad she her second child at home, but she also cherishes much about the c-section she had four years earlier.
• What Story Will I Tell? — Rachael at The Variegated Life realizes that the way she tells the story of her second child's birth matters — and could be exhilarating.
• I Quietly Put My Hopes to Rest E — Erica at ChildOrganics shares her emotional ups and downs with the highly intervened birth of her special needs daughter, Bella.
• Tale of Six Births — Jessica at Instead of Institutions appreciates that unique challenges and joys of each of her births.
• Labouring naturally: nature’s gift — Caroline at stoneageparent describes the most beautiful, spiritual aspect of the labour of her son, the first stages along a bumpy road to giving birth.
• All The Woman I Am. — Lindsay at This Woman's Work shares a poem about letting go and surrendering during the thralls of labor.
• A twin birth story: embracing the unexpected — Megan at The Boho Mama shares her twin birth experience and how she found the silver lining when faced with preterm labor, premature birth, and a two-week NICU stay.
• Giving Birth With Eminem — Kerry at City Kids Homeschooling shares how fiery rap music contributed to an empowered homebirth with her third baby.
• Two Different Births — Cassie at There's a Pickle in My Life shares how she learned from her first birth experience and how to trust yourself and your body.
• Embracing Our Potential: Birth as a Metaphor — Sheila from A Living Family guest posts at Natural Parents Network and expresses how birth has served as a metaphor to help her through other experiences in life.
• Little Sister's Birth Story: Our VBAC Adventure — Charise at I Thought I Knew Mama describes the recent birth story of her baby girl, her pride in an epidural-free VBAC, and how her story isn't exactly the birth experience she had planned for.
• A Journey in Birth Confidence — Shannon at The Artful Mama shares her experiences with labor during both of her sons' births.