Premature Twins Born Vaginally at Hospital at 34 Weeks

Walking into the OB office for our first ultrasound at 9 weeks… I still remember the moment like it was yesterday.  This was after suffering through infertility after the birth of our first daughter, and going through a devastating miscarriage 4 months prior. My husband and I were terrified. Our fears were only heightened when the tech quickly hit the call button for the doctor shortly after the ultrasound began. I glanced over at my husband, we didn’t say a word, but we knew what the other was thinking.  I began to prepare for the worst. That was until the ultrasound tech let out a small chuckle and said “There are 2 wiggling babies”

TWO BABIES??? I was in shock!!! And flooded with so many emotions. Excitement, disbelief, and panic!

It didn’t take long before we noticed that this pregnancy was a whole different ballgame from our first. I showed sooner, felt movement sooner, and like all the other things than came sooner, so did the preterm labor. I started having contractions at 22 weeks, then again at 24 weeks. But my cervix never changed with the contractions, so I just tried to take it easy. Something that was very difficult to do with a wild 3 year old at home.

One morning at 29 weeks, I started feeling horrible. I was achey, crampy, and my back was killing me. Made sense, because I was carrying 2 babies. My back seemed to always hurt. After sending my husband off to work, I called my mom who convinced me to go get checked out. Better safe than sorry.

As the nurse was checking me I was apologizing for coming in. “I’m sure I’m probably just overreacting”. So,  I was shocked to hear ,”Whoa, you’re dilated 3!”

Everything kind of went wild from there, I was quickly started on magnesium sulfate (AKA a devil drug I hope I never get the pleasure of experiencing again), an ultrasound was done to check the positions of the babies (twin A was breech, baby B head down), and nurses and doctors were constantly in and out all night.

When the doctor checked me the following morning, I had progressed to  a 4, although I have no memory of this because the magnesium made me out of it. My husband said they started prepping for a c-section, but for some reason decided to do one last ultrasound to check positions. Miraculously, both were head down! So the c-section was put on hold.

However, the ultrasound this time revealed something else. Twin A was not growing properly. In fact, she was estimated to barely weigh 1 lb., whereas Baby B was estimated to be over 3 lbs. It was another shocking blow to add to an already stressful event.

Thankfully, my labor seemed to stop, and although still behind in growth, Baby A was doing well. After almost 5 weeks in the hospital, I was sent home, with plans to induce at 36 weeks.

That night I waited up for my husband to get home from work at 5 a.m. to watch our favorite show we had recorded. We had just snuggled into bed, and I realized the date was 11/11/11, I told my husband “wouldn’t it be so neat to have 11/11/11 as a birthday?”. No sooner than the words left my mouth I felt a POP that made me jump. Convinced I had probably just peed my pants a little (another joy from twin pregnancy), I quickly got up to go to the bathroom. As I was climbing back in bed, I felt the gush! “I guess we get to find out about that birthday huh?”, my husband said.

We live an hour away from the hospital, and it was the longest ride of my life. My contraction became so intense, and my husband was praying the whole way there, “Lord, please don’t let these babies be born in a car!”

By the time we got to the hospital I was dilated 8. Because of hospital policy with twin births, I had to have an epidural placed, even though I didn’t want the medication, just in case something went wrong and an emergency c-section was needed. But upon it being placed, my entire upper body went numb, and it became difficult to breathe, and it was quickly removed.

At this point I was checked and was fully dilated. I was whisked to the OR for delivery (another twin policy). After 3 short pushes, at 8:03 am, Emersyn Aubree was born weighing 3 lbs. 2 oz. and 15 in. long. She was taken away to the NICU, as she started showing signs of hypothermia.

Then my water was ruptured around twin B, after a few pushes, everyone seemed to panic. Twin B had a cord prolapse and they had lost his heartbeat, after placing an internal monitor, and still getting nothing. It was chaos. Because I didn’t have the epidural, and my breathing was not good enough to go under anasthesia, an emergency c-section was out of the question. So with the help of forceps, Abel Elijah was born very quickly at 8:12 am. He was purple, and needed a little resuscitating, but he was perfect. He was a bit bigger than his sister, at 5 lbs. 3 oz. and 15.5 inches long.

It was very quick, at times a tad scary, but a good birth experience. Since they were born at 34 weeks, they both went to the NICU to work on feeding issues and maintaining body temperature. Abel spent just 2 days there, and was released with me. Emersyn had quite a bit of catching up to do. She went down to a tiny 2lbs. 10 oz., but she was a fighter! On Thanksgiving day she finally got to join her brother at home, and they were united for the first time since birth!