Birth

Honestly, this isn't my favorite topic.

I'm so torn - I want to just feel grateful they're here and we survived it all.
But I feel like I missed out on what should be an amazing, beautiful, healthy, empowering experience.
Our babies were born via scheduled Cesarean at exactly 38 weeks.
Why?
Good question.
I'll never know if this was, in fact, the only and best way for me to give birth. Maybe trying anything else would've had terrible consequences.
Baby A was feet-down and baby B was transverse. So not ideal positions.
Plus - my first child was born via c-section. So my doctor was afraid of uterine rupture if we tried for a VBAC.
So we went the "safe" route. Though I hardly think a c-section is safe. So many possible problems there.
I really would just like to stop writing now. I block out the whole birth experience. Not that it was bad - it's just the past, and I can't do anything about it. So why dwell on it?  I'm really so grateful - so very grateful to my Heavenly Father - for my two healthy babies. It doesn't matter how they arrived. It doesn't matter what we went through. We're moving forward and doing the best we can.
But for the sake of this blog post, I'm writing about the birth experience. Maybe it will be helpful to someone else.
Early August 2010. I remember arriving at 4:45am on the scheduled day. They do these crazy hours for the convenience of the doc and staff. So by the time they've prepped me for surgery, it's like 7:45am, and the doc can be done in time to take care of other laboring women.
So many tubes and needles and poking and monitoring..... I felt like a lab rat. An abused lab rat, because one nurse was TERRIBLE at inserting needles, and I got stabbed so many times while she was trying to get it right. It hurt.

I bawled from the moment they had me ready until my babies were in my arms. Maybe it was all the drugs. I was dopey and SO emotional. It's so hard to describe what it feels like to have a curtain in front of your face, and feel the pressure and movement of being cut into, and babies being taken out. It's incredible, really, that such a procedure is possible.  But it's terrifying - to feel so helpless. SO helpless. It's so hard to trust a surgeon (or two, like I had). While they're professionals with tons of experience and training - they're human. They make mistakes. The whole experience of birth - no matter how it's done - really puts me in a position where I have to trust and have faith. I think I was silently praying during most of the surgery. Brian was right next to my face during most of it - but he also took some video and pictures, which I'm grateful for now. I can't rely on my fuzzy drugged-up memories!
My babies were brought immediately up to my arms and face. I got to see them and kiss them. They were the most beautiful creatures I had ever seen.   Immediate love.  Immediately it was allllll worth it. Having one baby is so intense and such a powerful bonding experience with another human being. Having two at the same time - absolutely overwhelming!

So.... this post was a lot more personal than I had intended.  Especially since this blog is written towards strangers and acquaintances. But I'm a say-it-like-it-is person; probably too much of an open-book, so ......  there you have it!  The birth of our twins.  I've got more pictures I hope to add later.