Twin Home Births

Warning: This might be a little controversial and I usually shy away from condemning anyone's personal choices... I still don't and that's not the purpose of this post. But, it is something that I have pretty strong feelings about, so I felt the need to post this...

I originally posted this as a comment to a post on the blog "You've Got Your Hands Full" at gotyourhandsfull.com I spent enough time writing this, I thought I'd post it here, too :-) Anyway, here's the video I commented on (don't worry about making it through the the whole thing... I didn't :-p):



You can read the post that went along with this video on the "You've Got Your Hands Full" blog, but here's my response:

To be honest, I couldn't make it through the entire video, but I think I got the gist of it after the first 2-3 minutes. I'm very happy that all those pregnancies turned out just fine. They should thank their lucky stars every day, just like I do mine. I have to admit I found it offensive how much the term "natural" was used... it just implies that my babies' birth was "unnatural." My OB did say that we would try for a vaginal birth, but because it was a higher-risk pregnancy, he prepared me for the possibility of a C-section. I really didn't care... all I cared about then and now was that they were born healthy and are here with me today.

Now, my babies were both head down, and could have been born vaginally (although I always planned to do so in the hospital)... but I had an infection in my uterus, because my water had been broken for 10 days (I was told at the hospital that it had not 10 days before). So, I had to have an emergency C-section... almost 10 weeks before my due date.

Clearly, mistakes were made leading up to the birth... but, the hospital took wonderful care of both me and the girls. I do advocate listening to your own instincts, but that doesn't mean that I advocate NOT listening to doctors. It has made me want to become involved in raising TTTS awareness (what caused my babies to be born early and almost not make it)... but, if I have another baby, I absolutely will still do so in a hospital. Was everyone perfect there? No. But, if we hadn't been there, Anna and Josie would not be on this earth today... and what a loss that would have been, not only for us but the world...

Yes, babies, even twin babies, can be born at home, vaginally and be just fine. But things can go wrong during childbirth... especially in dealing with a high risk pregnancy. Again, they kept using the term "natural" but multiple births are high risk pregnancies because frankly, it's not natural to give birth to twins. Most people have singletons because, that's what the human body is designed to do.

I've never thought of my girls as anything but miracles. But, scientists to this day have no idea why identical twins form... I would never call them a "freak of nature" but, it is an anomaly... and fraternal twins are formed when a woman releases more than one egg in a menstrual cycle: Something that is also not SUPPOSED to occur, but does for one reason or another, whether it be heredity, "advanced maternal age," fertility drugs (and of course, fertility treatments when more than one embryo is transferred)... or again, just because things like that happen in nature sometimes.

I think I found the use of the term "natural" so offensive because I think it's just as offensive as saying that twins conceived by IVF are not natural. Did science and doctors intervene to bring them into the world? Sure... but, does that make them any less of a miracle of nature?

I usually shy away from being overly judgmental when it comes to people's personal choices. But, even in singleton births, things can go wrong... and when you throw twins (or more) into the mix, I think you need to take every precaution. The goal of a pregnancy is to end up with a healthy baby (or babies)... period. And, for me that meant having a C-section... and I was and am totally fine with that. I didn't get pregnant to have a "natural birth experience." I got pregnant to have a baby. I just happened to hit the baby jackpot :-p And if that means having a less than ideal birth experience, so be it... taking care of twins is no walk in the park, either :-p But, one of the first things you learn when you have twins is that, you do what you have to do :-p And that it won't be easy... but it will be worth it.