Do twins run in the family, which I'm always asked. No, no, they do not
run in the family. This was totally unexpected. There was no IVF. It was
just we were destined to have 3 kids. My husband and I had a daughter
before the twins. She was about, let's see, 1.5. I took a pregnancy test
because I was feeling kind of similar to how I felt when I found out I was
pregnant with her, and it came out positive promptly after. That I started
to feel the pregnancy symptoms, but like really crazy. I was smelling. We
had some flowers that were dying. I could smell them dying two rooms over
, and I never had that with my first pregnancy. It was bizarre. We had
hired a midwife. We were going to do a home birth and she had similar
faith to us and we were really excited to have just this really holistic
experience, a mind, body, spirit, and um we went and visited her. And I
said to her, I'm feeling crazy nauseous. Like, I mean, I was on the couch
, um, just laid out and my fatigue was off the charts and I was feeling
depression just like my body. I didn't want to get up and I was crying a
lot. I'm like literally, I'm just not feeling pregnant, Jessica. I feel
bizarro Jessica. And so I said, I really would like to take an ultrasound.
I'm about 8 weeks right now, and I said, I know that's really early, but
something just is not right with this pregnancy. So she said, uh, I don't
like to do them this early, but something in her spirit also said, let's
do this. So the tech was checking me out and she said, How do you feel
about twins? And I thought she was just making conversation. And she, uh,
I said, I guess they're OK. And she said, No, you're having twins, and she
pointed to the screen, and there were two sacks with two beating hearts,
which is amazing. I mean, there were so many thoughts that went through my
head. First of all, I was kind of bummed that my husband wasn't there for
the for the reveal, so my husband did show up and we let him know what was
going on, and he, his knees buckled a little bit, but he sat down and we
processed it together, we. I knew that here in Arizona you need to deliver
twins in an OR. You can't do it in a typical delivery room. You actually
have to do it in an OR. And so, uh, that's the ruling if you're in a
hospital. And so my doula recommended a really good OB, very natural
minded, and she was, she was lovely, uh, but we had so many issues with.
Her staff and just ran into a lot of difficulties. And finally, I just
said, Bob, I don't think that this is the right doctor for us. I really
feel like God's slamming a door on this one. I said, I don't know what
else to do because this is the most natural minded OB I know of and that
our doula really likes. So um I had in the process of all of this. met a
certified nurse midwife who in the state of Arizona is allowed to do home
births for twins, but most will not do it because there is risk associated
and you can be looked down on. We found out that they had their own
placentas. Each of them had their own placenta and each of them had their
own sac, so they weren't at risk of twin to twin transfusion where one
twin is bigger than the other. They weren't at risk of tangling up in each
other's cords. So it's the. situation that you can get for twins in terms
of risk, so to speak. So I did a ton of research. He did research too. I
put together a bunch of statistics. I interviewed other moms who had had
twins, and we came to the same conclusion that for us that home birth with
the twins was going to be the best option. I put together a birthing plan
with my husband and my midwife, and it's really cool with a home birth.
They're so of you don't have to worry about putting all the things you
don't want because they're not going to force much on you. They're not
going to force anything really, except if it's a life or death situation.
I had a great pregnancy. Um, I mean, I was so grateful throughout the
whole thing even though I was battling layers of the depression and the
nausea and I was so tired, um, I really was just so grateful just knowing
that not only was I carrying two babies, but they were healthy and that I
was. to get to have the birth that I wanted. I wasn't being forced into
something out of fear, and that for me was a really it was almost the
theme of the pregnancy. It was love over fear. Choosing the the doctor and
the hospital would have been the fear route, and I recognized that if I
had to go there, I was, I was willing and happy to go there if if
something did indeed go wrong, but going to a hospital I only was going to
do because I was being told that that was what I needed to do, not because
I wanted it. And having the babies at home was such an amazing thing for
me because for my husband and me growing up, I can't say that our homes
were places that we want to spend lots of time in and so to welcome our
boys into the world in our home and make that a place that we wanted to be
and that they wanted to be, it was just something that I felt was
redeeming. I went into labor. My husband contacted our doula and just gave.
a heads up that I was starting to have contractions, they said just if
she can have her get sleep because this is still early labor, have her
rest as much as possible. Well, the labor stopped, the contractions
stopped, and they said just go out to eat, get a glass of wine, relax. So
we went to a nice dinner and I had a glass of wine, which is crazy for the
customers looking at the pregnant woman drinking wine and uh which of
course I'm sure they were wondering why are you in labor at this
restaurant, but whatever. I went through labor of 11 days in and out. They
would come and go. The team came a few days later. We thought it was going
to happen. Um, the contractions were picking up. The whole team assembled
here. They blew up the tub in the living room. They filled it. And the
contractions stopped again. I was just crying. I said to my midwife, I
want you to break my water, she said, Well, let me go talk to the team,
but she said they recommend against it because if it doesn't work, you are
going to the hospital and I know you don't want that. I said, OK, and I
just laid there and cried, and one of the other team members came in and
she um she just sat with me and prayed with me and it's amazing having a
group of women just around you. So the night that I finally did go into
real labor, I came home from my walk with my mom, and the house was quiet
and she went and made dinner, and I just turned on some praise and worship
music, deep meditative stuff, and just sat on my balance ball and just
listened. There's one song that just really rocked me. It's called
Beautiful Things and it's uh he makes. Beautiful things out of dust. He
makes beautiful things out of us, and I just felt like that. I was just
like I was leveled. I was just like ruined and I just just sat there in
the ball and I just felt the contractions building and building and
building and I let them build and I just said I will not allow any fear of
them not continuing to enter in. So I'm feeling in my hips, it feels like
they're spreading. I'm like, oh, this is what labor feels like, this is
what labor is. I was getting cold because it was a November night so I
went to turn up the heat and they were starting to fill the pool at this
point and they filled it with um as much hot water as they could get and
then they were boiling water in the stove to warm it up even more and then
I went to use the restroom and I was sitting on the toilet and my water
breaks. I hopped into the water and felt amazing. It was like I can't
describe it. It was just relief. I did everything as it came naturally to
me. You, they tell you trust your body. Go with your body, move with your
body. Get up. If your baby is telling you I need to be delivered this way
, you move this way. If you feel like the baby needs to go this way, you
just move with that. And so with the pushes, it's the same thing, pushing
slowly so that the baby can just. Come out at its pace and and not too
fast just trusting your body. I could feel um baby A starting to get into
position. They were doing the Doppler in the water and they said, OK, baby
A is descending and so everybody got into position. My husband got down at
the bottom so he could watch and he came out. And he was screaming and
happy and they put him right onto my chest. He just laid there and looked
up at me and I and I looked down at him and right at that moment they were
checking me for Baby Bee's position and he was ready to come out right
after his brother. Baby B came out, my husband caught him. And put them on
my chest, so I have two little boys on my chest. The cords are still
pulsing and the blood is still flowing into them, and they tell me, time
to get out of the water. I said, Can I just rest here a little bit longer
? They said, absolutely not. Time to get out. And I fell over. It turned
out that my blood pressure dropped when I stood up because I had a
distended uterus, I believe is the term. And so I stood up and passed out
and when I came to, it was like Seconds later, I came right to, but it
sounded like circus music was playing in my head. I just heard them saying
, focus, focus, and they had me look specifically at one of the one of the
team members and they just kept saying her name, saying her name, and I
just was focusing on her and they pulled me out of the water and they gave
me the medicine to help stop the bleeding. It was all planned. I mean,
this was not a surprise to them. They said with with twins, it's likely
this will happen. That's why I had this medication prepared. It was part
of the birth plan. And um my husband had baby B and my mom had baby A and
so the team started weighing them and checking to make sure their vitals
were all good and all was awesome. In my heart I knew it was going to be
fine. So I knew it was going to be fine, but it's hard to trust the bigger
picture when you're in the details. It's hard to trust that there is a
victory when you're doing the little battles along. Away so for me, I will
say there was fear, but by the end of it when the actual delivery happened
there wasn't any in the final in the final days of labor and the final um
contractions it was no fear.