This is Boris Solis interviewing Jessica Marquis on June 24th, 2015 at
10:45. All right, Jessica, if you could maybe um take us back to around
the time of the pregnancy and let us know if there's anything, a memorable
event or like what season, just something to kind of place us, sure. OK,
so, um, let's see, my husband and I had uh a daughter before, uh, my
husband and I had a daughter before the twins, and, um, so she was about,
let's see, I would say 2, let's see 1.5, and we had just finished the
Phoenix Film Festival because we're very involved in the film community
here in Phoenix and um I. 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. So that was in April and April of 2014 and
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, it was bizarre. And um I was feeling crazy nauseous. I
mean, I'd had crazy nausea with the first pregnancy, but this one was, I
mean I was on the couch, um, just laid out and my fatigue was off the
charts and I was feeling depression. It was just like chemical depression.
It wasn't um. Thoughts or or typical depression that textbook, it was
depression of just like my body. I didn't want to get up and I was crying
a lot. So anyway, um, I said something's really weird. I said to my
husband, something's not right. So we had hired a midwife. We were going
to do a home birth and my daughter was born in a birth center and we
really loved that type of care, but we really wanted to do it at home this
time. So we had hired a midwife and she had similar faith to us and we
were really excited to have just this really holistic experience, a mind
body spirit, and we went and visited her. And I said to her, I'm feeling
crazy. 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. And so, uh, she, so she
said, uh, I don't like to do them this. Early, but something in her spirit
also said, let's do this. And I was going out of town. I was going on an
international trip with my daughter, so I wanted to make sure that I had
all my ducks in a row before I flew off of this continent to another one.
And so my husband and I went for an ultrasound and I was actually by
myself at this ultrasound and um She he was coming later. He was running a
little bit late from work, 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, 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 for that early on. She
said, You have there are twins in there. And I 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, but also I I mean, in
that immediate moment, I knew I couldn't keep my midwife, who had already
walked me through so much difficulty and with all these symptoms. Yeah,
that's right. Um, so I, so my husband did show up and we let him know what
was going on, and his knees buckled a little bit, but he sat down and we
processed it together. We called my doula right away. She actually is a
mother of twins herself, so she knew exactly what was going to be
happening to me in the next 9 months, and we talked to my midwife and so
just speeding the story up a little bit, we We 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 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, but we had so many issues
with her staff and just ran into a lot. of difficulties with just
recommendations and communication. 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 by your community. But I approached her and I said to her,
I'm having a lot of difficulty with this doctor and her staff, and I feel
that the home birth might be the right direction. Would you consider it?
She said, Let me pray on it. I was like, Oh my gosh, she is a praying
person too. So we both prayed on it for a week and we talked to each other
a week later and she said, Let's do this. And I just almost jumped out of
my seat. I was so excited, but I still had to get my husband on board. He
knew that the doctor wasn't the right route, but he wasn't yet convinced
that the home birth was. 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 um around the country internationally. As part of a Facebook group I
was in, uh, any who had had home births, asked them about transfers, just
all those kind of statistics just to find out what we were getting
ourselves into. And then I gave him all those that research, the research
from books, research from interviews, just everything that I could compile
, and we came to the same conclusion that for us that home birth with the
twins was going to be the best option. And as long as everything went
smoothly, I have to insert that. They were die die, which means 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 best situation that you
can get for twins in terms of risk, so to speak. So, um, we progressed
through our pregnancy. I continued to have difficulty with uh with nausea
, heartburn, um, the depression was alleviated through Lexapro. I am
grateful for that. That little pill really helped a lot. Um, but I, I
really didn't run into any difficulties after leaving the, um, the other
doctor. So, um, now in regard to do twins run in the family, which I'm
always. 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 and um we
found out that it was 2 boys, which complimented our little girl nicely.
And um we went in for ultrasounds regularly to make sure that they were
growing accordingly and that they were healthy and so on. We found out
that they were and so every time we went in we were able to continue with
our midwife and she built a team of of uh practitioners to help with the
delivery because when you have twins at home, you have to have one. A
designated practitioner for the uh for one baby, one for the other baby,
and one for the mother. So I had my doula to help me with labor, and then
I had a team of um of midwives and assistants to help. So I, I gained, I
was, I was really working toward 50 pounds. Um, I was doing over 100 g of
protein every day, which was really tough for me because I'm not, I'm, I
kind of tend toward vegetarian, not fully, but I really had a hard time
doing lots of meat and And uh I, so what I did is I did 3 bowls of whole
fat Greek yogurt. So I had 20 g per serving for that 3 times a day. Um, so
yeah, 3 bowls a day. I had um as much bread with protein as possible and I
forced myself to eat a lot of meat. And I did good. I was able to get my
my weight gain on there, the boys gained plenty of weight and um so. In
regard to um birth classes and all that, I put together a birthing plan
with my husband and my midwife, and it's really cool with the home birth.
They're so supportive. 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. So, um, my birthing plan had a Plan B in the event that I
needed to transfer with the boys. I had things that I did or didn't want
if I didn't end up at the hospital, um, but the birthing plan itself was
really clear cut. It was that I wanted to have them at home. I wanted to
have them in the water if possible. I wasn't able to do that with. My
daughter, she just refused to be born in the water. She was born on a bed
at the birth center, but I really wanted to have my water birth with my
boys if possible. I was going to have my doula there, and she would stay
with me regardless of what happened. We talked about afterwards there
tends to be more blood loss with twins, so we talked about what we would
use for that and uh. So it was a very, it was actually a very detailed
birth plan because there were so many things I had to take into account.
We also did planned for delayed cord clamping, which means that we let all
the blood from the placenta flow into the babies um as long as we could.
That was. On the birth plan, um, and, uh, placenta encapsulation was also
on the birth plan so we kept the placentas so that we could have them
encapsulated and I know that the research behind that is still formulating
but for me I was, I was willing to take that risk because it definitely
helped me with my first. Um, I just was, 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 going 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. Um, when 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 um.
And having the babies at home was such an amazing thing for me because for
my husband and me growing up, uh, I can't say that our homes were places
that we want to spend lots of time in for various reasons 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 and to have our daughter there too
that was in the birth plan, uh, it was just something that I felt was
redeeming of the concept of home for all of us. So it was a wonderful
pregnancy overall. I mean, looking back, I pretty much spent most of the
third trimester in my uh my Lay Boy. And we had family come in to take
care of me. My mom came in for the last two months and prior to that, my
aunt, well, it's my husband's aunt came in and she took care of me and
took care of my daughter and um they prepared meals and I was beside
myself with gratitude. Uh, so getting to the actual point of um of the
birth, uh, the boys were due December 14th, but we knew that most likely
they would come at the end of November, beginning of December, so that's
what we were aiming toward. And as long as I got to 36 weeks, I could have
them at home.
So. I went into labor, um, I think it was let's see, November 20th or
maybe it was the night of November 19th, uh, I started feeling
contractions. My husband contacted our doula and just gave her a heads up
that I was starting to have contractions. It actually started kind of
funny. I was sitting on the lazy boy and he was sitting on the couch and I
shifted and I felt kind of funny and I, and I made a noise and he said,
What was that? And I said. I, I was just shifting. I'm fine. And he said,
Well, I don't know. I don't know if you're going into labor. I said, I
will know if I'm going into labor. And honestly, 10 minutes later I said,
Bob, I think I'm in labor.
So, um, so I had to really, you know, they started to pick up and um and
it was hard for me to know for sure if I was in labor because my
daughter's labor was so different. um I had been in labor with her with
severe back labor, so it's hard to actually feel the contractions with her
so these contractions felt a lot less painful and therefore I didn't
actually know if I was in labor. So I had contractions off and on, and
finally the doula and we had contacted our midwife. They said just she can
have her get sleep because this is still early labor, have her rest as
much as possible. So I went to bed, fell asleep. I woke up. I still was
having contractions and so they came over early in the morning and they
checked me out and we went for a walk and I had dilated, but it was slow
progress, so we went for a walk around the neighborhood. And um after a
few hours, I still wasn't making a lot of progress, so they just said,
well, go ahead and get some more rest and give us calls, you know,
throughout the day. Well, the, the labor stopped, the contractions stopped.
And so we talked to them and they said, well, sometimes this happens, so
just rest, take care of yourself because you don't know when they're gonna
kick in. You need as much energy as you can manage.
OK, so that night. We still hadn't fully kicked in. I was getting bummed
out and they said just go out to eat, get a glass of wine, relax. So we
went to a nice dinner at Saint Francis and I had a glass of wine, which is
crazy for the customers looking at the pregnant woman drinking wine, but
we were trying to tell everybody around us, oh no, I'm I'm in labor. They
told me they told me to drink wine to relax, and uh, which of course I'm
sure they were wondering why are you in labor at this restaurant, but
whatever. Um, so the contractions, I did have minor contractions. They
didn't progress. I went to bed and um I, I went through labor of 11 days,
um, in and out. They would come and go. The team came a few days later, we
thought it was gonna happen. Um, the contractions were picking up. The
whole team assembled here. They blew up the the tub in the living room,
they filled it. And the contractions stopped again and I was just I was
just crying because I just wanted to have the boys. It had been a few days
at this point. I think it was about 4 days at this 0.5 days. I just wanted
to meet them. But it wasn't meant to be. I said to my midwife, I, I want
you to break my water. She said, Well, let me go talk to the team. And so
my doula sat with me. Her name's Diane. She sat with me and Diane sat with
her with my husband, and we just, you know, talked about it and cried and
so my midwife came back in and she said. The team recommends against it.
She said, we'll do whatever you want, but she said they recommend against
it because if it doesn't work, you are going to the hospital. And I, and
she said, and I know you don't want that and you don't have to go at this
point. And I was grateful. I was really bummed, but really grateful
because I know had I been in some situations, they would have gone ahead
and broken my water and I would have put into an emergency situation. So 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 and cried
with me and it's amazing having a group of women just around you and and
say we got it we've been there. One of them actually had been there she
had been in and out of labor for I think she had 2 or 3 weeks and um. And
it was amazing having them there to support me. So they went home, we
drained the pool. And my daughter kept asking if she could go swimming.
No, you can't go swimming before I go swimming. And uh this happened
throughout the week of Thanksgiving, um. On Thanksgiving, I was in labor
eating turkey on the bounce ball, trying to kick up my contractions and
nothing.
So the night that I finally did go into real labor, although I will say
that it was like real labor the whole time because I did, I did uh I did
have some um dilation and things that they boys were facing it was just
very slow, but as they pointed out they were being bathed as my team
pointed out they were being bathed in hormones the whole time it was good
for them. Uh, I went for a walk with my mom Saturday, November 29th. I
went for a walk with her. My husband had taken my daughter out so I could
have as little stress as possible, and I got home and I was just
frustrated because earlier in the day he had said if we don't progress,
he's like my my leave is running out. I only took two weeks. I've already
used up one and. And he said, we really need to get this going, and he
said we might need to look at other options, and I knew that meant
possibly a hospital visit, and I just did not want that. And so 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, just like
meditative stuff, just like really like deep meditative stuff and just sat
on my my balance ball and just listen to some songs over and over again
that were really calming and really full of hope and um there's one song
that just really rocked me it's called Beautiful Things and it's uh. Uh,
he, 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 on 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.
I'm just going to hand these off. I'm just going to let them go, and they
continue to build and they continue to build and they build through dinner
and I ate dinner and then they built through me putting my daughter to bed
and I was I was singing her a lullaby and going in and out of moans.
And um I came out and my husband said after my daughter's sleep he said so
it's what's going on? I said I'm still in labor he said this is good so we
contacted the doula and the midwife and funny so the way that it's
supposed to work with the uh home birth is the doula coms help. To labor,
then then you contact the midwife. The midwife comes and then you deliver
the baby. Well, the midwife lived close to the doula and had had so many,
for lack of a better term, false alarms, so we contacted the midwife and
she came out and she checked me and she said, I think we're going to have
the babies. So she, um, so she hung out, she called another midwife to
come and just give a second opinion, and she said, yeah, this looks like
this is happening. So we contacted the doula and she said, OK, Jessica
needs to be speed walking and throughout the house. I couldn't go for a
speed walk outside because um there's no one to watch my daughter and I
couldn't walk by myself at this point because I was waddling a lot and um.
So I, uh, so I kept speed walking and the labor kept building and my
doula showed up and she helped me continue laboring and now I was feeling
it in my hips, which I hadn't had before. I hadn't had that type of labor
, as I said, with my first one, it was all my first my first labor was all
on my back. It was 38 hours long. I had no. Idea what labor was supposed
to be like because it was so convoluted with my first 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 and um I was getting cold because it was
in 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 as much hot water as
they could get and then they were boiling water in the stove to warm it up
even more and so I turned the air or the heat up a little bit and then I
went to use the restroom and I'm sitting on the toilet and my water breaks.
And that again that hadn't happened with my first one. I didn't know that
sensation because they had to break my water with her. And so I'm just
sitting there I'm like, I think that was my water breaking because I don't
think I had that much urine stored up. And so they came in. I called my
doula. I said I I over to me. I said, I think my water broke, and she
checked and she's like, yeah, your water definitely broke, so they said
this is happening. And so they went and woke my husband up because we had
told him to go to sleep cause we didn't know how long it was going to be,
so we went and woke him up and he called my mom and he said, yeah, the
baby the baby should be arriving pretty soon, but take your time. And
someone overheard him and said, no, the babies are on their way, get here
now. I'm so glad they did that because the babies were definitely on their
way. So we hopped, I hopped into the water. It felt great. It felt amazing.
It was like I can't describe it. It was just relief. And so I was in the
water and um just getting into positions that would feel good, as good as
possible to deliver the babies and um so I was shifting and I finally
found like on my back was best with uh just leaning backward. And I could
feel um baby A starting to get into position and um they were they could
they were doing the Doppler in the water and they said, OK, baby A is
descending and um and so everybody got into position. My husband got down
at the bottom so we could watch him being born. And my mom was up at the
top holding my hands, and I gave birth to my little boy. And I'm holding
right now, APA, yeah. And he came out and he was screaming and happy and
they put him right onto my chest, just like that. They put him right onto
my chest and and he just laid there and looked up at me and I looked down
at him and right at that moment they were checking me for Ba B's position
and Baby B got right at position and he was ready to come out right after
his brother. And so we left, as I said, delayed cord clamping. We left the
um the cord with baby A and it continued pulsing and baby B was right in
position within 9 minutes he came out, so 2:21 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. Those
are the times, uh, on November 30th. And baby B came out, my husband
caught him and put him on my chest, so I have two little boys on my chest.
I'm in my in the water just relaxing and they're just che and their teams
checking me and checking the boys and the cords are still pulsing and the
blood is still flowing into them and um delivered baby bees. Santa came
out first, which was a surprise, and then Baby Ace took a little bit more
work. Um, I don't know the medical term, but the slang term for it is it
was dirty Duncan, it was upside down, so they had to like kind of help me
birth that one. It was, it was almost like delivering a third child.
So the placentas are out, boys are healthy. I'm OK, 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 being that they don't
get forceful unless it's a matter of life or death, I had to listen to
them, so I got up. And I fell over and it turned out that my blood
pressure dropped when I stood up because I wasn't holding my um my belly.
I had a distended uterus, I believe is the term, um, because I'd just been
carrying two babies and now I had like a ton of uterus that didn't have
anywhere to go. And so I stood up and passed out, and when I came to, it
was like seconds later, just 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 with um 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. So they gave it to me and um stopped the bleeding and they put
me on the couch on my couch and put a bunch of um blankets and a hat on me
and just started bringing me food and it was food that I couldn't eat for
the last several months because of heartburn and nausea and I was able. So
like I was eating chocolate chip cookies. I was eating raspberries, and
they brought me cranberry juice, and they brought me and they put a bunch
of sugar in there to get my sugar levels up. So I'm just pigging out here.
They got a bunch of leftovers from our Thanksgiving dinner and so I'm
chewing on those, getting my protein up. 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. And so my
husband and I got to finally have our moment together to talk about names
, and the team left the room. And um the the baby baby A, we decided to
name Calvin Jean Marquis. And Baby B, we decided to name Milo Alan Marquee.
And so we announced their names and it was a wonderful moment. The team
loved them because we hadn't told anybody their names and they were just
so excited to hear the names. And no complications, nothing. I was great
afterwards. The boys were great. They ended up nursing fabulously.
We had a wonderful bonding time, and my dad was in Hungary, where my
parents are missionaries, so my mom was able to try to FaceTime him and
give him the details of the kids' names.
And so it's just my mom there and my husband and me and our team, and they
cleaned the whole house up. So when my daughter woke up at 6 a.m., she
came out and it just looked like a bunch of people were hanging out
together and there were two babies. And my mom carried her into the living
room and she said to my husband, I'm sorry. So my mom went into my
daughter's room, brought her out, cause my daughter was calling to us. She
brought her out. My husband sitting the lazy boy holding the two boys, and
I'm resting on the couch. And my husband says, Moxie, we have 2 babies
we'd like you to meet 2 important people. And he said, Do you know who
these are? And she looked. He said, These are your brothers. And she was
so excited. She didn't really know what to make of them, but she was
excited because she had been with me the whole time, feeling the babies
move throughout my pregnancy and she loved her brothers. And so she went
over and she started touching them. Interacting with them, and then she
promptly lost interest because, you know, she's 2 1/2 at this point. But
it was fantastic, I mean, the whole room was so quiet to watch her meet
her brothers for the first time. And then everybody just started clearing
out. My midwife had to stay around to check to make sure that I had used
the restroom sufficiently and they had taken a shower and gotten cleaned
up and was in bed resting and everything was working great. She said she'd
come back and I think it was they came back in 2 days, but she was calling
me to make sure everything was OK. My doula left and so it was just my
husband and me and my mom and And then his his mom came to pick up my
daughter so we could have a day to rest with the boys, and so she got to
meet her grandsons for the first time, which was amazing and then we just
poured a glass of nice wine and took a drink and fell asleep. Almost
immediately. And I think that was the last time we slept together in bed
side by side since because now I have to co-sleep with the boys so that
they sleep through the night and my husband has been an awesome supporter
of that. Um they have been growing amazingly
and my daughter just adores her brothers. So Calvin Jean Marquis was born
first at 2:21 a.m. November 30th. He was 7 pounds 1 ounce. He was 19.5
inches long. His little brother Milo, 9 minutes younger, 221 a.m. Uh, he
had a little bit darker hair. Calvin had blonde hair. Milo had darker hair
, brown. Milo was 6 pounds, 7.5 ounces, and 19 inches. And um both cried
grade, both nursed gray, and That is my birth story. That's amazing.
That was the um when it came to the actual labor part, you know, women
have described that differently in some ways that they had to kind of like
go inside and they couldn't have, you know, communicate with others. Like
how was the pain for you? You know, it was that's definitely as it
progressed, um, it's funny, both times I've people have laughed about how
I do with labor. um. I'm talking normal and then like really intense. I
have to like breathe through and focus through and just like and and. Uh
just almost meditate on that, on that moment. So at the beginning of it,
I'm able to have conversations, but as it progresses in intensity and in
pressure, yeah, I need, I need to go inside and we've talked about having
music playing before, but It's never worked out in the actual moment. I
just want silence. I just want to focus inward and doing it naturally
without any medication at all, you really need to draw up on all your
reserves. So for me, that means shutting everything out, not communicating
that especially in transition and in the pushing stages.
So when you were pushing, did they, you know, in the hospital they'll be
like, you know, count and then you have to hold a push for a certain
length of time. Are you just doing everything as it came natural to you? I
did everything as it came naturally to me. I
Thinking through how to explain it. With, with home birth, with natural
birth, with uh with birth centers, with hospitals that are naturally
inclined, especially ones that employ midwives. 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 this the baby needs to go this way, you just move with that. And
so with the pushes it's the same thing. They will tell you, the team will
tell you when you need to like slow down a little bit so you don't. And
they're really big on making sure that you don't tear, which is so great.
I haven't torn with either of all three immigrants, I guess you could say
, which for twins is pretty amazing. It just slowing down and like pushing
slowly so that the baby can just come out at its pace and not too fast,
just trusting your body.
Wow, that is really intense. I can't, I just, it's unbelievable. Did you
have any fear, you know, with things going around and close to a hospital
, you, you know, or did you feel like really confident? Did you just have
that sense that in your heart it was all gonna just be fine? I will I will
say in my heart I knew it was going to be fine because watching how God
had just put this whole thing in order, I mean closing down the door to a
really great doctor I'm like there's something bigger here. 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 the way. So for me, There were
moments where I did have some fear where I did think, oh boy, like early
on we got a test, a screening done that I didn't realize was being done.
um I, I wouldn't have done it had I known what they were doing. It was
optional. I didn't know it was optional. They told us that we had a 1 in
34 chance that at least one of our boys had Down syndrome, and not that
that would have changed anything for us. We would have loved them
regardless there. But it just was such a surprise to us and there was fear
because we we we realized that would change our entire living situation,
our plans for our lives and so on and so there were moments of fear of are
we getting ourselves into a situation that is out of our. Out of our
experience, should we be really sticking with the safe route and going to
the hospital and I just, every time I just kept going back to the way that
God provided all these little glimmering stones I just said, OK, we're
just going to go with it and if we're going the wrong way, I know he'll
course correct because he kept course correcting me every other time. But
yeah, there was fear. I will say there was fear, but by the end of it. I
can say that.
When the, 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.
There must be such a benefit to um delivering at home just in the fact
that you're home. I mean like the right then and there, you know, everyone
leaves and it's just you and your little family, you know. I can't imagine
that not I started about 4 days in the hospital, so it was it was
different in that way, you know. Um, just having the comforts of home.
It's really what we wanted. We really wanted to have the comforts of home.
We wanted to have this moment of the babies have arrived, and now I'm
gonna go sit on my own couch. I'm gonna go lay in my own bed. I'm gonna be
in my own shower. I know where everything is, um, I know what food I can
have. Oh, another thing during labor, by the way home. You eat the whole
time. Whenever you want, whatever you want, you eat the whole time. It's
fabulous. So I have to say that. But um, delivery at home, it was
fantastic. I didn't have to get into a car and drive somewhere afterwards
. I didn't have to put them into a car seat. I just got out of the pool,
sat on my couch, and my husband sat on the lazy boy, and that was it.
Technically they didn't even have to wear clothes if they didn't. I
So you still have some of his uh paternity leave? We did. So we had um the
one week, the week. And then he went in and said, explain what the
situation was and asked if he could take an additional, um, I think it was
3 days and then because we were so close to the Christmas holiday, he only
had to go in for a period of time and then he ended up having 2 or 3 weeks
off because of the holiday. So it ended up working out fine with the
paternity leave, but we were pushing up against it. It was. It was getting
a little close to the line.
That is a really great story. I see if there's anything.
You cover
I see. At any point did you feel like with the pain that you were like, I
don't know if I can do this anymore. I, I'll tell you why, and my, my
midwife thinks I'm hilarious because of it, and even with, so here's my
track record, first birth, 38 hours, 5 hours of just pushing. Um, and it
was back labor the whole time with these 211 days of labor, um, and then
you know delivering two babies, not once have I ever had that moment where
it was like this is too big. I will say with the first one there was a
point where they were doing a procedure to try uh like uh manipulate, um,
I think.
And it was, I said, I can't, I can't do that. I said I need you to do
something different, but no, I've never had that moment because I really,
I know my body was built to do this. My body knows what it's doing and if
there ever gets to be a point where I literally cannot do it. Then the
practitioners around me, the midwives and the nurses know that there's
something wrong and they will help me to do whatever I need to do. So I've
never had that moment. I never got to that place because I trust my body
so much and I know it's it's going to do what it needs to do. That's great.
I think it's good. Oh, the one word. Oh, you know, um, you had, she had
mentioned a theme though too, and I can't remember what it was, you
remember you said this. That's a good one.
so we were talking, we're talking about separating these into themes and
asking people if they can. Um, kind of come up with a word or a phrase of
words that summarizes their experience, you know. I know love over fear
definitely. I think, um, just to put into one word it would be faith
because it was faith the whole thing was going to work and faith that I
don't have to fear and, and then just like the fact that my faith like
kind of helped determine who was going to be surrounding. So I guess like
in a like two or three ways that you can kind of use the same word. It's
got like those great movie titles where you have, it means two things in
one.
But that's the only thing I can think of, either love or love over fear or
faith. OK. Or twins, that probably would be a really easy identify.