The Birth of Celia and Penelope

This is the birth story of Celia and Penelope as seen through this midwife (student)'s eyes.

C and P have a special place in my heart. I was doing her initial prenatal in which I was pretty certain I discovered twins. I went with them to their first ultrasound which *confirmed* it was twins. I went with them to almost every subsequent ultrasound, and I have never seen a client work harder to have a healthy pregnancy than C did.

We immediately asked C to go on Dr. Tom Brewer's diet for twins, and she did. And her babies continued to grow, and she never had any preterm labor symptoms. Everything was as perfect as we could ask for, with fraternal twins with two placentas, what they call di-di twins (which means that they are in separate chorion *and* separate amnion (the two sacs which make up the "bag of waters")) and they were both growing consistently, and both were presenting vertex (which means head down). This all is as ideal as it can get for an out-of-hospital birth of twins.

At around week 32, at the ultrasound, we discovered that they had turned from vertex/vertex to breech/breech. "Those little buggers!" We thought, but that's ok, we have a small arsenal of tricks up our sleeves for that! We had her get acupuncture, the webster technique, follow the advice on spinning babies, and take pulsatilla homeopathic. We were determined to get these babies to turn. At the last ultrasound, the babies appeared to be footling breech/vertex, which in the medical world is considered the *most* dangerous positions for twins to be in, and our back up OBGYN began talking section. None of us could believe everything was so perfect up until this point, and now things looked like we had limited options.

Linda asked me to try to track down a specific midwife (hereafter called "V") who has attended over 3000 births to see what she thought, and if there was any possibility that she might come to assist us with these twins. We knew it was a long shot (by far!) But were willing to try anything. We knew we would not be delivering these babies at the clinic without more experienced help there. I tracked her down, contacted her, she responded by giving me her personal contact information! Less than a week later she had a plane ticket to come supervise the births!

At 38 weeks and 2 days V arrived. Late the next morning C began having contractions and by about 1745 hours she entered into active phase. I called Andrea who was on her way. V did a vaginal exam to get an idea of what the presenting parts were, and found a foot, and a head! Well, seems these girls are going to vye for the title of "first born" and we wondered who would win! C's contractions were pretty far apart, and short, but dilating the cervix well so we didn't mind much. Upon next exam V found a presenting part of head, with hands up on each side of the head. Next exam she found two feet, and we decided that would be the presenting baby.

Just as C entered second stage, the presenting part was feet, with the other baby's head trying to move down first.

V thought we could coax the babies into letting the head down come first with some external uterine massage and poking the feet internally too. She thought for sure the head was down and feet were up and the vertex would be born first, but at the last minute the footling put her feet back down so that the vertex baby's head was basically in the footling's *lap*! Well that won't work, so V quickly massaged the vertex baby back up, and we held her there (the stinker!) And next thing we know, we have a tiny foot born. The double footling breech won her first fight with her sister!

Then we have two feet. Then up to the knees, the thighs, all the while V was keeping the legs warm with wet warm wash cloths. Then we have a hip! And another hip! And baby born to the umbilicus! Next push V sweeps the arms down, and baby is born to the nape of the neck. She skillfully lifts the baby upside down by the feet in order to allow the face to sweep the perineum. Because the baby did not do so smoothly and V didn't want C to tear, she handed me the feet and told me to hold baby just like that, while moving her at an angle to try to help it sweep. I did so, and a few seconds later V had manipulated the head completely out!! She immediately checked to see what presenting part baby B was, vertex, and everyone relaxed. Whew!
After a little bit, C asked me to take baby Penny so she could focus on pushing baby Celia out. An hour and thirteen minutes after Penny, Celia was born! Both babies had *amazing* APGARS of 8 and 9. Both babies had short cords, Celia's being so short we couldn't even lay her on C's stomach. Both babies were latching on and nursing well shortly after birth. And C didn't tear at all! What an amazing mama!

Penelope was born at 0413 hours on February 20, 2010 weighing 5lbs13oz and Celia was born at 0527 hours on February 20, 2010 weighing 6lbs8oz! Welcome to the world little ones!

Now this midwife (student) is going to try to get some sleep.
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