Birth Stories

The Story of Cale and Dillon's Birth
August 28, 2006

After 12 weeks of being in and out of the hospital for preterm labor, all the time terrified that their identical twin boys might be born early, it was a real change for Jaime and Alex when the boys hit 36 weeks and Mom and Dad no longer had to wish they'd stay put. In fact, despite reassurances to the contrary, Jaime was starting to worry instead that they'd never be born.

Sunday night Alex and Jaime were certain that the twins had at least another week of gestating ahead, even when Jaime woke up at 1am with frequent surges. Frequent surges were nothing new, but something about the quality of the surges was different. So she got out of bed and started timing them while doing a little work on the computer. After two hours she decided to call her midwife, and the midwife suggested she come in to be checked out. Like they had done many times before in this pregnancy, Alex and Jaime called a friend to watch Griffin, grabbed Jaime's bag, and headed for the hospital.

Jaime's not entirely sure whether she knew her babies would be born soon at this point, or if she still thought it was preterm labor -- but she could no longer walk through her surges, and scared Alex a little when she stopped for a minute in the middle of the street because she couldn't finish walking across until the surge passed. An internal exam when they arrived at the hospital at 4am showed she was 5cm dilated, and definitely going to meet her boys soon.

Two hours later, Jaime's cervix was 7cm dilated, and by 8am she only had a thin rim of cervix left. The whole time she labored she was able to relax through the surges, welcoming the progress they brought and enjoying the breaks between them. When birthing Griffin, dilating was the painful part; actually delivering him was oddly satisfying. Given she was basically fully dilated, she and Alex believed the mythical painless drug-free childbirth was within reach.

They were wrong.

It took her cervix the next two hours to dilate the remaining itty bit. The surges were very intense, and she quickly got frustrated with them because she felt like she was no longer progressing. Alex recalls Jaime saying many times during these two hours, "I'm done." Jaime recalls just wanting to give up, stay pregnant, and go home. The midwife recalls Jaime responding to, "You're doing awesome," with, "I'm done being awesome." Jaime would have taken any drugs they wanted to offer her at that point, but her good midwife knew she really was almost done. [Note: Several months after the birth Jaime wrote: My belief is that I stalled at the end because I was afraid of what would happen to Baby B when I delivered Baby A -- would he be crushed? Would the placenta detach too early? Would his cord slip out before he did? I wish I had been able to forsee those fears and deal with my anxiety before the birth. I probably should have re-done my fear release closer to delivery.]

At 10am she was finally complete, but she still didn't feel the urge to push. Jaime consented to have her water broken because she was getting frustrated that things were moving so slowly. Five intense minutes later, Jaime and Alex's first boy was born, followed in two minutes by their second.

Those seven minutes were pretty crazy. A whole team of people who had been waiting outside flooded into the room for delivery -- joining the midwife, the nurse, and Alex was an OB, a pediatrician, several pediatric nurses, a medical student, and probably a few more people that went unnoticed.

It was a more medical birth than the parents had expected, especially given it was unmedicated. The babies heart rates were monitored continuously throughout the labor, which meant Jaime didn't get to walk around. Jaime didn't get to catch her babies like she had hoped, although during delivery she had no thoughts of catching them and just wanted them out. And even though both boys were big (7lbs, 6oz and 7lbs) and healthy (Apgar scores of 9 each), they were whisked to the warming table to be looked after immediately.

But nonetheless everything was perfect. Jaime was able to deliver vaginally without any pain medication, and the twins couldn't be healthier, despite being one day shy of full term (36 weeks and 6 days). Once the two of them were in Mom's arms, they didn't fuss at all. They just looked into her eyes and happily nuzzled at her breast. They still never cry, but rather alternate happily between quiet alert, asleep, and hungry. Jaime and Alex had thought tandem nursing would take weeks to figure out, but within minutes of holding them Jaime had them both nursing.

Griffin was given the difficult responsibility of choosing which baby was given which name, and handled it beautifully, naming the first born Cale, and the second Dillon.

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HypnoBirthing^® - Taking the World by Calm