My Birth Story — Twins, Induction, and Trauma
Trigger warning: This article mentions some gory details about giving birth and blood loss.
I’ve been wanting to write about my childbirth experience since it happened. However I thought that there’s plenty of that out there, and no one would be interested in reading it.
But this article by Jessica Lucia made me realize it’s important I share my story too. It’s also part of my healing process. Philippa Perry in her latest book explains why.
“When we do get a live baby at the end of pregnancy and birth there is a feeling we should be grateful, however traumatic the birth experience. But I believe that as well as being grateful it’s important to debrief from the experience, and as often as you need to, in order to regain a sense of equilibrium.”
That sentiment resonated with me so deeply, and it explained why I tell anyone who would listen about how my birth experience felt deeply traumatizing.
Setting the Scene
At the end of the 36th week of my pregnancy with twins, the doctor was insisting I should be induced to deliver my babies before the end of the 37th week. I had done a lot of reading and saw that the general recommended window for the delivery of the type of twins I had (DCDA twins) was between week 36 and week 37 at the latest.
Before this, my doctor had actually scheduled a c-section for me, without me asking, or consulting me, and I only found out a few days before, at our routine appointment. She seemed disappointed I didn’t want to have a c-section. I insisted, however, especially since my babies were head down from the 28th week.
To be clear, I also wanted to avoid a c-section because historically, my healing from surgery and scarring is very difficult. I have a scar on my neck that is 10 years old which still hurts and hasn’t healed properly. So I wanted to avoid that as much as possible.
So on August 18th, I checked into the hospital at night, to start the induction process which they do overnight, with the expectation that it would take 12 to 18 hours to deliver the baby.
The Process
I wish that was the case for me.
Starting Wednesday night until Thursday night, they had given me all three injections of medical induction they could give me, and I was still only 1.5cm dilated. At this point, my husband and I were looking at the very real possibility that I would need to have a c-section anyway.
I had already spent almost 20 hours going through contractions that were not building up consistently or getting regular. I was dealing with it without any major medication, for the most part. It seemed that my body and my babies were working against me.
The doctor had one last “trick up her sleeve” and came to the hospital to insert a foley balloon into my cervix. At this point I had taken a shot of pethidine a few hours earlier, so I shouldn’t have been in any pain, and the doctor assured me at most it would be uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable must be code for the most intense pain you have ever felt in your entire life. When she inserted the balloon and filled it up, I was hit with the strongest contraction you could ever imagine, and it felt like it lasted for 10 minutes, which is a decade in contraction-time.
But, it did work. By the next morning, Friday, the 20th, I was already 7cm dilated and ready for Baby A’s water to be broken and get my epidural.
Writing this article, I’m just asking myself now, how did I feel about the induction process and being in labor for so long?
The uncertainty and anxiety of how labor would go down had me up at night for weeks, and it had me crying more often than I’d like to admit. Going through it, I felt like we were running this big experiment, trying to see what would eventually work to get these babies out of me. Not only did I feel out of control, which of course I was, but at times I also felt not cared for by my doctor and medical team. I think that was the most difficult part. Feeling like I wasn’t an active participant in the process.
It felt objectifying. Especially because my doctor wouldn’t let us question her opinion. Even if it was asking for clarification or wanting to understand the benefit/risk of following her advice.
Although, I think this isn’t the part that gave me the most trauma.
My babies birth
This is the hardest part for me to think or write about.
I had the epidural inserted around noon on Friday, August 20th, and the midwife didn’t want me to give birth during her shift. It was very clear because she kept postponing everything until right before her shift ended at 7 PM.
My doctor showed up at 7ish PM and insisted the babies need to come out immediately. The challenge was that all this time, my contractions never built up to the point where they were helping the babies down the birth canal, and now Baby A was stuck, too far down for us to continue monitoring him, and not far down enough for me to push him out on my own.
So now, I’m pushing a baby out of me, without having the full force of contractions to help push him out. Every contraction that did come about, had my doctor, midwife, and husband all encouraging me to push, and insisting I’m pushing the wrong way.
It all felt so frustrating. The doctor and her way of doing things were so against all the prep work I had done earlier, and my husband didn’t know any better, so he thought he was encouraging me to do the right thing, what the doctor is asking me to do. So my prep work all went out the window and I felt overwhelmed.
My pushing wasn’t strong enough for baby A, so the doctor used a vacuum to pull him out. Even with the vacuum it still felt almost impossible to push him out. He was born at 7:30 PM, after about 15 minutes of furious pushing.
Baby B was born at 7:40 PM, without a vacuum but just as much pushing and frustration.
All of this was insanely difficult, frustrating, and left me with very little life in me. But it wasn’t the most painful.
The most pain I felt was the afterbirth massage and delivery of the placenta, followed by getting stitches with an epidural that had worn off around the same time as the pushing had begun.
The only way I could describe the massage is having two gaping wounds in your abdomen being trampled on. It all felt so raw and sore. This is the part that had me moaning in pain.
It also is where my husband thought he might lose me because of all the blood that was pouring out of me. I couldn’t see, but I could feel it. I also could see the look on his face. Fear that I wasn’t going to make it. The doctor at some point had to hold my cervix with her hand to clamp down and slow the bleeding down.
Surviving and recovery
I still wonder, how can someone even survive something as traumatic as childbirth? How do you recover from something like that?
My immediate answer was to hide. I needed the lights off in the delivery room, I needed to be left alone for as long as possible, and I didn’t want to move.
The blood loss meant my hemoglobin went from 10 to 8 in a matter of minutes, and I wasn’t able to stand up without the whole world turning black. It took every ounce of energy I had to get up from the wheelchair into my bed without fainting. I had never fainted before, but I’m sure this is what fainting would have felt like.
Survival at that moment also meant I couldn’t see my babies. The midwife asked me if I wanted to try to nurse but I genuinely couldn’t even bear looking at them. I couldn’t even look at pictures of them that my husband and mom had shared with my family. It felt like something in my psyche would crack if I engaged with my babies then.
At that moment, I felt so raw, so vulnerable, that I didn’t have the energy to hold them, let alone nurse them.
The first month postpartum feels like a blur. I can barely remember anything. Anemia impacts memory, and I need to work really hard to remember what it was like, being home with twins.
I do remember being surprised at how little my stitches hurt. I could walk without being in excruciating pain, even the next day. Although I was still dizzy, prone to fainting, and had shortness of breath, all of which are side effects of the anemia.
What does this all mean now?
Well, I’ve learned quite a lot.
I’ve learned that my body is capable of things I thought were impossible, and that recovery can be easier than I expected in some ways, and harder in others.
I learned how important having support is postpartum, and I’m still learning how to ask for help before I get to my breaking point and start crying.
I learned what a traumatic birth really means to me. I always thought it meant a traumatic physical experience. But in my case it meant feeling out of control, not cared for emotionally and dealt with only as a case, not as a person.
My husband and I are still wrapping our heads around our experience and unpacking the different feelings we had. This means very often I’m checking in with myself, to see how I’m feeling. I had almost expected that I would go through postpartum depression, and I don’t know if I am or not honestly.
I think though, my biggest take away from my experience is that I don’t want to go through it again. This is where I need to protect my mental health more than my physical one. There are so many reasons why we could, or why we shouldn’t have more. I think my mental health is definitely the most important reason to not have any more children.
