Twin Tips- Recovery After Twins… The Double Whammy (Guest Post) and check me out over on Eat At Home

Sharing is caring!

Hi there!

If you are stopping by from Eat At Home I am so glad you found my blog and I hope you enjoyed the Peanut Chicken recipe! I love to meal plan and it is essential to getting my starving family of seven fed everyday. Make sure you check out my weekly meal plans  to get lots of recipe ideas.

I would love it if you subscribed to my email subscriptions so you can have my posts delivered to your inbox each day. Enter your email address in my right side bar area.

Those who already read Crystal & Co., make sure you check out the Peanut Chicken recipe as I am guest posting today on my favorite food site!

Busy day today!

This week our Twins {& MORE} Board has tacked the topic Recovery After Delivering Twins. Today, Hope shares with us her story of what everyone pregnant Momma of twins dreads. She calls it the double whammy. Working so hard to deliver twin A naturally, then being forced to deliver twin B via c-section. This was one of my personal fears.

At around 20 weeks I found out that I had one breech baby and hoped and prayed daily that she would turn. A C-Section felt like my worst nightmare. The dirty truth: 1) I’m admittedly a little vain and didn’t want to kiss my former four-six pack abs goodbye for the rest of my life nor did I want a bikini line scar 2) I’m a little chicken and didn’t want to have surgery 3) I like things to go as planned\”¦MY PLAN\”¦and a c-section was NOT part of my plan.

After 34 weeks, I was still pregnant and it was time to come up with a real plan since Baby B wasn’t cooperating by my plans. My doctor decided it was time to schedule a C-Section. The truth is, I was angry and emotional. I didn’t want her to give up on my baby turning OR in the least, I wanted her to just tell me that she could work around this. I considered switching doctors\”¦yes, seriously, at 34 weeks pregnant with twins, I was ready to break up with my doctor. Luckily she called me at the end of the week and told me that she would TRY to turn Baby B, but if the baby were to become stressed she would go with the planned c-section. This was enough for me. I knew there was risk there, but I was optimistic that I wouldn’t be one of the few moms I’d read on MOMS boards that ended up with a double whammy (delivering one baby naturally and the second via c-section).

At the start of the 36th week, I was still pregnant and still working. In fact I was at work at around 6:00 and had a small bloody show, I called my doctor and she said to try to wait until the contractions were closer, at that point they were pretty spaced out. I continued to work until around 8:30 p.m. as contractions were getting stronger and stronger. Luckily my oldest daughter was with me, because that was the LONGEST drive home ever. I was in a LOT of pain and she was very helpful in timing my contractions for me. I went home to \”clean-up\” and my husband rushed to meet me at home and we went to the hospital.

By the time we got checked in, I was dilated 5 cm and they didn’t think I had very long. The babies were ready! I WASN’T. I wanted to wrap everything up at work. Their room wasn’t 100% ready. We’d scheduled delivery for the following week. THAT was my plan. THEY were not on board.

They wheeled me into the operating room and they prepped for the C-section, just in case. My doctor promised that she would do what she could, but that Baby B was still breech. At that point, I was given the option to deliver both via C-Section or to go forward as planned and take the risk of the double whammy. I was excited to deliver my girls naturally and took the chance. Shortly later, the truth is, at 4 lbs, I did not even feel Baby A come out. I gave two pushes and had a baby. I’m sure it was a combination of her being my second, but at that size, I just didn’t feel a thing. The doctors gave their best effort to turn Baby B, but her heart rate dropped and they said they had no choice but to do the c-section. At that point, I didn’t care anymore. Being VAIN and/or CHICKEN was out the door. MY PLANS had already gone by the wayside. Sixteen minutes after Baby A – Nia Grace was born; the doctors delivered Baby B – my Nala Iman. And once again, besides a little tugging, I didn’t feel a thing.

I feel pretty blessed that I had fairly easy deliveries. While I think everyone around me expected my recovery to be harder due to the double whammy, but because Nia was small, there really wasn’t any major recovery process related to the vaginal delivery, just the typical heavy blood flow. Recovery from a C-Section is completely different and I think I had it better than most. I was \”down\” probably about a week, but tried to walk around as much as possible because I’d read that that would help. I’m honestly the type of person that does what she has to do, so I pretty much went on, taking the occasional Motrin and recovered just fine.

I’d say what helped me with recovery was a combination of the following:

At the hospital ( I stayed for 5 days):

1) I walked around and moved as much as possible early on.

2) I rested as much as I could between nursing Nala and visiting Nia in the NICU

3) In the beginning, I took the meds before the onset of major pain. I didn’t let my pain get out of control.

At home:

1)Taking help where I could get it. I have a very supportive husband who did more than his part. Also, my mother and friends were very helpful. After we got both girls home, my friends provided meals for a couple of weeks which really helped.

2) I let a lot go. I didn’t and still don’t worry about what goes undone.

While I have a constant reminder of my C-Section– a lovely bikini line scar – I can HONESTLY say, it wasn’t as bad as I expected. It felt like it would be the worse thing that could happen to me and it wasn’t. In exchange for that scar, I have Nala – my last born.

I do not regret attempting the vaginal birth. I love that I was able to deliver Nia naturally. I would have been disappointed with myself if I didn’t try. If I had to do it all again, I’d do the same. For me, it wasn’t a double whammy. I’m doubly blessed to have had two unique birth experiences and I feel really good about that.

Hope is part of our Twins {& MORE} Board here at Crystal & Co. You can read more about her here and make sure you check out her awesome site where she captures the life of her girls in photographs!