salida colorado wedding photographer
Amazing Birth Photography by KMitiska Photography.
(iPhone photos & video below by the hubby)
I sit here staring at my screen with sleep-deprived blurry vision, and mind for that matter. haha. Where to begin?
Over a month has gone by and I still have no idea what words could do justice to this incredible day that has changed my life… changed me, in ways I don’t even yet know.
I’m no great writer. Anything decent I pen is probably unknowingly someone else’s genius. You know, a ‘nothing’s new under the sun’ kind of thing. But I’m going to try! And hopefully soon I’ll write about the first month. But this one… this is for my girls.
It was a day that started like most others. Wake up, shower, etc. And yet, the best and the toughest journey physically & emotionally of our lives began that day. 37 weeks 5 days pregnant with these twin girls.
I ironically enough slept well enough the night before despite knowing that it was a day we would celebrate annually for the rest of our lives – our girls’ birthday. I snoozed away, unlike the 3 previous months. Because let’s face it, gaining 53 lbs, swelling up the size of a hot-air balloon, & having babies heads pressing on your stomach shoving acid up your digestive tract up for the last trimester can really exhaust the body without allowing for much good sleep.
Something about a scheduled C-section was rather unceremonious & surreal for me. All along I had hoped for a more natural birth. And to be clear, I’m not shaming C-sections. I simply wanted to avoid major surgery recovery WHILE caring for two newborns at the same time. It felt odd to me to think I might never know what labor is. Still does. Plus, the expense. Insurance isn’t what it used to be. The week prior my misery & blood pressure had been steadily increasing, so it didn’t take much arm twisting to move up my scheduled C-section from the first Friday in April to the Tuesday prior. It turned out to be a blessing for reasons I’ll explain further down.
Even that morning I still clung to the delusion of reprieve. Madeleine, my baby “B”, had turned head down at 36.5 weeks. And boy did I feel that one. Maybe that big movement I had felt on my right side a few nights prior had been Lorelai doing the same? (Side note: With twin births it really only matters what position baby A is in. Her position & weight determines the route since the doctors can often turn baby B after A is out.)
We arrived at the hospital and I was prepped for surgery. Everyone around me chattered excitedly while I waited, terribly uncomfortable in my hospital bed, strapped to three monitors, one for contractions & one for each baby’s heartbeat. My surgery was scheduled for noon. Noon came. My doctor had called & was held up by other appointments at her office. She’d be here in 15-20 minutes. (Fifty minutes later when my doctor arrived, we learned she had been pulled over & issued a ticket for a good ole’ California stop between her office & the hospital.)
In those 50 minutes of waiting, I excused myself to the restroom to cry as I wrestled with intense fear and acceptance of what was ahead. Bryan said he realized I was nervous because I fell completely silent, was not on my phone… and awake. A rare combination for me. ha.
A last minute ultrasound confirmed Lorelai’s toosh was still plugging the exit, just as it had been since 24 weeks. With that, I cut the last strand of hope for that vision of natural birth I’d had and looked forward, focusing on holding my baby girls.
Once in the OR, the spinal wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The hardest part was sitting still & hunched over while my belly was at least 42 weeks pregnant. They asked me what kind of music I liked and I completely blanked. I mean not a single band or artist came to mind. Despite the fact I had carefully curated a birth playlist at home, I completely forgot my Bose speaker in the rush to get out the door. I racked my brain for just one song. Just one from that playlist?
Keep Your Head up. Ben Howard. FINALLY
They laid me down and told me the spinal would have me feeling like I’m suffocating. HA! No different than I had felt the last three months of pregnancy with my stomach being shoved up into my lungs.
Bryan & our birth photographer Kimberly came into the OR and things began pretty quickly after that.
I remember hearing “We’re down to the uterus and about have Baby A out.” The Lumineers “Stubborn Love” played.
Then cries. Healthy cries. My heart breathed a sigh of relief.
“Cute cute cute!”
Lorelai
Lorelai & Madeleine's Birthday – Lorelai from Haley Allen on Vimeo.
A minute later, “Ok, we almost have baby B out.”
More healthy cries. I hear the assisting surgeon say “They look identical. Are they?”
Madeleine
Lorelai & Madeleine's Birthday – Madeleine from Haley Allen on Vimeo.
Bryan & I exchanged tear-filled looks of wonder & relief as we held on to each other while the team worked to clean the girls up. We did it. They were here & healthy.
I heard someone comment “It’s not going to be quiet in your house for a long time.” Oh how I had no idea.
One thing I didn’t expect was how it felt being able to take a full breath again. It happened as soon as they took Madeleine out. After seeing the girls were healthy, I suddenly realized, “I can breathe. I can breathe!!!” You can see my sigh of relief at the end of this clip.
Lorelai & Madeleine's Birthday – Two Healthy Girls from Haley Allen on Vimeo.
The nurse practitioner came over to tell me that both girls look great but that she thinks baby B, Madeleine, may have a small bit of a cleft palate that would require surgery. Thankfully the following days proved her wrong. Blessing.
I alluded earlier that it was good we moved up the c-section date. Post delivery analysis showed that 15% of Lorelai’s placenta had stopped working and Madeleine had a clot in her cord. While it did not seem to affect their development, it could have if we waited much longer. Another blessing. Plus, this allowed my parents to meet them before heading back to Alabama.
Lorelai & Madeleine's Birth – In the Nursery from Haley Allen on Vimeo.
Our girls were diamniotic/dichorionic (di/di) which is a fancy way of saying they each had their own sac & placenta. Most di/di twins are fraternal however they have a 25-33% chance of being identical. At the time of this writing, I still don’t know. The only way to confirm it is a genetic test and I go back & forth daily over whether I think they are or not. But right now, they are hard to tell apart.
There’s so much more I can say but I’ll end this one here.
Introducing the two coolest people we know. 🙂
Lorelai Mae & Madeleine Rose Allen. 5lb 6oz & 5lb 11oz
