one way or another

Early days

10 weeks later....

Wow, motherhood has been a wonderful and intense journey so far. Sorry for not writing my blog... It's a bit of a shame not to write as I'd like to keep all the memories. But time goes by so fast, it's hard to capture all these moments and emotions. And having twins is so busy! I hope to catch up with the story when I have a little break from, you know, feeding, changing, shushing, cuddeling, comforting, feeding, staring, smiling, feeding, and changing and did I mention feeding?

The C-section.
The 14th of June I had the elective ceasar. Me and R felt excited and a bit anxious. While I was being prepped R went down to the car to get the camera and then the fire alarm in the hospital went. He had to wait outside until the all clear, but he was back in time to be there to hold my hand, and I really needed that! My other hand was held by a lovely nurse that told me what was going on.

The epidural was the most scary part. The sensation of cold and warm and tingeling and little shocks throughout my whole body I remember as very unpleasant. What made me feel good was that all the nurses and surgeon and the anaestetist made a very professional and friendly impression. I said you have to be a fairly trusting to be fully conscious while being cut open. R distracted me from what was happening. I felt so close to him that I hardly noticed all the other people in the theater and what was going on. Before I expected anything number one was already dragged out by his feet: Charlie!

What an incredible sensation! My pink screaming baby was lifted over the screen so I could see him. An intense feeling like lightning. He was so much bigger than I'd imagined! He was taken down so quickly that our digital camera didn't get it, but we had a second chancewith 'twin B', Lola. I didn't feel any pain but the pulling and the feeling of someone digging around in my insides was very uncomfortable. I hated it. Lola was quite high up in my body so I felt strong and deep tugging and pulling and shoving around in my insides. There she was, also dark pink and screaming. I'm so happy with that photo. I still can't get enough looking at it. Look at the nurse in the background. By the smile on her face you see that all is going great. 'This is as good as it gets', my OB said later.



Throughout the whole procedure I knew all was going well. More digging around for placenta's and my fallopian tubes (no more ectopics for me thanks). From the corner of my eyes I could see my babies being weighed and checked out. And then when I was all closed up I could finally hold them. They were so nice and warm, with a lovely smell. We fell in love so deep instantly.

In recovery the La Leche crew came in. The most painful bit of being in hospital were the middleaged witches pulling my nipples and squeezing my breasts. Whatever they did it must have worked because we managed to get the babies on the breast and drinking but all in all it was fairly unpleasant. I felt crowded (were there three of them hanging over me?) and I was pretty drugged up so not really in a state to tell them to back of a bit.

I just had to hold my babies. In a cot they started to cry instantly and I couldn't get out of bed to get them so they stayed with me in bed. I didn't have ideas about it before but 'co-sleeping' was definitely the way to go following my instincts. Despite the morphine and pethadine I felt very strong about the babies, a bit like a tiger.



The room in the hospital was very warm. And my breasts were so sensitive I couldn't wear any clothes over them. So I've been sitting in bed topless for the entire stay. The room had no view, and outside it was dark and rained non-stop. And the flipping bed was so small and had no sides! No wonder some nurses were hinting about the dangers of co-sleeping. You're in bed with two babies, six pillows and all drugged up!

The nurses were telling me to take my painrelief, press the button to get more drugs through the epidural, take more morphine and panadol. But I didn't feel much pain. I just wanted to be clear in my head and be with my babies. The nurses didn't agree but I just had a few panadols.

The hospital likes you to stay until 'breastfeeding is established'. I am quite realistic, and we were doing pretty well, but if you really want to establish breatfeeding (for the first time) you should stay in the hospital for at least two months. There was no medical reason for me to stay. And I missed home, I missed R at night, I missed the dogs, the view and fresh air so after three days I walked out of the hospital with my big treasures in their little carseats. Great to be out and see the sky and the green hills and coming home.

posted by heleen + rod @ 1:37 PM