FYI I did not write this but am having difficulty adding Sarah as a writer
The Homebirth of MY twins.
I am Sarah Colin from France. My husband is of Indian origin. We don’t belong to any religion. I consider myself spiritual but not religious.
I lived in Croydon and Hounslow for more than 5 years.
He is an IT specialist and I am a teacher and a doula.
We currently live in Croatia, in Zagreb with my family.
I have 2 sisters and grew up with my mum who was a single mother. We have strong feminine bonds in the family, we all have daughters!
My mom didn’t want the epidural for her 3 births because she didn’t trusted it. She had a miscarriage before having us and told us it took her a bit of time to be pregnant for the first time. She had faith that if the baby was healthy he was going to stay and if he wasn’t it was OK to let him go.
She told us that her 3 labours were long and incredibly painful, and that she got a tear 3 times. We were 4kg+ babies each!
She wanted 3 daughters and always told us she was super happy that she got what she wanted. She was saying that we were her biggest gift/achievement in life.
I admire my grandma on my mother ‘s side for getting her driving license at age 40 and for deciding to get baptised at 50.
I had 3 pregnancies. 1 abortion at 20, one DCDA twin pregnancy at 29 and one other DCDA twin pregnancy at 34.
My first twin pregnancy was a dream. I was feeling so good.
I was very active and mobile until the very end. My first twins were born in Croydon hospital, at 37 weeks +1, without induction, vaginally, the first one with the help of a ventose, and I had the epidural just before giving birth.
I wanted it as physiological as possible. In pregnancy I already enquired for a home birth which was refused. During this birth I managed the contractions very well until they basically strapped me to the bed with 3 monitoring belts and ordered me not move at all. I logically wasn’t able to cope with the pain without movement and I lost control.
That is when I felt that they started to decide for me.
This is what I consider a "classical medical intervention escalation."
My second twin pregnancy went very well from start to finish too.
I was very happy to be pregnant. Not so happy to be expecting twins again at firs, because in my head it meant another “high risk” pregnancy and birth and giving up on my homebirth dream.
Once, when I had a check-up with the gynaecologist I was wrongly sent to the Labour Ward and I started having a trauma response in this place with the smell of it, the noise of it, the view of it. I felt weak, started crying uncontrollably and felt like I was going to pass out. I could see myself from above and I was wondering what was happening.
I recognised at once when the crisis was gone that it was something big and I spoke to my therapist about it. We processed it together and I felt grateful it happened early on in the pregnancy. It made me realised that I was going to do everything I could to make my homebirth dream happen , to have no regrets.
I took my partner on board with this plan. I started to connect with people that could make this happen, did loads of research on the subject, on how to approach the NHS with this in mind.
I connected with Sarah who became my twin doula and Cara who became my doula.
We all went to an appointment with the head midwife of the hospital where I was registered and explain my plan to her. She did her job of warning me about all the risks. We discussed it all and she referred me to the homebirth team, they were incredible.
I immediately felt safe with them. They made me feel like it wasn’t such a big deal and that I could do it. The plan was clear, we weren’t taking any risks, if something didn’t feel right we had a transfer planned and the obstetric team was very informed of the whole plan and situation if I needed a transfer. I was very well supported by my parents in-law l, my doula duo, my partner, my daughters and of course the homebirth midwife and the head midwife.
There was a weird scan that got me referred to the foetal medicine for a more specialised and precise scan. One of the baby was basically was skinnier than the other one and they didn’t like that it was twin 1. The baby was still growing very well, was very long actually, like twin 2, but twin 2 was chubby whereas twin 1 was skinny. They didn’t like the difference in estimated weight.
They recommended an induction before 37 weeks which I refused. I got to 38+5 days before I agreed to do a membrane sweep at home with my referred homebirth midwife, which started my labour.
Labour starts slowly the evening of the sweep. It is slow and soft, and enjoyable. I want to focus on something else so my partner and I watch a funny movie with Jack Nicholson. Then second movie, Casablanca, on the yoga ball in the living room.
My doula, Cara, arrives before the end of the movie. We speak, I am calm, I feel amazing. Before the end of the movie I feel I want to go in my bedroom, our prepared birthing place where the pool is filling up.
I am still very calm, on the yoga ball, I almost feel like sleeping in between the contractions.
The first midwife arrives, but she is not the one I know, my main midwife. I don’t feel like speaking to her.
I try to sleep and lay down on the bed but the next contraction arrives and it is so painful on the bed, so I go back on the ball.
My main midwife, Amy, arrives and I feel so relieved,
"now I can let myself travel into this birthing journey."
Amy performs a mini ultrasound to see the position of the babies and listens to the two heartbeats. Everything is fine. Seeing me so calm she tells me that I am “still in early labour”. I feel there is no need for this comment and it discourages me a bit.
"I actually gave birth less than two hours after this!"
I am still on the ball, bouncing gently, making number 8 movements with my hips, holding my partner’s shoulders for support.
We are like dancing together in our bubble. Cara put pressure on my sacrum, it feels good and sometimes it bothers me so I move her hands away. Same with the fan, sips of water, and wet cooling towels on my head, sometimes I let her do
her thing sometimes I move her hand away. No mannerism needed here!
I ask my partner to repeat the sentences I hanged on the wall: to trust the birth process, my body and my babies. I feel the need to go in the pool, then everything accelerates.
I start to have a couple of very painful surges. I have the thoughts that this is all a big mistake, that I am crazy to think I can do it without the epidural; Then I know because I am well informed on the stages of birth that I am at the end of my cervix opening. This is the climax of pain. I don’t know how to position myself to ease the pain and then it passes and I have a moment “in the clouds,” out of space and time, and I literally fall asleep in the pool for a few minutes.
My doula mentor, Karine Laseva, says that this is when a woman “downloads the soul of her baby” it felt like this to me. I was gone somewhere else.
Then suddenly my body pushes the baby out, the baby is crowning in my hand, I feel him wanting to pop out. I say "no, too quick, wait," and I push him back up a few times.
Again the dance, in my vagina this time. I say “he is going to destroy me!”
I panic, I feel that I am loosing control. I scream for the first time, I was very quiet, making occasionally low tone noises until now. I swear.
Then I smell lavender, and I assume Cara is making me smell essential oil. It helps me focus on something else. I can feel the sack and ask Amy to break it as I feel in my body that it would be easier to push the baby out without the sack. She tells me she could but would rather not to, that it’s better for the baby. "I trust her."
I ask for help to find a better position, this is so painful.
Amy reassures me and encourages me to relaxed my legs. I realise I am super tensed. And consciously make the effort to release the tensions in my legs. The baby comes out in one push en caul in the sack. Amy asks me to grab it, I say you take him! She breaks the sack and passes me twin 1 a healthy skinny boy! He cries gently, he is looking at me. I say you did it my baby and sorry to him.
Amy tells me that "You both did it!"
Brief listening to baby 2’s heartbeat, all fine.
A few minutes later, again the surge to push. I want a rest, too fast, haha!
But baby 2 is in a hurry and comes out breeched en caul again. Amy passes her to me, healthy chubby girl, both on me in the pool.
I can’t believe it. I am amazed that it was so quick, so intense. I am a bit shocked. I feel the adrenaline rush.
I speak to my babies a lot, I can’t stop talking.
I tell them that they are so strong, that we did it, I thank them, and I also try to keep their head out of the water which I find difficult because they are slippery and it’s pulling the cords as my placentas were quite high in my uterus and my cords seem to be quite short. "They are calm."
I feel the water getting colder so I ask to get out. Amy and my partner hold a baby each while the two remaining midwives help me get out. My two placentas fall on the floor as soon as I am out of the pool standing. We decide to cut the cords and my partner and I lay down in the bed with one baby each, doing skin to skin.
I had a tear and we decide not to stitch it, on the condition that I would remain laying down for a week. Perfect plan!
The fourth trimester was the bliss. Breastfeeding went well. I felt amazing.
I was cuddling my babies all the time, co-sleeping. I didn’t get up from my bed for 10 days, neither did I change a nappy.
I had a few days of baby blues when I cried a lot, especially in the evening, I felt hopeless and lonely.
It was often when my partner was walking our dog, so I was alone with the babies.
We decided that he would walk the dog during the day rather than in the evening. I preface that our dog is a big one and have a lot of energy, and pulls a lot. This is a task that no one but my partner could do unfortunately.
I was supported, fed and it went away quickly. I had the reinsurance of Amy visiting me almost every day.
My babies were putting on weight amazingly. We had their tongue tie cut by another amazing midwife from the team who is an IBLC consultant and tongue tie trained. The babies were doing so well, that I got discharged after 2 weeks, which saddened me a bit. No more visits from Amy and the team!
I didn’t let anyone from friends and family visit us for 2 months. We were in our bubble. My partner and I taking care of the babies, and my parents in-law and sister in-law looking after my older twins. My daughters were quite emotional when they held the babies for the first time. It was such a nice moment. They were so proud and happy.
This was my dream birth. I am so proud of myself for all my efforts to make this happen. I am grateful to myself and my body. This birth will empower me and stay with me for life. This easy bond that I have with my babies is, in my opinion, entirely due to the amazing birth and all the support I had. I didn’t bond easily with my first twins, and I felt really disconnected in their first year.
Those sweet tender moments with my newborns I am taking them
with me for eternity. I wouldn’t do anything differently.
Except taking the babies in the double baby carrier for a walk at day 11 post-partum! Haha! It made me bleed again quite lots when it was already stopping at day 5 post-partum. This was not the wisest!
Before the birth, I was very informed of all the birth stages and all the different scenarios that could have happen. We prepared them all in advance and we made informed decisions again in advance in case plan B or C, D, E, etc would take place. And I would have been OK with any different scenario that could have happened as long as I felt respected in my power to decide for myself. Information is power to me.
Funny anecdote, my babies were suggested to be born earlier than 37 weeks because of a weight difference in my last scan (twin 1 always had a thinner torso on all the previous scans), which was confirmed after the birth with 800g weight difference. As of today, at 9 months old exactly, twin 2 is still a very chubby baby and twin 1 a slim baby.
It is so much easier this second time with twins. Of course I am a totally different mother now, an experienced twin mum, which necessarily helps.
But I believe that is is easier above all because I gave birth to those little humans with all my power, supported by caring and respectful people, who believed in the right to remain dignified, even in the event of birth.
"If we want a better world, then we need better births, for all mothers and babies."
Sarah's comment: It was a pleasure supporting Sarah with Cara. I recall and often refer to that absolutely random ultrasound, one of the biggest curve balls ever.
Errors are all too common when usual sonographer or Feotal Medicine doctor is on annual leave. Unfortunately as much as most people will certainly not have an issue in their pregnancy the problem is no matter how obviously inaccurate and absurd they are. The ultrasound in not are not an indication that everything is well and as such getting a second opinion is wise.
"The best thing would be that ultimately sonographers will become more skilled and these errors won't happen."
I remember how surprised about the gestation Sarah got to given her previous pregnancy and as it turned out that when Sarah felt she wanted to try a sweep the babies head was in an asynclitic position. Slightly at an angle
Thank goodness for Cara with her knowledge of biomechanics and such which I do not have. I have huge respect for Molly O'Brian I chose not to learn about birth in this way.
Why? Sarah's story exemplifies when a team of people with knowledge, experience and skill acting within their remit cohesively and mindfully. Truly respecting twin pregnancy and a mother and families right for information, support, and acceptance works amazingly well.
I believe we all must make a difference where we can, how we can and not become too little of too much.
Myself and Cara spoke about the babies position which as it was may have been entirely as it should be or perhaps Sarah might consider her baby needed mum to drop in and work with her body and babies.
Cara made suggestions of which she had many wonderful ones. We spoke about how each of those might work in a physiological sense in a twin pregnancy which is different. Sarah listened but also had previous experience with twin pregnancy and being a doula she considered and spoke to her midwife and I believe she tried some gentle movements and positions following the sweep.
All gently and perfectly fell into place with Sarah totally trusting her body, babies and and all the ways she could gently work with her babies to have a beautiful birth, including Jack Nicholson and Casablanca.
Sarah is a Doula who can be found here
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