The Forbidden Word! Caesarean Section!

Hello everyone. I thought I would share some insight and shed some light on my own experience to hopefully ease the mind of first time Caesarean mothers to be.That one word is the the fear of most moms. Although it is now becoming more popular as the chosen way to have babies. When you are having twins it is not often that you are able to have a vaginal birth due to the positioning of the babies. I originally wanted a vaginal birth, but scheduled a c-section just in case the girls did not want to cooperate with me. Well needless to say they did not. Baby A (Olivia) was head down but sat in front of my cervix, so I was contracting but she was not sitting on my cervix to make me dilate. Baby B (Lilly) was breech, so going vaginally could potentially be very dangerous. So into surgery I went. My  c-section was at 8:10 am but I had to arrive to the Labor and Delivery 2 hours early due to monitory and needing to take antibiotics before the surgery. The time finally came and I walked into the surgery room, I was seriously scared out of my mind! This was my first pregnancy and I was about to have a major surgery in my option. They sat me on the T-shaped table while preparing everything around me. They told me after they had me completely prepared for surgery the would go get my husband. I sat on the table and had the surgery nurse standing in front of me, thankfully she had a hold of me when they stuck the needle in my back to numb the area because I would have moved. She helped keep me grounded and told me to keep breathing. Only seconds later I a lot of pressure mid back area where they were doing the spinal block. They choose not do do a epidural due to the surgery not being that long. The spinal block would only last long enough for them to get the girls out, sew me up and get me to recovery. It was a very odd feeling to have your ass become numb then it travel down to your toes. I could only describe the feeling as my lower half of my body had gone to sleep but I never got that tingly needle feeling you get when your the part of your body that went to sleep began to wake back up. I was cold the whole time due to them needing to keep the room cold so I was a bit shaky, it was also due to the drugs they gave me for the spinal block. My husband watched they whole thing as the pulled they girls out of my body. There was A LOT of pressure as the tried to push them out of the small opening they made in my lower abdomen to get them out. There were a few times I couldn't breath so well because they were so swashed in me that they had to pull Olivia up and out of my pelvis which meant she went into my lung area. I have to say the whole thing went by really quick, though the whole process took about an hour and a half. I was able to feel my right toes before they even finished sewing me up which started to worry me a bit but they told me it would take awhile before I would even feel anything in my abdominal area. I was sent into recovery and recovered very well. They wanted me to start walking a little after 6 hours, I was able to stand and walk a short distance to the wheelchair to go visit my girls in the NICU. At the 20 hour mark they took the bladder catheter out since I was doing so well. I must warn you the first time you urinate it WILL hurt, but it gets easier. Bring a pillow to use as a caution so when you laugh, cough or sneeze you can press it against you so it won't hurt so bad. After 24 hours I was finally off fluids. Ladies make sure you take stool softeners, you will need all the help you can get to make your first bowel movement as easy as possible because your abdominal muscles are non-existent so it will be really hard to push and it will really hurt. Make sure you do your research about c-sections and get advise from other moms. I looked on Pintrest a lot for stories and advice which really helped me through my recovery. I have attached some sites below that really helped me with info. Thanks for reading!

http://bestcsectionrecovery.com/
http://allthingssurrogacy.org/c-section-tips/
http://www.thegritsblog.com/2015/10/my-c-section-experience-part-1.html

Preterm labor with Twins

Preterm labor is something you never want, but with twins it can be very dangerous. Due to having two little bodies inside you instead of one, the babies development is very important and the stages of development is different than with a singleton. I went into preterm labor at 28 weeks, since this was my first pregnancy I wasn't sure if it was preterm labor or not but I knew something didn't feel right. Women you know your body better than anyone else, no matter what anyone tells you if you feel something isn't right or could be wrong go to the doctors immediately. I went to the hospital and they immediately took me to labor and delivery for observation. The put a heart monitor for each baby on my belly and also a contraction monitor. After a few hours, they noticed that my contractions were not slowly and I was starting to dilate. Wanting to stop the contractions before I dilated anymore I was put on Magnesium Sulfate in a large dose at first then a slower dose for 24 hours. Let me just tell you I would never wish this medication on anyone, not even my worst enemy. I felt like my whole body was alight. I was also put on antibiotics in case I would have to deliver, which burned like hell fire going through my arm. Lastly, I was given two corticosteroid shots to help accelerate the lung and brain development  of the babies. You are given one shot and the given the other shot 12 hours later. It is a lot for you body to process when you are given mag sulfate, antibiotics, fluids and a corticosterioid shot all at the same time. Lets just say I had myself a breakdown in front of the nurses. I was later given a catheter for urine collection, again I say would not wish this on my worst enemy considering I had to get the catheter place twice in the same day. Thankfully by the end of the second day being there I was able to get the catheter removed and was able to come off the Magnesium Sulfate. I was only at the hospital for three days, I was still having contractions but the were minor and were not coming every 3-5 mins. I was thankful that I did not go into preterm labor again and was able to make it to my scheduled c-section date. I was very thankful that I had a very easy twin pregnancy compared to other mothers and was very blessed to get two very healthy girls. If you would like to learn more about Preterm Labor follow the link below. Thank you for reading!

Preterm Labor

TTTS. What does this mean??

What is TTTS? TTTS is Twin to Twin Transfer Syndrome. It is a disease that only affects the Identical twin pregnancies, which are the Mono/Mono and Mono/Di pregnancies because it is a disease that affects the placenta. This disease affects the nutrition that each baby gets. This disease affects the blood vessels that are connected to the umbilical cords. This disease can affect your babies at anytime during the pregnancy. It is something that can be very dangerous. One twin ends up getting (stealing) more of the nutrients so that the other twin ends up getting only a little. This can cause the twins to become very different in size and this problem will have to be fixed very quickly. To fix this problem they will have to do surgery. If this happens early in the pregnancy you can have laser surgery to seal off the connection between the blood vessels so that they are no longer sharing. Also in some cases you will have to deliver the babies preterm so no further damage can be done. To learn more about this disease and to join in the awareness of this terrible disease follow the link below.

http://www.tttsfoundation.org/

Thank you for reading!

The different types of Twins

Hey everyone! Alright lets start of with Twins. Many people don't know that there are different types of twins you can have until you are pregnant. Plus it can be very irritating for twin mothers to be asked several questions and wish that everyone was educated on twins. So I will gladly tell you the differences and hopefully help everyone out. 

• Mo/Mo Twins - Monochorionic/Monochorionic Twins. This means that there is one amniotic sac and one placenta. This is a VERY dangerous pregnancy because the twins are sharing everything. They can easily become tangled and have a higher risk of TTTS.
• Mo/Di Twins - Monochorionic/Diamniotic Twins. This is when there is two amniotic sacs but only one placenta. This is less dangerous because the twins do not have the risk of becoming entangled but still have the risk of TTTS because they are sharing the source of all nutrition, the placenta.
• Di/Di Twins - Diamniotic/Diamniotic. This means that there are two sacs and two placentas. This is the low risk pregnancy compared to the other two. They are sharing absolutely nothing as far as nutrition and have there own area to grow. 

Now when a woman has Identical Twins that means that she either had a Mono/Mono or Mono/Di pregnancy. This means that she only released one egg and that one egg was fertilized and then split. If a woman had Fraternal Twins this means that she had two eggs released and each egg was fertilized separately. This means that Identical twins can only be boys or girls; Fraternal twins can be boys, girls or one of each. 

I hope this helps clear up some confusion on twins.

Thanks for reading!