Twin Photo Dump

I realized how far behind I am in sharing pictures. I'll try to be better about it, but for the next few days (or whenever I have two free hands and four babies sleeping, which is not that often, surprisingly), I'll be uploading some pictures.
These shots below are from their first two weeks at home, which was about 6 weeks ago.

Different ways of coping with overstimulation.

A baby's biggest household danger: the 2 year-old

Gideon's sweet cheeks

A passing smile

Evelyn

A much-awaited, belabored arrival

(Please forgive the disjointed narrative. I've been piecing this together for the past few weeks.)

All of the gory details

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Gestation: 38 weeks plus 4 days

The day started with an 8:40 OB appointment with Dr. Gerber. The babies were both head down, vertex. Perfect. I hadn't had my cervix checked at any previous appointment because we were afraid it might start labor. But Kevin was there with me, home for at least a few months, and my mother was staying with us to help with the boys, so I was ready to have the babies. Dr. Gerber checked, 3 to 4 cm dilated, 60% effaced. I asked her to strip the membranes, which she said were already pretty separated. I started having mild contractions immediately, but Mom and I went on with our errands and Kevin went to work. After lunch I took a bath in an effort to make the contractions go away to see if it was false labor. The bath was heavenly, the contractions went away and I even fell asleep in there. But as soon as I stood up the contractions came back, though still not very strong. They stayed with me through the afternoon. I can't remember what I did all afternoon. I think I got the babies' bag ready. By 5:00 p.m. they were painful enough to make me want to squat in order to get through them. I called Doris Ann, the doula I had with Joshua in Fort Bragg. I told her I was laboring with twins and asked her for some advice. She listened to me breathe through a couple of contractions, could tell I was in active labor, and reminded me of the relaxation techniques we used with Joshua's labor. She encouraged me to take a shower and then go into the hospital sooner rather than later.

My hair was still wet from my earlier shower and looking really shabby. I realized this was real labor and that I wasn't going to feel any better until the babies came and that the next shower wouldn't be for a while. So of course, I took the opportunity to dry my hair in between contractions. After my hair was under control (priorities!), I got in the shower for some back-pain relief. But our tub isn't big enough to squat in , so I quickly yelled for help and stumbled out of the shower.

It was dinner time for the boys, so Mom started throwing something together. A pasta dish that I'm sure was good but smelled horrid to me at the time. I sat on the couch with a heating pad on my back and blankly watched the boys watch 1967 Spiderman cartoons on the computer with Kevin. Every three to five minutes I'd yell, "Help!" Mom would drop what she was doing and came running to rub my back and hold my hand through the contraction while I squatted. She made me some soup and crackers that I foolishly ate.

By 7:00 the contractions were 2 to 3 minutes apart, Kevin had eaten dinner, and I was starting to feel a good amount of lower pelvic pressure. It was raining outside and we got into the car to go to the hospital. Doris Ann called me back to check on me. She talked me through another couple of contractions. We got to the hospital and realized I'd forgotten my I.D. card. Back home, back to the hospital. (It's only a mile away, thankfully.)

Then the long, long walk to the door of the hospital. It's maybe 400m, but it took forever to get there. We must have stopped 15 times to squat through contractions. Several people asked if I needed a wheelchair. One guy even came back and asked again, just to make sure. I must have looked crazy. A big, big lady in a red dress squatting on the sidewalk in the rain.

At the Hospital

Finally made it up to Labor and Delivery, only to wait in the waiting room. I guess she couldn't tell from looking at me how far along I was, but that unconcerned nurse was in no hurry.

Of course they made me get up on a bed and a nurse tried (unsuccessfully) to attach the fetal monitoring belts around my large contracting belly. Dr. Wakefield finally came in with an ultrasound machine and made me lie down so he could see the babies' positions. Lying flat with two big babies on your spine and having a contraction is just about the worst pain I've ever experienced. Trying not flip myself off of the table and squat through each contraction required a lot of self-control. It was taking him a long time to find the babies' heads. That should have been my first clue. But every doctor had a hard time finding anything in an ultrasound during the last trimester because the babies were so big and folded over each other.

And then he said it. "They are both breach. Transverse. We are going to have to do a C-section, if they don't move."

I didn't react. It was not what I'd wanted, of course. I'd been praying for them to move head down for 4 months, ever since that technician at the 24 week ultrasound said, "Baby A is breach. She's transverse right now. But she can move." And here I was at the end, after enduring a long, heavy pregnancy, and laboring at home, and they moved back to breach? But there was no time to think. Another contraction came and I tried to relax through it.
The doctor checked my cervix and said, "Oh. Wow. You are at 6 to 7 cm dilated. We're doing this right now." There wasn't any more time for them to move. This was it. Then up came my soup and crackers dinner. Ew.

I guess they didn't believe me when I said I was in labor, that this was my third pregnancy and that I was feeling pelvic pressure (which was a precursor to feeling the urge to push). Then everything went crazy for 15 minutes. Kevin left to put on scrubs. Nurses flurried about me, this one telling me to be still so he could draw blood. (Still? Yeah right. You are going to wait for me to tell you when I'll be still.) And that nurse trying to put in the IV. All of these things I didn't have with Joshua.

So if they were going to make me lie on that bed and be still, then they better hurry up with that pain reliever, I thought. I might have even yelled that. I had an epidural with Caleb and didn't like it. But it was out of my hands now. A C-section right away meant getting a spinal. I kept asking, how much longer until that spinal? Answer: 25 minutes. It was the longest 25 minutes I could imagine. Lying on that bed, they wheeled me to an Operating Room (I wish they'd have let me walk). Now making me switch to that tiny OR bed and it was freezing in there. I shook convulsively from the moment I got in there, all the way through the surgery, until I left 45 minutes later. And Kevin was still not in there to calm me down. (They don't let husbands in the room during a spinal or epidural. A woman died during an epidural at Bragg while we were there and the husband flipped out, understandably.)

Dr. Wakefield checked my cervix one more time before the spinal: 8 to 9 cm. I had been in transition while lying on that tiny, cold, lonely OR bed. No wonder it hurt so much.

Looking back, I realized how close we came. If I had waited any longer, I would have had the urge to push (which is an absolutely involuntary reaction when you don't have anesthesia). And trying to push Evelyn out with her back presenting, not her head or even her bottom, would have been really dangerous for all three of us. So I am thankful for God's timing and Doris Ann's prompting me to get to the hospital before it got too far. And I'm thankful that there was an experienced OB there and for the modern medicine that made my could-have-been-complicated delivery smooth sailing.

I received the spinal after a contraction. But I went down fighting. I pinched two of the nurses that were holding me still because another contraction came on right as the anesthesiologist was inserting that large needle into my spine. About three minutes later my legs started to feel numb and then I couldn't feel the contractions anymore. Then Kevin finally came in and found me like this:

But I was still freezing cold. I shook so hard, the nurse had to practically sit on my arm to keep my upper body still while the doctor made the incision.
They kept telling Kevin to sit down on the stool next to my head, behind the drape they put up at my chest. But he kept popping up and looking at my now-gaping abdomen. He tried to snap a few pictures, but there were too many doctors in the way. I kept reminding the nurse to lower the drape when the doctor pulled the babies out.
Before I knew it, the drape was down, and I saw a little white bottom. Dr. Wakefield had to pull Evelyn out of the incision bottom first because he was trying to keep the incision small and he didn't have time to reach in and turn her. So out she came into the world- backwards, but beautiful.

That's Evelyn out of focus in the middle there. You can see her tiny bum.

After I glimpsed her face and heard her first cry, I was looking back at my stomach to see Gideon entering the world screaming from the first second. I could tell right away that he was bigger. He sounded strong. Evelyn's first cry didn't come for a long 30 seconds because they had to clear her airway, but Gideon wailed from the second he was taken from me.

And here's the doc showing Gideon to me. He looks so big!

My hysterical shaking did not stop despite the warm blankets the nurse had put over my upper body and some weird warm-air balloon thing they put across my shoulders. And this is the part I regret, the nurse put some narcotic in my IV to "calm down the shaking." Maybe this was medically necessary so that the doctor didn't have to worry about my shaking while he was sewing up seven layers of tissue, but the nurse should have asked. That made me a little loopy, but I was still conscious and heard the weights called out to me-
"Baby A weighs 6 pounds 3 ounces. What's her name, Mom?" "I don't know," I replied, "I have to see her face." Then they asked Kevin, but he refused to answer, saying it was up to me. Once Kevin brought her around to me, I saw her face and thin frame and said, "Evelyn. It was always Evelyn." (We considered naming her Deborah, because of the amazing character of Deborah in Judges, and because Gideon was a great Judge of Israel, too. But she just didn't look like a Deborah.)

Evelyn Janelle

"Baby B weighs 7 pounds, 5 ounces. Wow! Those are some big twins!" All the nurses kept exclaiming how big these babies were "for twins." But I wasn't that surprised. Didn't they see the size of that belly before he cut into it? I didn't gain 55 pounds for nothing.

Gideon David

After that the only notable thing was the strong pain in my upper back and shoulders that the nurse attributed to the doctors' tugging on my internal organs. Indeed, Dr. Wakefield was inspecting my uterus outside of my body, on top of my stomach, Kevin said. And they cleaned out my body cavity after that, all around the other organs in there. It was a truly strange sensation feeling the abrupt tugs and pressure in my stomach but not feeling them acutely.
About thirty minutes after they were born I was wheeled into a room where my mom was waiting for us. I nursed them each right away. They both had a great latch and each nursed for about 20 minutes. Evelyn first, then Gideon. That was the most alert they'd be for a nursing session for the next two weeks.

Proud (ecstatic even) new grandparents of twins. My dad with Gideon and Mom with Evelyn

Some visitors at the hospital: my sister Amanda with Gideon, and friend Donna holding Evelyn

The rest of the story

The rest of the labor story is just recovery. Having a C-section is way different than birthing babies vaginally, of course. But I just wasn't prepared for how long the pain would last. People who say, "Oh a C-section isn't that bad. The recovery isn't that hard," have just forgotten their recovery. Time has a manner of helping us block out pain and difficulties. And the incredible love that floods a new mother's heart is a better pain reliever than Percocet. Feeling like my guts might fall out of a small slit in my tummy was a weird pain. So was sneezing.

"Just try not to use your abdominal muscles when you stand up," the nurse said.

What? How do you do that? I'd trained my core for almost two years after having Joshua and now they were telling me not to use it? Your core is involved in every movement.

The hardest part was getting up and down with two babies to feed and change them so often those first two weeks. My mom was here for a few days which was a terrific help, and then Kevin's mom came. Also a big help with the babies.

But I don't want to complain too much because here I am 4 weeks postpartum and there is a thin scar between my hips and a sizable uter-belly but I'm okay. Up and walking around without much hindering me. Running and Olympic weight lifts will have to wait another two weeks, but I'm fine now.

Still, don't believe a woman who says that a C-section is a breeze. If that's true, then there wouldn't be a rule in many auto insurance policies stating a woman who has an accident within two weeks of having a C-Section is liable because she has had "major abdominal surgery." It's "major" and it's "surgery." But it was a blessing to have such good, efficient care. I'm safe. Babies are safe and hey, at least I didn't have to worry about temporarily football-shaped heads. They both have perfectly round little noggins.

I'm also thankful for the smaller transverse incision. My Aunt Gina said they often have to do the down-the-middle of the belly cut for breach twins. I'm thankful for my "bikini scar."

Lots of people have asked with sad eyes how I felt about having the C-section. I made it no secret I wanted to try to deliver these babies naturally, without drugs, like I delivered Joshua. But I have no regrets. I couldn't have done anything differently. I was able to stay off of bed rest. I even went for a 4x400m jog the day before I had the babies. And I labored at home all day, not going to the hospital until Doris Ann and I thought I needed to. If the twins had been head down, I could have labored in the hospital for that hour I was getting an IV and a spinal, been at 9 cm at 10 pm, then pushed them out not much later. But they were breach. Nothing I could do about it. I had the best possible outcome, considering. If I lived 100 years ago, who knows what would have happened. I'm thankful and thrilled. I have two beautiful, healthy babies. With appetites and loud cries that wake me up at night. I love them.

(And by the way, just so I don't get accused of being superwoman, I am going crazy, despite how much I love those little cuddlebunches.)

The Twins are here!

Evelyn and Gideon, in their normal sleeping positions

Two thirds of our new family
Gideon's first bath

Evelyn rocking her Apgar score (9/9)

Kevin and his (first, only) daughter

Mama and Gideon, after the first successful nursing session Happy family with hour-old newborns, and Evelyn showing off her rooting reflex

These were in my belly, at the same time

Thursday evening, after a long day of laboring, the twins made their first appearance out of the belly.

Evelyn Janelle Toth was born at 8:59 p.m. She weighed 6 lbs. 3 oz and was 20 inches long.

Gideon David Toth was born at 9:01 p.m. He weighed 7 lbs. 5 oz. and was 20 and a half inches long.

I'm busy nursing the babies around the clock and squeezing in sleep when I can. Kevin is busy chasing after the boys. After I get more than 3 hours of sleep a night, I'll think about writing out the twins' birth story. Until then I'll leave you with pictures and this little fact: We stayed in the hospital for 48 hours. During that time, I changed only one diaper. Kevin did the rest, jumping up to expertly deal with delicate bits while I recovered in bed. It would be wonderful if there was only one baby, but he did double duty without a complaint. He is such an amazing man.

Twinbelly progression, 4 to 37 weeks

(You can click on the image to see it bigger. Anyone know an easy way to increase this middle part of the blog so that pictures are bigger and not just a third of the width of the screen?)


Kevin made it home last night. My belly is still full of twisting babies. Big answer to prayer.

Now I'm praying that the twins just come already. I was in no hurry with the last two pregnancies, but the constant burning from the skin stretching and the heavy rucksack I can't put down are starting to bother me. I'd like to meet the twins soon, and stop worrying about labor and delivery. But I am so thankful to be a family again. It does feel strange though, knowing our family is about to change big time.

Twinbelly- 37 weeks

Well, I made it to 37 weeks. The statistic is that 50% of twin pregnancies deliver before 37 weeks. So, praise God, He helped me stick it out into the minority. Just a few more days more until Kevin gets home. Praying I make it.
If you click on the photo below you can see my "Twinbelly- 37 weeks photos", but I didn't want to offend any one's eyes or force anyone to look at this monstrosity. So, if you're interested, you can see what it looks like to hold two babies with no hands, just some seriously stretched skin and some strained ligaments. The picture below is what I look like/feel like most days.

37 weeks

I have also gained 45 pounds. I wonder how it is still possible to continue to gain weight. I have not been eating more food than usual. Maybe an extra milkshake here and a cookie there, but nothing crazy. Still, it's two pounds a week I'm piling on. I guess that is the difference that exercise makes. If I eat exactly the same, and yet do no exercise and little chasing after the boys- the result is weight gain. Good to remember. I know being pregnant makes weird things happen, too, so it's not just the simple equation of "calories in -calories out= calories kept in body and converted to something less than desirable." Anyways, still blows my mind to think I'm nearing my 50-60 lb. weight gain goal. Also, I am now officially the Biggest Toth. Kevin weighs 5 lbs less than I do. And yet he carried me to the couch last weekend. I was terrified he was going to hurt himself. But he's He-Man, so I'm not that surprised.
Kevin surprised me over Labor Day weekend and flew home for a few days. It was so sweet I couldn't help but cry and smile when I saw him walk down the hall of our house when I hadn't expected to see him in the flesh for another two weeks. It was just like when we were dating and first married, but separated. We surprised each other all of the time. But I don't expect that now. It was wonderful. Almost romantic, if one can separate romantic from the physical sense and appreciate romance in an abstract, thoughtful way. I'm so thankful for my loving husband.

Birthday Party Blast

Our good friend Brooke had a birthday party yesterday at a park by our house. She's a little princess and had a fantastic cake to prove it.

Joshua didn't know what to think of the princess. He later took a bite of the candle, thinking it might taste as good as the princess's dress.

Present opening mayhem.

Funny Emmie made friends with some teenage girls at the park and was worried when they left on their bikes. Pretty little Saedi
The princess's little sister, Meadow, kept stealing the tiara.

The three-year-old club: Caleb, Ellie and Brooke. For some reason, Caleb calls them his shooters. Brooke doesn't like to shoot things as much as Caleb does, though.

Caleb and Ellie

Twins: Good and Bad News. And the Fears of a Mama.

These sonograms are pretty hard to read, I know. The babies were moving so fast and they are so big, they barely fit on the screen. But I thought I'd share them, none the less.

Baby Girl, with her foot in her mouth (almost)

Baby Boy, looking up. That white smudge under his chin was his hand waving.
The tops of their heads. Together.

More news about the twins.

I had an appointment with the doctor on Monday and the girl baby was transverse, as always. She's been lying like that in every single one of my 15 ultrasounds. No surprise, kind of disappointing. Everything else was fine.

Then Tuesday I had an growth-scan ultrasound down in Nashville. The techs down at Maternal Fetal Group are really good at recognizing body parts that now look to me like abstract black and white patterns. Every once in a while I'll see a hand or the bubbles of an umbilical cord, but I have no clue how the technician finds the girl's arm and differentiates it from the boy's.

Good News first: The babies are big and healthy. I've done my job eating lots and gaining weight. The girl's weight is estimated at 5 lbs. 7 oz. The boy's weight is estimated at 6 lbs. 1 oz. No wonder my skin hurts so bad from the stretching. They are huge! A singleton should weigh around 5 lbs. 8 oz. at this fetal age, so they're doing great.

The Bad News: Girl moved, but she moved her little bottom down so now she is breech. It does show me that she can still move in there, she just moved the wrong way. The boy, in case you're wondering, is now laying transverse across the top of my belly and their heads are right together underneath my belly button. It was a little encouraging, because just 24 hours before, Girl baby was transverse, like she has been the entire pregnancy. So it was exciting to see her move.

It was less than exciting to hear the doctor schedule a date for an anticipated C-Section. They don't like twins to gestate longer than 39 weeks because the placenta ages more rapidly in twins and stops working all together. There is a sharp increase in risk of stillborns after 39 weeks. (That risk-increase correlates to a 42 week gestation for a singleton.) And they will not try external version (manipulating the belly from the outside to get baby to turn down) with twins. Anyways, the doc saw my hesitation at scheduling when my children are to be born and said that the date is up for discussion closer to the time. She knows my desire to try to labor naturally and was sympathetic, to a point.

I have to admit to feeling like a failure, though. All of this baby carrying, baby having and child-rearing has helped me to feel like a strong, empowered woman these past 4 years. I've faced down a lot of challenges and come through them with a renewed trust in the Lord and faith in the strength that He gives me each day. But this, this I can't change. I can't do anything to make her move. I can't train harder, stay up later, or do anything to make Girl baby move into a better position. No amount of research that I do will help. Giving my husband an extra portion of grace when I really don't understand him won't help. Resisting bitterness during continual separations from my best friend won't get her to turn. Nothing. Nothing I can do will ensure that I am able to push these babies out.

I know, I know. I should be thankful. And I am thankful for not one, but two healthy babies. For not only being able carry them this long and thus avoid the normal twin complications of preterm labor and low-birth weight, but I've avoided bed rest. So many blessings I have all around me. And in me. It's not that I'm not thankful. And it's not even that I don't trust God to provide the best for me and for the twins. It's coming to the end of my own abilities that is so hard. Seeing how out of my control this situation is. I have come to this point before- when letting Kevin go off to war, again, with my two boys sitting in the back seat. But it's still painful.

I have to let go of my grip on my life. But I'm wallowing a bit. And I'm fearful of the unknown of a C-Section and all it's implications post-partum. Especially with nursing the twins. I know it will be hard to nurse them anyways, but after the babies being doped from the epidural and my milk having pain meds in it? I'm fearful. So I guess I do need to trust God more. I know I do.

Trusting God: An unending goal.

Help! Decorating the Twins' room

The Room:

I am trying to figure out what to do with the babies' walls. I painted them an off-white color a while ago, thinking it was a very light tan. I'm glad now that it wasn't tan at all, and ended up being white, because everything else in this room is tan- the cribs, the changing table, the loveseat, the carpet, the baskets and the shrank (that you can't see in the pictures). So to liven up the room I have the following variables: sheets, curtains, baby blankets and WALLS.

My first idea, that I'm kind of stuck on is painting a chocolate brown rectangle on the wall, hanging a little string it and then using wooden clothespins to hang a little dress and a little shorts outfit. Pink and blue. Typical boy/girl twin imagery. But the walls above each of their beds: big, blank, and empty.
I made a very quick sketch of the room this afternoon, then scanned the sketch and spent a couple of hours trying to figure out how to make Photoshop behave like Illustrator and add color to my rough sketch.
I need some opinions on what to do with the walls. It's coming down to crunch time here. I think I've got a couple more weeks (praying for three, so Kevin can be here), before these babies arrive. So I better move on it now and paint this week.
What do you think?
(Hint: You can click on the pictures to enlarge them on your monitor. In Options 1 and 2, half of the flowers are a light pink color.)

Option 1: Motifs from the babies' blankets

Option 2: Motifs from the babies' blankets, but concentrated.

Option 3: Ovals on the wall. Not necessarily in this configuration. Could put one in the middle and write their names on it.
Option 4: Blocks on the wall, with green used as an accent. Again, not sure on configuration. And could add names/monograms.
Option 5: Same as above, but without the green accents.
Option 6: Stripes on the wall. With or without the green accents. Also, should I match the pink/blue/green with the bright colors on their blankets, or go lighter so that there are stripes on the wall, but not very noticeable?

I know the drawing is messy and not to scale and that the color is choppy. Sorry about that. Hope it gives you an idea of the room. And that you, friend, give me an idea of how to make this room less tan.

PS- If you know where I can find a floor lamp like that, with a big drum shade, let me know.

Twinbelly- 34 weeks

Warning: It's getting hard to crop in to just the belly. So I had to put on the swimsuit top. I took a nap before taking these pictures, so there are lines from the blanket that props up the belly all over my skin.
It's official. I've never been this big. 40 lbs. over my normal weight. My belly has never been this big. Even at weigh-in during laboring with Caleb (they make you weigh in during labor!), I was a pound lighter than I am now. Kevin and I have been competing for biggest Toth. I was a pound lighter when he left, but I bet I'm beating him now.

34 weeks today. 34 weeks means that if I start labor, they won't stop it. The babies should be between 3 and half and 4 and a half pounds each. At my last ultrasound (2 weeks ago), Girl baby was estimated at 3 lbs and 7 ounces, Boy baby was 3 lbs and 8 ounces. They are a big enough that they should not have major health problems if they are born from here on out. They are also supposedly able to nurse starting at 34 weeks, so that's good.

Kevin is in HALO school right now. He left last Monday and he should be back by the middle of next month, which will put me around 38 weeks.

50 percent of twins are born before 37 weeks. I'm praying to be part of the minority, so Kevin can be there for the twins' birth. You can pray, too, if you want.

Keeping up the good work

Life is pretty different for me these days. I have to lie down a lot. Sitting is no relief- the boy's legs/arms slam into my ribs with increasing force. And standing hurts my feet and hips after about 15 minutes. But a girl can only spend so long supine. And the boys can only play on the couch with me for a couple of hours a day.
When a friend at church asked me to take photos of her sweet family, I was excited for a change of scenery. It's good to work a little. Keeps the gears in my camera greased.

We went out Dunbar Cave park to take the pictures. Kevin took the boys on an hour-long hike while I chased the kids around with a camera, trying to catch their smiling, jumping faces in focus. Before the family got there, we fed the geese and ducks some stale crackers I found lurking in the back of the pantry. Little beggarsUnwilling to share, Joshua ate about 50% of his fowl-food.

These kids are well-behaved and still so fun. Gives me a lot of hope about our future with four.