7 August 2008

The Birth - Back Story - Part 7

I had a seat next to Emma and I held her hand all of the time and quite far enough away from the business end. I don’t think I was the cliché man, I sat there giving her encouraging smiles and not shouting out and breathing with her and actually pretending that I had any idea what she must have been going through.

What followed was about an hour or so of contractions and pushing. I had the machine near me and could see the babies heart beats and the contractions. I figured out when the contractions were coming and I knew when the midwife was going to tell Emma to push. Emma on the other hand had no idea when the contractions were coming because she couldn’t feel a single thing. This was becoming a problem because as much as she was pushing nothing was moving south.

A doctor was called in to do an assisted birth. I recognised her from one of the appointments that we had. She explained that the babies heart beats were starting to become a little slower and it was time to give them some encouragement to get them out. Then the things that were rarely used came out. Yes the steal forceps.

The doctor went in and positioned twin one’s head in the correct position. Emma was then treated to an episiotomy (a small cut to open things up a bit). I saw the forceps go in and at 22:02 on the next contraction the doctor pulled out twin number one, a girl, Lilly. We were given a quick look at her before she was taken away to be taken care of by half a dozen people.

Thirteen minuets later at 22:15 twin number two, also a girl, Amy, was delivered in the same fashion. She looked the same as Lilly did; eyes wide open with a shocked look on her face as if to say “what the hell just happened”. She was whisked away also. I was very relieved to here two screaming babies just before they were taken to the special care baby unit.

I sat there with Emma, while she was being stitched up and no word of a lie, 2 minutes after delivering twin girls she said “well I guess we should try for a boy then”. I laughed and put that down to the drugs talking.

I got changed out of my scrubs while Emma was being tidied up. At this point I was quite ripe. Once she had been wheeled back to the ward and was settled, I was invited to go down to see the girls.

It was quite shocking to see them. They were on CPAP which is basically oxygen fed in through the nose. They both had splints on there arms to hold wires and tubes in place. They were also very battered and bruised around the face where they had been pulled out by the forceps. I was assured though that they were in good hands. I was given a couple of Polaroid’s with them each on. I went back up stairs and showed them to Emma as it would be a couple of hours before she could see them.

Lilly

Amy

I sat with Emma for a while and then made all of the phone calls to the grand parents to give them the happy news. I then went home. I was a father to twin girls “Oh My God”.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

awwww thats so sweet :)
poor little things gettin hurt from the nasty forceps.
i bet u were both so proud bless
cassie