Lucas and Griffin's Story

I am writing to tell a pretty smooth twin story. I already had ten and nine-year-old boys from a previous marriage when my new husband and I decided to have a baby of our own.

I have endometriosis, and prior to conception my periods were coming every two weeks, so the doctor put me on medication to regulate my cycles. She said that the endometriosis combined with my age (36) would probably make it very difficult to conceive. She recommended we start trying and if nothing happened during the next six months we would start the infertility process. Well, five months later I was pregnant!

At ten weeks I had an ultrasound and to my shock there were two babies, clear as can be. That's when I started to freak out. I tried to read everything about twins. I didn't even know anyone with twins to ask, "How bad is it really?” Everything that I read was not telling me anything good; all the statistics led me to expect bedrest and a premature delivery. I was really nervous. I tried not to think about all that could go wrong, but everything I read pointed out the very things that could go wrong.

My pregnancy progressed well. I had what seemed like a million ultrasounds, but they always put my mind at ease. I stopped measuring my girth when I got to 4'2" around (I am only 5'2"). When I got to about 30 weeks, my heart was skipping beats from so much extra blood flow, but I was told it was nothing to worry about. The doctor reassured me that this was normal but they took me out of work. I was doing fine. I knew at this point that the babies would survive if I had them this early, but I wanted to keep them in as long as I could. At about 33 weeks they gave me steroid shots to help lung development.

By that point, I couldn't eat because I had no stomach left… it was being flattened by the babies. What a cruel joke that I was told to gain weight and couldn't. I drank as much Ensure as I could handle. I craved milk and was drinking a gallon a day!

At about 35 weeks I started having contractions. The doctors put me on medications and bedrest. We just wanted to get to that 36-week mark. I really didn't want a C-section as I'd had one with my first son. I wanted to deliver with my OB at her small hospital and I could only deliver there after 36 weeks. Well, I took the medications until 36 weeks and the day I stopped taking them I started labor.

When the contractions were ten minutes apart we took off to go to the hospital. They did an ultrasound to see positioning and both babies were head down. They estimated five pounds, twelve ounces weight for each.

The beginning part of labor was long because the twins were both fighting to get out, so neither one had their head on my cervix good enough to make me really dilate. After 24 hours I was only at 7 cm. After a little Pitocin and some weird positions to try to move one twin up and out of the way, and I finally made it to 10 cm.

The first baby was born and was yelling so nicely that the pediatrician let me keep him and nurse him while we waited for number two. The doctors pushed on my stomach, and attached internal monitors to baby number two. I wasn't interested in what they were doing because I was just enjoying number one. After about half an hour the doctor said, "You need to push out number two now." I told him no, I didn't want to do THAT again. Well, as we all know I had to do it, so I gave my first twin to the pediatrician and a couple of pushes later twin number two was born. He was also healthy and screaming.

So I was blessed with Lucas at seven pounds, three ounces and measuring twenty inches long, and Griffin at six pounds, eight ounces and nineteen inches long. The birth of my twins couldn't have been any better. I thank my doctor who wasn't ready to give me a C-section at the drop of a hat. Did I mention she'd had twins herself? We were able to go home the next day with two beautiful babies and me feeling like I was a size two (I've never been a size two!). We were even crazy enough to do it again and thank God it was just one baby this time… a sister for all the big brothers. So I have a twelve and eleven-year-old, two two-year-old boys, and a sweet nine-month-old little girl. Life is busy but fun!