Please don't yell at me..

First I wanted to say not to read too much into individual experiences. You can find people who had bad vag births and bad c-sections, so try not to let that sway how you feel about your own decision too much. Although it sounds like you are just gathering info, but I always feel like when people describe their own experience they are pushing either for or against it (I'm sure I do this too) and of course one person's experience may be completely different from yours.

I had a c-section, and technically speaking it was a choice that I made. But that doesn't tell the whole story. My doctor was fantastic at discussing the pros and cons of both and leaving the ultimate decision up to me. I actually wished that he would just tell me what to do b/c it was too much for me to think about at the time! Basically both my babies were head down, so he said I could certainly try for vag birth, which I was leaning towards for sure (we'd had the c/s scheduled for several months "just in case"). Two days before the c/s I was still deciding whether or not to do it or try vag. Honestly I had been in so much pain for so long due to pelvic separation that I couldn't imagine going past the scheduled date of 38 weeks. My dr checked me and said that my cervix was not dilated AT ALL. There was no sign of them coming on their own, and my BP was rising to dangerous levels. He asked me some questions: was I planning to have many more children? would I have a lot of help after the babies were born? These were important things to consider in making my decision. Ultimately my BP went up, and I was developing pre-e, so I didn't have the time to let the babies come on their own. The dr said an induction would likely result in a very rough labor since I wasn't dliating, and may end up in a c-sec anyway. So I said go ahead and do it. Everything went great and the babies were extremely healthy. Recovery wasn't easy but not nearly as bad as I expected. I watched my sister give birth vag and don't feel like I missed out on anything. I do have a curiosity about vag birth but nothing more than that.

If I have any future children I'd like to try a vbac just to try to by-pass the recovery from c/s (of course there's no guarantee it will be a breeze either way). I made my decision to have a c/s based on how the babies were doing and the real possibility of problems for all of us. It was a decision I made late in the game and was not something that was decided way ahead of time just b/c I was having twins, although I knew it was a possibility. I guess I'm lucky that I had a dr who was willing to help me make the decision that was right for me and not push any kind of agenda.

Good luck!

Jen

 

QUOTE(rarasnake @ Aug 29 2008, 10:15 PM) [snapback]954413[/snapback]
I guess we live in different parts of the US. I actually had a hard time finding a
doctor that would allow a vagnial birth (we have alot of Big OB/GYN places and
not all doctors feel vagnial is okay).... I drive an hour to see my old doctor
because he is a one-man practice and was the only person that would listen to
me and be okay with a vagnial delivery... (Im not saying all the other drs only
wanted to do c-section, it was just if the doctor on call was a c-section only for
mulitples, there was no overriding their decision unless you could just wait for
their shift to be over and the next attending doctor was okay with it. But, I just
didn't want to take that chance because my last dd from water breaking to delivery
was only 5hrs)....



question - in the US, do you have to do what the doctor says? in Canada they can't do anything to you without permission & you can refuse recommended treatment...just curious.

 

QUOTE(miss_bossy18 @ Aug 30 2008, 04:52 AM) [snapback]954498[/snapback]
question - in the US, do you have to do what the doctor says? in Canada they can't do anything to you without permission & you can refuse recommended treatment...just curious.



No you don't have to do what the doctor says. It is the same in the US as in Canada, however, just as the patient has the right to refuse, the doctor will tell you what he or she is comfortable with and to go against what he or she says would be kinda silly IMO. I would rather have my doctor comfortable in doing what they do - I am nervous enough about delivering 2 babies.

That said, my OB left it up to me with the disclaimer that he would be disappointed if I didn't try to go vaginally if all presented well, because I have had 3 vaginal deliveries prior to this one. Had he said, I am really not comfortable delivering twins vaginally, I would either find an OB who was, or make the decision to have a c section based on his experiences. I love my doctor and trust him implicitly to do what is best for all of us -including him. I don't need a nervous OB!

 

Ive had babies both ways and I just look at it like my kids are healthy and happy. They dont know and although the c-section was harder on me I am thankful to have them at al. Everybodies opinions are valid and good but dont beat yourself up if you have the c-section(truthfully after having my son virginally the thought of having twins that way scared me) good luck and congradulations.

 

It depends on your body, your babies and a lot of times, your doctor. For my OB, with multiples, as long as baby A was head down, baby B was NOT bigger and they were both measuring 4.5 lbs. or more, she was fine with a vaginal birth. Well, for me, Baby A was head down, Baby B was half a pound bigger AND breech. Baby B was just at 4.5 lbs. and Baby A was 3#14oz. So, c/s in her book. Honestly I didn't even argue it nor did I care to. I had been in the hospital for just about a month and 7 weeks total on bedrest. I was so exhausted from not being mobile for a month, fighting the contractions, the mag sulfate and just had NO energy. I'm not even sure I could've had the energy for a vaginal birth even if I had wanted to. So, I was fine with the c/s.

When I got pregnant with Olivia, I chose a repeat c/s. It was MY choice. My delivery/recovery with the twins was quick and easy, so I had a good first experience to go off of. A lot of the reason I chose a repeat c/s was because with the twins at home and no family within 1.5 hours, I kind of wanted to "plan" the date so that I could have things prepared. Well, that backfired on me anyway...lol. My water broke 4 days before my scheduled date and she was born in the middle of a blizzard and it took my family 4.5 hours to get here (normally a 1.5 hour drive)...lol! I lucked out b/c I had gone into L&D the day before she was born for a severe migraine being tested for pre-E...that wasn't it, so they sent me home. Well, we couldn't get home with the blizzard conditions, so my girls were with the neighbor until my parents got there. DH and I stayed in a hotel that night since we couldn't get in our sub-division. When I woke up at the hotel the next morning, my water broke as I was getting out of bed, so we were able to head to the hospital from there. WHEW!

So, that's my experience. Do I regret either c/s? Nope. I had strong feelings for a VBAC on the next baby after the twins were born and after months and months of going back and forth, I chose c/s. My delivery was a bit harder the 2nd time around b/c I brought Olivia home from the hospital with me (with the twins, they were in the NICU for 17 days and I was recovered by the time they came home) so I had a newborn AND toddlers to care for, but it still was very manageable.

 

QUOTE(summerfun @ Aug 29 2008, 11:57 AM) [snapback]953351[/snapback]
I was told by my OB that it depended on the postiton of the babies. If both were head down, we would do vaginal. If A was head down and B was not, we could attempt a vag. and she could try and flip B or maybe B would flip by himself, but there was still a chance B would have to be c-section if this was the case. And obviously if they are both breech, c-section would have been the answer.

But my two came early, with A being born at home (vag) , feet first. Trevor was also taken by c-section since he was breech as well. BTW, my first pregnancy was a vag delivery.

I know this isn't anything to do with the topic, but, you had your little girl at 25 wks. at home!?? OMG! I would love to hear your birth story.

 

When I found out I was having twins, I just automatically assumed that I'd be having a c-section. I hadn't done any research on the topic and thought all twins were born that way. Thankfully, I had a great peri who told me that a natural delivery was very possible and she'd prefer to try that before resorting to surgery. Due to TTTS, I was high risk from my first u/s and only saw a peri. Since my Baby B (breech) was so much smaller than Baby A (vertex), she planned to do a breech extraction for her.

For various reasons, I ended up being induced at 35 weeks and easily labored for 18 hours with very little dilation before I came down with HELLP and we had to do a semi-emergency c-section before I got worse. Since I knew a c-section was always possible, it didn't bother me at all. I will say that the recovery was difficult though and the immediate aftermath was the worst pain I have every been in in my life.

With my son, I had a VBAC that was induced at 41.4 weeks and took 2 days of labor. Until they broke my water (which I will not be agreeing to again) that labor was easy as well. One side effect of my previous c-section was that I got bad pain at the c-section site with each contraction after they broke my water because I lost the cushioning of that amniotic fluid. It was because of that scar and it wouldn't have been there if I hadn't had to have a c-section the first time. This was "crawling up my bed" pain but, not for a second, did I want to opt for a c-section. If a doctor had suggested it they would have gotten an earful for those few minutes I could speak. I remembered how hard a c-section was and was not going to do that again without a firm reason.

If the baby looks well and the mommy looks well, there is no reason to subject everyone to major surgery. C-sections are major surgery and require lots of recovery time. They also make it more difficult to breastfeed (which we all know is good for the baby), send more children to the NICU with breathing problems, and are more likely to end in maternal death after birth. If your baby A is not vertex or your Baby B is breech and bigger, then you are obviously going to go the c-section route most of the time and that is the safest route. But c-section is never automatically the safest way to go and neither is vaginal. It depends on the situation.

I think the fact that I trust my body and know that pretty much every woman in history has undergone childbirth keeps me from being scared. I also understand that the shows in TV that showcase childbirth are as dramatic as possible. Childbirth is ridiculously over-dramatized in our culture and it is turned into this horrendous ordeal when it doesn't have to be. There is going to be some pain but it's not the end of the world and it only gets worse if you get stressed about it. Your mom did it, your grandma did it, your neighbor did it, the lady driving down the street right now did it, and you can do it too.

 

QUOTE(k8t-1 @ Aug 30 2008, 04:23 AM) [snapback]954506[/snapback]
No you don't have to do what the doctor says. It is the same in the US as in Canada, however, just as the patient has the right to refuse, the doctor will tell you what he or she is comfortable with and to go against what he or she says would be kinda silly IMO. I would rather have my doctor comfortable in doing what they do - I am nervous enough about delivering 2 babies.

That said, my OB left it up to me with the disclaimer that he would be disappointed if I didn't try to go vaginally if all presented well, because I have had 3 vaginal deliveries prior to this one. Had he said, I am really not comfortable delivering twins vaginally, I would either find an OB who was, or make the decision to have a c section based on his experiences. I love my doctor and trust him implicitly to do what is best for all of us -including him. I don't need a nervous OB!


gotcha - and fair enough.

 

I happened to attend a talk last Saturday by one of our local famous O&B. He listed several factors that will decide whether a twin/singleton pregnancy will end up in a C-section or a natural vaginal delivery (NVD).

- position of foetus
- history of previous operation of the womb, e.g. removal of fibriods/cysts/c-section
- presence of womb tearing
- distress of foetus
- complications, e.g. low oxygen, umbilical cord coiling around foetus, etc
- presence of vaginal infection, e.g. group B strep
- history of womb/bladder prolapse
- pelvic sizes
- social reasons

He also added that there's pros and cons to both procedure, and naturally c-sec is much faster, but he wun advocate for either, cos he'd only decide based on those factors listed. But he did add that NVD is considered safer for mothers, while c-sec is safer for babies cos they wun need to go thru the distress of labour and is whisked out quickly. C-section can give rise to post-op complications for mummies such as infection, pain (thus inability to breast-feed), womb rupture, etc.

I hope all these info help, it was helpful to me!!