The last month and a half have been a huge adventure for our family, but all of the events are proving to be apart of one big story.
Just a few days before Christmas, we found that the baby I was carrying was breech. After an internal exam, it led to premature labor. It was a risk we had been willing to take to ensure we could continue with our homebirth and avoid a breech hospital birth (something Dan and I did not want). That lead to 3 weeks of bed rest. As frustrating as it was, it was an amazing amount of rest that would prove to be valuable in the coming weeks. At week 37, bed rest was over. I was thrilled to have time to get things accomplished before the baby would arrive.
Just 1 week after the bed rest, Dan had a really frightening accident. One that left him with a trip on the medflight to UW Madison hospital. While I knew he had a serious back injury, I had no idea what I would walk into the ER and see. Would he be paralyzed? Did he have feeling in his extremities? Was he alert? It was the longest hour and a half drive of my entire life. Thankfully, Dan "simply" had a broken neck. After surgery, the same night, they had him walking. I can't tell you how incredible that was. It was at that moment that I knew it would be a hard road, but we would be ok.
Dan was released from the hospital the following night after surgery. That frightened me but with help and support from so many around us, his recovery has been so quick. My biggest fear was going into labor at the same time I needed to be there to take care of Dan. How could I possibly do both? He wasn't allowed to walk around without help, shower, go to the bathroom, etc. He needed me and I wanted to be there. It was a great time of growth for us. A time when Dan had to stop being so independent and LET ME take care of HIM. Constantly, I would find tears in his eyes followed by the words, "Wow... you do love me!" It was different for us. We're both so independent and here we were in a situation where we BOTH and to be dependent on others. Our independence had been stripped from us whether we liked it or not. Growth... thats what this time was. Rest, recovery, dependence on God, marriage growth...
My parents had wonderfully taken the three youngest children for just over a week to give Dan a chance to rest and recover. On Feb 3, my mom brought the kids back and was going to head home after lunch. While she was still here, my midwife came to do a normal 40 week checkup. We did a few things to progress labor and within minutes I had a mild first contraction. My mom was planning to head home and come back in the morning. It wasn't likely that it would pick up quickly so my midwife headed home and told us to call her when things progressed. Over the course of the next hour, contractions were about 10 min. apart. At about an hour and a half in with contracts getting really strong, Dan was on the phone with his friend. I kept telling him to get off the phone. I may have used some harsh language to get my point across, but he didn't think it would be a big rush. I mean, afterall, we had hours left right? As soon as he hung up I told him to get the pants off of me. With in minutes with contractions jumping from 10 to less than 3 min. apart, the pain was getting unbearable. Shortly after I told Dan, "I think I need to push." A couple of breaths. "I'm going to push." A few more breaths. "Catch." Dan wasn't buying it and I was waiting for him to catch before pushing too much. "CATCH!" The next thing I hear was Dan on the phone with my midwife, "Where are you? THERE'S A HEAD COMING OUT!" She was two miles away. "JAN! I'M HOLDING A BABY! SHE'S SLIPPERY!!!" My mom was now in the room holding the baby while Dan was being instructed to lie me down and give me the baby. Once I started to lie down, I couldn't. That's when I knew. We were NOT done! Back up. My midwife walked in and baby number two came out breech... butt first. The yells. The astonishment. The craziness of it all. It was a huge ruckus of mixed emotions from us all. The first set of twins ever delivered by my midwife. The first set of twins she ever "missed."
We had TWO girls! In an instant our daughter Alanna went from outnumbered by boys 3 to 1 to even numbered... 3 and 3. Everyone was ecstatic. Dan was shocked, frightened, amazed. My head was simply spinning.
We had a name picked out for a boy or a girl, but not two girls. The first one born was named by Dan. Abigail Joy. It means fathers pride. After all we had just gone through with his accident, Fathers pride was fitting. Baby number 2 still does not have a name.
Abigail was 6 pounds 2 ounces.
Baby number 2 was 7 pounds.
So how did we miss it? My measurements were almost exactly the same as my other pregnancies. We only heard one heartbeat. The second head did throw us off and left us to wonder if the baby was breech. All along, there was a breech baby and one not breech. We had no idea. Dan and I avoided ultrasounds because we had no reason for one. Just an added expense.
As crazy as it may seem, it really was Gods plan. We lost our insurance this year (thanks Obama) and had we known it was twins, we would not have had a homebirth. Had Dan not broken his neck, I probably would have delivered the twins myself, at home. Had he not broken his neck, Dan wouldn't be home for 4 more weeks. There are so many reasons why things happened the way that they did, even though we didn't see it before.
This has truly been a long road, but it leaves me amazed at how God works things out in his way.
