birth of multiples

No, I did not give birth last night. but blake and I did attend our first childbirth class. (and, on a side note to match my cousin's prego dreams post: my recurring prego dream is that I give birth super super easily, like I barely even notice it, but that there are FOUR babies and they're super, super, small - thus the easy birth I guess. they're all fine in my dream but I'm like, oh my, FOUR of them.)


anyways, the saga of attending child birth classes goes like this:

- we look up all local baby-related classes at the local hospitals (group health, overlake, evergreen, etc). everything from traditional education classes to yoga to happiest baby on the block, the whole deal.
- make ourselves a nice little spreadsheet w/ class name, location, dates, cost, and our ranking of how much we want to go to this class.
- one class gets an A+, it's the class to go to - overlake's birth of multiples class. the problem, it's 5 weeks, all on tuesday evenings. tuesdays are not only the night I tutor, they're the night blake has class. tuesdays are the only night that we're not free.
- I go to the EMOMs group, which says that UW hospital also has a multiples class, and it's even better than Overlake's apparently. AWESOME!! we have a night of happiness and then we look up the class. it's also on tuesdays. seriously? couldn't they coordinate w/ overlake and offer different dates? but, the advantage is that while overlake's classes are a series, UW's classes are a series of 6 classes, OR you can cherry pick the one's you're interested in for $40/class.
- so, blake's between quarters right now and I cancelled my tutees for just one night and we went to Class #3 - birth of multiples last night.

it was fun. once again, like the emoms meeting, it was weird but good to not be the freaky person with twins but instead to see other (much larger) bellies around the table. there were of course, personalities - one girl is set on a natural birth, no epidural or anything. which is admirable, but the instructor kept trying to tell her that with twins that just doesn't happen. they like to put an epidural in so that if they have to rush you into a c-section you're ready to go. otherwise they'll knock you all the way out because an epidural will take too long and going all the way under is more dangerous. one of the prego moms works as an anesthesiologist and she had a lot of interesting things to add too.
other interesting things we learned:

• 37 weeks is full term for twins, 50% of twins are born by 36 weeks. which is crazy crazy because tomorrow I will be at 18 weeks - as in possibly half way.
• 5% of twins are viable at 23 weeks, but you really want to get to 28 weeks becasue the % increases drastically each week from there.
• the doc will call the babies baby A and baby B. baby A is always the one closest to the exit :) this means that they might switch names though if they move around a lot! I suppose that's one small reason to hope for girl/boy because then you'll always know which is which, even if they switch spots.
• if Baby A is vertex (ie head down) you prob get to try for a vaginal birth unless baby B is much much larger than baby A or a few other funky scenarios. with twins, baby A is vertex 81% of the time, versus 95% of the time for singletons.
• if Baby A is breech (upside down) or transverse (sideways) there's no room to try and turn it and delivering that way is too risky. (as in: if baby A is breech and you try to deliver, its chin can get caught on baby B's chin and their necks pull against each other. yikes)
• after lots more talk about reasons you would end up with a c-section (60+% of twins are c-section) we heard about how really, you want a natural birth for both mom and babies so you really should try for one (but you also have to be ready for a c-section 'cuz you prob won't have a choice).
• all twins are delivered in an operating room. you might labor elsewhere, but when you're ready to go, it's a party in the operating room. blake gets to come unless they put me all the way under (which shouldn't happen unless there's a crisis which is why they'll kick him out at that point). there were about 16 people in our class and she had us stand up to represent the crowd in the operating room. "you're the mom, you're the dad, you're mom's doc, you're Baby A's doc, you're Baby B's doc, you're mom's nurse, you're the anesthesiologist..." there are more than 10 people for a normal twin birth and if you're pre-37 weeks, well then there were 20+ people involved.
• okay, there was lots more, but really, it's not blog appropriate! I'm glad we know about it in case any of it comes to pass, we'll be a little more prepared, but I don't plan to dwell on many of the what-ifs!

the instructor really, really strongly recommended that we come back and take the "preventing preterm labor" class but as we were walking out we decided the scheduling just couldn't work (it's also on a tuesday). so we went back and asked her if there was one pointer from the class she could give us, or if she could email us the power point or something, and she said, "how about I just give you the whole class, really quick, right now?" so we stayed until 10pm, but we now know all about preterm labor too! including the knowledge that I will prob start feeling contractions really soon (like 20 weeks), but that's normal with twins and not to be worried unless... insert handout here. what to do, what to count, when to call... and she gave us other handouts from other twin moms - which products they liked, etc etc.

okay friends, that is all for now. I am tired of blogging and this is all relevant to me, so I'm thinking you're pretty tired of reading it all. I shall go hydrate (helps prevent pre-term labor) and then maybe a nice nap...