Grace and Joy ~ My first Twin catch.

Friday night.... Twins.

After a birth, after arguing with a mother insistent on starving her child to death (see blog below), after a long line of prenatals and finally closing down the clinic for the week, I went home to rest and have dinner.

I kept thinking about the twins I had diagnosed earlier this week. I’ve seen a number of women with way too many fetal heart beats. I’m starting to think there’s something in the water. I’ve had at least one person a day this week who is suspected of carrying twins.

So naturally, I thought of Ajong, my mama from Maloney, I wrote about earlier (see blog called Dream come true? below). She is the one with the crazy large fundal height who delivered twins last pregnancy and is surprisingly pregnant with twins again… or triplets.

Well she (surprisingly) stayed pregnant another 2 weeks. Each day she seemed to do better even though she was still quite tired. She didn’t seem so anemic and had more energy. But her baby’s heart tones kept moving on me.

One would always stay the same. But the second baby kept going from the right to the left side. It was impossible to know if it was two babies that somehow were hiding from me or if it was just one baby that was dancing inside.

As time went on, I no longer suspected triplets. Instead I felt more confident on twins… but I confess I was never really sure.

The thing is, neither Maggie or I, have ever delivered twins before. Neither of us have ever delivered breech either. Even though it was a first for us,  fortunately we weren’t scared -- or we were too foolish to know any better. I’d like to think it was God just giving us grace for the day and peace for the task at hand.

I was thrilled to see her come in last night (Friday night) in labor. Could this finally be it? When I checked her she was squarely 4 cm dilated and contractions were solid – even if they weren’t very painful yet.

She was so cute waddling through the clinic in her stilted stride. She couldn’t go very far but I loved to see her labor standing up. The babies seemed to be doing fine but one of them kept changing the location of the heartbeat. What? I was thoroughly confused. That doesn’t happen this late in the game.

I kept a question mark constantly hanging over my head. I guess time would tell.

By 1 am she was making progress and at 2 when I did another IE she was ready to push… well almost. There was a bit of an anterior lip. I held it back and the membranes were ruptured. The first baby came not long after.

She came head first and did just fine despite her petite form. The second baby was then supposed to be easy to manipulate into the pelvis (according the textbooks that is!) but she wasn’t.

The fundal height was still enormous and I couldn’t feel a baby in there abdominally at all. Odd – very odd. Maggie was (I’m thinking for her here) just as confused as I was, “Where is this baby? Which way was the head?”

I could feel the membrane internally so I ruptured it. And the flood gates of heaven opened. Easily over 2 liters of amniotic fluid gushed out, soaking our shoes and splashing under the dividing wall into the next room. Yikes.

But immediately I found something soft and squishy coming out. It was a tiny foot and pointy bum. She pushed and the rest of this miniscule person made her way into the world. Blue as the stormy sea.

She moved a bit but made no effort to breathe. We resuscitated and within a few minutes she perked up considerably. But she was just so small.

Meanwhile I turned my attention to Ajong again to see Maggie handling things like a champ. The placenta with two cords not one was birthed not long after and the bleeding controlled.

I have to admit I felt strange looking around the room and seeing babies here and there. I was thrilled when the smallest went the breast without a hint of hesitation and cheered to know Mama Ajong wasn’t hemorrhaging.

Frankly… I just think God answered all your prayers (and mine).

Thank you for lifting her up in prayer. Pray with me still as tiny treasures head home to the village. Pray for health and Jesus to continue to provide and care for them all.

But know… there is another VERY pregnant mom who may have twins too. But she has polyhydramnios in a serious way (not good. Means she has too much amniotic fluid). Pray for her and the rest of the team God calls to deliver them.

Thanks.