Doubly Blessed
We went in expecting one big baby. What we didn’t expect was everything that happened next — what I was watching for while we waited on the second one, what Julia did without being asked, and the set of twins I caught thirty years ago that I still think about.
“Thanks and you both have been a lot of help in this as well and are both a blessing in our life. And so are the Twins! 🙂”
— Jake K. | Father
My partner Julia was already on the road and about to stop for coffee. I texted her: don’t stop for coffee, we’ve got twins and the second one is coming. She texted back: “Shut up.” Then she drove a little faster, walked in giddy, and got to witness her first set of twins being born.
Two babies. Both head down. Both born right on time and each one just over seven pounds. If you know anything about twins, you know how uncommon that is. Twins usually come early and small. These two came at term, strong, and beautifully.
By sunrise, the three older children had woken up and wandered in, wide-eyed, trying to work out how one baby had turned into two. Their oldest decided it happened because their aunt had prayed for it. I turned around to watch the big brother’s face when he met his brand-new sisters, because that’s part of the birth too. Then I drove out to get grandma, knocked on her door, and got the biggest hug of my week.
This was their first time with Mountain Laurel, a family who came to us because another family sent them our way.
Over thirty years has taught me that the journey of labor can often shift and turn, and birth doesn’t always tell you everything in advance.
What matters is who’s with you when it changes: whether they’re ready for it, whether they have the experience for it, whether they stay, and whether they know your name without looking it up in a chart.
When mom looked at me mid-labor and said, “What am I going to do?”, I got to say: You’re going to push one baby out, just like you did before. Then you’re going to push another one out. The only difference between two and one is one. You can do it.
She did.
It was either a very big baby, or something else
Julia had never seen twins born.
JULIA
When you found out it was going to be twins, what was the first thing that went through your mind?
ROBERTA
Honestly? I was more tickled for you than I was worried about anything. I thought, this is so exciting for Julia. It’s always exciting. But the first time is really, really special.
Then I went back to the job at hand.
Thirty years ago, two little girls
JULIA
Do you still remember your first set?
ROBERTA
I do. Two little girls. I was thinking about it just the other day, trying to remember which set was really my first. Their mother was a pastor’s daughter. I went to church a couple of months later and her father announced to the whole congregation that the midwife who helped with his twin granddaughters was there that morning. Everybody turned and looked at me. I wanted to slide right under the pew.
Those girls have to be thirty now. And it seems like yesterday that I walked out of that house.
What I was watching for
Birth is old hat to me. It is not old hat when there is something extra.
ROBERTA
Two births in one night is something extra. So I’m thinking about all of it. How long can there be between twins. What do I have to look for. What do I have to watch for. And it was interesting how high that second baby stayed. Was she lying sideways? Position is very hard to feel through a contraction.
JULIA
Is there a point where you start to get concerned? What if it’s eight hours?
ROBERTA
The people who attend twins all the time, who actually get to see what normal looks like, will tell you there can be hours and hours between two babies. As long as baby number two is doing well, you wait it out. The other thing on my mind was the small amount of bleeding. I wondered whether that was the placenta starting to come away before it should. But her heart tones were good.
That’s the extra thinking that goes on. What do I have here, and what could be happening.
Birth bag
Packed and within reach the whole night
Doppler
Checking heart tones between contractions
Charting notes
Tracking the hours between twin A and twin B
Crossing over
ROBERTA
Some babies come out a little stunned. I call it crossing over. Are you crossing over? Are you making it? Most of them do just fine with some stimulation. And some of them are not making the crossover, and then you pick up your Ambu bag and you help them. So I asked Julia, “How did you know you didn’t need the Ambu bag?” I wanted to understand her thinking and have her talk through what she was seeing and why she made that decision.
JULIA
She needed some stimulation, that was all. And every reaction she gave me back, her hand moving a little, her lips moving, told me she was registering what I was doing.
ROBERTA
She jumped straight in without asking me. She didn’t call for the bag and she didn’t look up for permission. I stood there thinking, look at her go. She knew what needed to be done.
I just kept talking to her and watching what she gave me back. She told me what she needed.
“Knowing when to reach for the bag is one skill. Knowing when you don’t need it yet is the one that takes years.”
— Roberta Devers | MS MA(ABT)
Two placentas, joined in the middle
ROBERTA
Sometimes there are two separate placentas. Sometimes there’s a single one with two cords. It depends on the kind of twins you have. Ours were two, but still joined in the middle, with a little section where they blended together. It’s amazing. It’s all amazing.
JULIA
And they were both so well established. Both babies seven pounds. She just crushed it.
To grow two seven-pound babies all the way to term, with placentas like that — that’s a mother who took care of herself for forty weeks.
Doubly blessed
An honor to be chosen
JULIA
After hundreds of births, does it ever stop being miraculous?
ROBERTA
It doesn’t. I always think it’s going to, and it does not. You cannot watch a mother and a father welcome their baby and feel nothing.
JULIA
And they choose us. It isn’t that we’re the only thing available to them. At the end they always thank me, and I think, no — thank you. This was an honor to be part of.
It’s an honor to be chosen in your most special moment.
Every birth has a stretch of hours underneath it where two people are paying very close attention, and most of what they do never gets seen.
If you’re thinking about your own birth and you’d like to ask us anything, the first conversation is free. One hour, no cost, no commitment.
One hour, no cost, no obligation.