I apologize in advance, this is really loooooong

Backstory:
DH and I had been on the fence of having a third child for some time and in May 2016 decided to just see what happens. Well two or three weeks later I got a BFP at around 13 DPO. That BFP looked like any other HPT I had ever taken so imagine my disbelief when at my first u/s we found out we would be having twins (and 4 under 4).

My Pregnancy:
My pregnancy was rather uneventful except for an early labor scare due to intense vomiting and diarrhea caused by an allergic reaction at 31/32 weeks. Luckily after 5 days in the hospital it was stopped and I got to go home a day before Christmas (best Christmas present ever).
I had reduced my hours at work starting at 14 weeks since luckily that is possible without suffering financial or other consequences where we live. By 30 weeks I was fully staying at home (again without paycuts).

The Birth:
After that early labor scare we were just happy for every week that passed that kept the babies cooking. They had both turned into a head down position by the beginning of the third trimester. Before that they had been positioned all over the place often with baby B being traverse. By mid-January I started to feel very done with the pregnancy. I was incredibly uncomfortable and my skin was hurting so much. My belly wasn’t even that big considering that there were two in there but the weight was a lot. (My first was 22.75” and 8lbs 7oz so I was used to having a lot of baby in there). Well once I hit 36 weeks I was really feeling that we would be okay now if the babies came and started to sit up more again and generally moved around a little more. My sister came to visit on the weekend of the 1/21-1/22 and it somehow felt like a good time to have a baby. But you know there’s not much you can do so we just went about our day as normal. Sunday morning DS woke up in the middle of the night and since I hadn’t been sleeping much at that point in pregnancy anyway I got up with him and resettled him to bed. Once he was back in bed (4:30am) I went for a quick bathroom break too and just when I got back up that’s when my water broke. I got back on the toilet called for DH in a panic since it was pretty bloody. Now just a little background here; with my first my water broke during labor and it was about 20 minutes until he was born. With my second my water broke and she was out two pushes later, so I was really scared I was going to be in active labor really, really soon. My DH kept a really cool head and went downstairs to our guestroom woke my sister since I had totally woken up DS again and DD awoke from the frenzy too. Since baby A was head down but not fully engaged I had been advised to take an ambulance to the hospital. (Besides I really didn’t feel like walking in wet pants from the parking lot to L&D in 10°F weather). The kids were down in the guestroom with my sister so to this day they don’t know I went by ambulance. Once at the hospital I was wheeled into L&D and hooked up to monitors. I had contractions but they weren’t strong and long enough to warrant keeping me in L&D so we got sent to our room and told to head back once I felt contractions were getting stronger. So we had some breakfast and walked up and down the halls a bit. I was actually more comfortable than I had been in weeks since with the broken water the pressure on my skin was way better. By 9:30am or so my contractions had ramped up and we decided to go back to L&D. I was greeted by the midwife and led to a birthing suite. She checked me and ran another NST and again all was fine but with the very upright position in the birthing bed my contractions slowed down considerably. By 11:30am the doctor came in and told us that they would really like to hook me up to Pitocin since they wanted to have both babies out by late afternoon. That still felt an eternity away and I was really reluctant and I think both the midwife and the doctor noticed so they told they would set it to the lowest dose possible and that often just a little touch would do wonders. I was still really scared that I wouldn’t be able to handle the pain of oxytocin induced contractions well but agreed. So sometime between 11:45am and noon they hooked me up and my contraction began to come more frequently. My midwife then checked again pulled my cervix a little forward because baby was always moving back again once the contraction was over. That hurt quite badly but it did wonders. So before I even knew it she got me positioned on my side and got the doctor and a second midwife. I was still thinking that birth was probably a long time away. But then she was like if you want you can push with the next contraction. So that’s what I did and after a second push my twin A or DD2 was born and she was immediately crying. The second midwife then grabbed twin B in utero (from the outside) and DH cut DD2 cord. Once baby was wrapped up in a blanket she was passed to the doctor and they checked me and told me that if I wanted I could push again. I did and that broke twin B’s water and he was out. Honestly he was so easy to push out. I later learned that I didn’t even have a contraction so I just pushed him out without one. DH cut twin B’s or DS2 cord too and he was immediately wrapped up and handed to me. Emotionally it was probably the worst part that I wasn’t immediately able to hold DD2 once she was born. Even though I could see her at all times I still felt wrong. She was handed to me once DS2 was born and in my arms.
So here’s the facts: DD2 was born at 12:15pm on 1/22/17 at 19.25” and 5lbs 9.5oz and DS2 was born at 12:19pm at 18.25” and 5lbs 4oz. I then just had to deliver my placentas but that was easy. I can tell you though that that thing was big but beautiful.

The Aftermath:
The babies were both declared healthy and got to go to the room with me. Later in the day they got some trouble maintaining their temperature and got moved into a warming bed. DD2 developed some jaundice and while under the lights they discovered she had some sleep apnea. Luckily for us they were able to do all of the therapies in the intermediate care center which was conveniently located in the room next to mine (talk about fate). So I got to nurse both twins. Since they were low in body weight they wanted us to nurse them but then give them some formula to make sure they were getting enough. Since after 10 days DD2 still showed sleep apnea and DS2 had a crash in body temp (he had maintained his temp for over 4 days at that point and he had slept in the ICC that day and got measured by the nurse - I still to this day don’t really believe she measured correctly) the decision was made to move both of them to the children’s ward to continue monitoring them. They did great there and were able to go home two weeks after being born. (We actually kept them in 2 days longer because a viral cold was running through our house and we (and the docs) didn’t want the babies exposed to that).
Although I was crying some tears when we moved the babies to the NICU in the aftermath it was a blessing in disguise since they were put on a 4h schedule and we kept up with that when we moved them home. Once they were about a month old they had extended their first sleep cycle in the night so we cut one feeding, so they have been on a 5 feeds per day every 4h schedule since then. Both are BF and happy 5 months old now weighing around 15 pounds.

My Recovery:
My recovery has been a little harder than after my first two births. While I didn’t have any complications the PP contractions/cramping was really intense for a couple of days and I had some significant pain in my stomach. I actually asked one of my docs about it (who happened to be a twin mom herself) and she told it was due to the fact that my intestines were moving back into their original positions. My uterus was back to where it belonged in record time though and everyone was truly amazed just how fast it was remissioning. My bleeding lasted about three weeks. The one thing that was harder was that my core strength was all gone. It took me quite a while and my pelvic remission course (covered by universal health care here for every mom) to feel normal in that regard.

Overall we are really happy with our family now and wouldn’t change having those two little people in our lives for anything.