They are here! (They have been for a while...)

It's been two months now, but I didn't get around to opening my laptop and telling you the big news:

Carmen and Dimitra were born on March 27!

The day my contractions started was one of the first really sunny spring days of the year and it felt like a party. Right after breakfast I had blown out eggs, because I wanted to paint them with the kids in the afternoon. It was really hard work. Maybe that job was what got my labor started!
In the morning I cycled to the Warffumer woods with Efisio and Artemisia to pick wild garlic and go for a walk. On the way back I picked forsythia and brought spring into the house with it.

Nothing was wrong then, or at least that's how it seemed.

But after lunch I got a bit of a cramp in my lower abdomen. Was it a contraction? I wasn't sure. I convinced the kids to go to bed as I wanted to sleep. Artemisia fell asleep quickly, but Efisio crawled into my bed, because he wasn't tired. Then I felt it again, and this time it was the familiar 'wave'. I called Meindert, with the message that 'something' was going on, but still no regular contractions. Not even fifteen minutes later the contractions came a lot more often and I asked him to come home from work. In the afternoon I was still able to talk through everything and because I was busy with the children, the contractions probably couldn't reach their intensity properly.

After dinner I suddenly became very tired and I lay down on the couch. Then my waters broke and unfortunately one baby had pooped in the amniotic fluid. I called the midwife. The contractions stopped, but it turned out that I was already five centimeters dilated. In the car on the way to the hospital the contractions suddenly became much stronger, strangely enough, and of course all the traffic lights were red.

An ultrasound was done at the hospital to see if the babies had changed position compared to the ultrasounds in the weeks before the birth. Carmen had descended first and was in breech position, and the combination with Dimitra in head position posed a risk of interlocked heads. Something that almost never happens, but can still be life-threatening. Unfortunately, that was still the case when I arrived at the UMCG with contractions. While I was catching the now pushing contractions, they informed me about how it works when you get a caesarean section. Just before I was rolled into the operating room, I was at 10 centimeters. A caesarean section was really the worst-case scenario for me, but when the moment came, I accepted it. Because the epidural did not work quickly enough for me, they had to put me to sleep. Fortunately, I was only ‘out’ for 45 minutes and then I immediately had the babies on my breast. Carmen weighed 3395 grams and Dimitra 3705. I slept with my girls on my chest the entire first night.

Anyone who has had to stay in the hospital for more than one night after giving birth probably knows that you can’t wait to go home. But because of the caesarean section, that was not possible. And I had lost a liter and a half of blood, so I could only sit up without feeling sick the afternoon before the second night. But after that second night I was done with it and luckily I was in the car back home quite quickly. I got a salted herring at the Sontplein, because that is what I always crave for during my pregnancies.
The maternity week was not so romantic with the recovery from the caesarean section. At the beginning I thought: ‘This is really a complete disaster, how can I take care of my children if I am disabled?’ The babies did not grow as fast as Efisio and Artemisia had done and breastfeeding was incredibly painful. Luckily, just like with Artemisia, we had the help of our fantastic maternity nurse Bianca, who I still miss a little bit now and then. Efisio and Artemisia still talk about her.

Carmen and Dimitra have really grown a lot in the meantime and I really enjoy their smiles, their cheeks against my chest in the baby carrier, their crazy cross-eyed looks and even the way they poop very theatrically.
But it is intense.
Unlike Efisio and Artemisia, the twins had cramps and are very quickly overstimulated, which means they could hardly be put down during the day. Meindert and I walked around all the time with a baby in our arms or in the baby carrier. It it getting better though, now that the cramps are almost over. And getting them to sleep is also easier now. Fortunately, Meindert is still free for two weeks, but it will be hard work when he is no longer there to help me during the day!

Of course, there will be no drawing or painting at all for a while. I actually expected that I would have no time to doing anything artistic all year. When there is something new to report, I will of course inform you.

Until then!

Anna Maria