In the hospital

I don't have much to say about the hospital that's specific to twins, but I'll put it here as well as overall hospital advice. 

Breech babies have more room than you think:  My Baby B had been breech for quite some time, but my doctor would try for a vaginal delivery as long as Baby B wasn't significantly bigger than Baby A, which he wasn't.  Still, I was a bit concerned.  However, one night just three days before the twins were born, we discovered via ultrasound that Baby B was no longer breech.  At 35+ weeks he had room to flip without me realizing it. So there's hope for those crazy breech babies.

A rude awakening: My daughter (baby A) had been born, and she was lovely, and my beautiful new baby, and how gorgeous, and I was trying to see her as she was being cleaned up, oh how lovely, I was trying to see..."PAY ATTENTION TO ME!" says the doctor at the end of the bed, wanting me to work on delivering the other baby.  And so began a lifetime of having to split my attention.

Do what works for you:  I had read about how important it was to have the baby(/ies) in the hospital room with you.  That may be true, but it wasn't something I could manage.  I had the twins around 5 AM on a Wednesday.  My daughter was in the NICU the first day and night. I was able to go see her once that day to nurse; she did fine.

My husband and I were taking care of our son.  I was nursing him and we had him in the room with us Wednesday night. It was exhausting.  I hadn't slept much Tuesday night, being in labor.  I hadn't slept much Monday night because I was nervous about going in to be induced.  I was exhausted to begin with and nursing was tough...eventually I think I sent him to the nursery and had a little nap.

My daughter came out of the NICU on Thursday at 11 AM; she nursed like a champ.  My son was still having trouble throughout the day.  So Thursday night, I had them both stay in the nursery.  I told the nurses to feed her formula when she needed it, and bring him to me to be nursed when he needed it.  I figured she was doing well nursing even though she'd had bottles in the NICU, so she'd be okay with a night of bottles.  He was the one I had to concentrate on.

I was sort of brokenhearted to have to make that decision; in the best of all worlds, each baby would get nursed and cuddled and stay in the room with mom, and it would be glorious and all earth-mothery.  But when you have twins, you have to figure out what will work for you.  Remember they'll never know any different; sharing mom's attention and maybe having to wait a bit will be normal for them.

Other hospital advice:

• If you have a vaginal delivery, start taking stool softeners immediately.  I didn't do that, so -- TMI!  (too much information) -- the first bowel movement after delivery was extremely painful.  I'd much rather have pushed out a third baby.  I'm not kidding; take the stool softeners until you have that first B.M.
• At our hospital, if you had a private room your husband could stay with you; there's a chair that pulls out to sleep on.  If you're able to do this, it's so helpful.  Not only does he get to be in on everything, but babies need a lot of taking care of.  The nurses do some and you do some.  Dads for some reason seem to be really great at swaddling, too.  I was bad at swaddling.
  
• I wouldn't worry about having a nightgown or anything.  Wear a hospital gown on the front and one on the back for good coverage.  Also, the hospital will provide you with this weird mesh underwear and lots of pads for bleeding.  Just use that stuff, and use their socks, too.  The only clothes you need is what you're going to wear home, and make sure they're not your pre-pregnancy clothes; they won't fit yet.  Maybe bring a pair of maternity pants that you wore early on, so you know they snap up smaller than you've been lately. 
• Bring snacks for the hospital.  I don't know if it was the nursing or the fact I'd pushed a couple babies out of myself, but I was ravenous in the middle of the night.  Also, order extra food when you're filling out your menu card, food that you can eat later, like a banana or an apple.  If you don't want it in the middle of the night, your husband might.
• Er...sometimes a receiving blanket or two and some of those hospital socks jump into your bag.  I don't know how that happens; it just does.  As it turns out, you can never have enough of those receiving blankets, and the hospital ones are really good.
• In the hospital, they'll have charts to keep track of all the babies' feedings as well as "output" (pees and poops) and whatever other things they keep track of.  When you change and feed the baby, they'll have you write it down.  You may need to continue that at home; I'll talk about that in another post.