I was 35 years old and VERY surprised to discover myself pregnant again. The youngest of the five kids my husband Tom and I already had was in kindergarten. The two oldest boys were in high school.

I had had three of the most horrible hospital births I can imagine, including an unnecessary but legally required transport during an attempted homebirth. (The law required the midwife to transport after 24 hours of ruptured waters, if the birth was not imminent).

Two of my births had been wonderful, peaceful homebirths....my third child and my fifth. We had a wonderful midwife at the birth of the third, but Tom and I delivered the fifth baby at home unassisted.

When I found myself pregnant the sixth time, I knew there was NO WAY I was going to give birth in the hospital. I realised I might have to go if we encountered an emergency, but barring a bona-fide life-threatening emergency, I planned to give birth at home. From my first pregnancy I had studied everything I could get my hands on relating to pregnancy and childbirth. My first midwife was an accomplished teacher. She wanted Tom and I to know how to recognize an emergency, and to be prepared to deliver our baby if she did not make it to the birth. I continued to study and prepare, and to refresh my studies when I learned I was pregnant again.

By the end of my second month of pregnancy, I was convinced I was having twins. I was eating properly, monitoring my blood pressure, weight, and urine, and taking my vitamins. (I was taking care of myself and the baby - i.e...getting true prenatal care!) Still, I was gaining fundus size at an excessive rate, and from time to time could see my abdomen "divide" into two separate spheres.

As the pregnancy advanced, I got bigger and bigger! By six months, I appeared to be 'due any day' to strangers. I prepared my birth kit, lined up 'assistants' to come and be with us for the births. We discovered from the birth of the fifth child that it is helpful to have an extra set of hands! None of our assistants had ever been to a birth, other than their own children's.

During the last week of the pregnancy (the 36th week), I was so huge that every breath brought new stretch marks. Joking with Tom, I said bring me a pocketknife, I was letting these babies out of there!

June 17, 1996 was the first day of our local church's Vacation Bible School. My three younger kids caught the church van at about 8:30 that morning. The two older boys had done their chores, and were reading in their room. Tom made sure I was never left alone during the last two months of the pregnancy. I was feeling "funny" - not like the contractions, back ache, or indigestion I had experienced with former pregnancies at the onset of labor - just really 'different' than I had been feeling. I had SOOO much energy that morning, I was considering scrubbing the soot off the fireplace bricks! The "funny/strange" feelings began to make me wonder if I was in labor. I called Tom at work and asked him to come home. That was a little after 9:00 am. It is a half hour drive home. He arrived a few minutes after 9:30, and about ten minutes later my water broke. This was "IT"!

I called my assistants. One was stuck at home, her car in the shop, and her husband out in the other car. The phone number for the second assistant was "temporarily under repair, please try your call later." The third assistant, Denise, had gone to the tailor's shop with her daughters, her husband said. He called the shop, and alerted her. Denise left the girls there for him to pick up, and made the 20 minute drive to my house in 10 minutes!

I was continuing to have small gushes of water with every contraction. Since we chose not to do internal exams to avoid introducing bacteria, I wondered if the baby's head was not engaged. Labor seemed to be going very quickly into transition and the pushing stage. I was not deliberatley "pushing" as I wanted to be certain I was fully dilated first. When the baby starts down, you can certainly tell!

As Daniel descended the birth canal, it felt very different than any of my other births. I was aware it was not the feeling of a bony skull making its way out. I told Tom and Denise, something doesn't feel right! Seconds later, as I continued to deliberately push, we discovered we were having a boy. That was the very first thing we knew about Daniel! His butt and male organs slid out, and he unfolded. Tom checked for the cord around the neck, found it clear, and I pushed the baby's head out. He looked at everyone, and smiled! It was awesome! Denise wrapped him in a warmed towel, and Tom clamped and cut his cord. Tom unwrapped and weighed him, and wrote down the birth time - 11:35 am. He was 6lbs. 14 oz. His apgar was 9.

Denise went and told the two older boys, who were reading in their bedroom, that they had a new brother. Tom was cleaning Daniel up, and I even tried to get him to nurse, but he was too interested in everything around him.

I was anxious to see my other baby and was barking orders like a general! Daniel was wrapped snugly up, and Denise held him. I wasn't feeling any body signals (contractions) to push, but my spirit was telling me to push the baby out. I told Tom I was feeling in my spirit to push. So I did. The second bag of waters broke like a cannon shot, splashing water all the way across the room. I pushed, and I could feel this baby was also not descending head first. I only quit pushing long enough to draw in fresh breaths. For the first time in any labor, I screamed as I felt the baby coming down. It felt like something was tearing loose inside.

The baby presented exactly as his brother had, butt and boy parts first. As his feet cleared, and he unfolded, Tom checked for the cord around the neck, then I pushed the second boy out completely. The placenta slid out right on top of the baby. It had already detached! The baby was limp and blue. Tom and Denise checked for a heartbeat. He was alive. They began to suction his nose and mouth, and I said to "rough him up" with the towel. Baby didn't like that one bit, and gave us a lusty cry! We hadn't firmly decided on a second boy's name at that point. His first apgar was a two! Five minutes later, he was up to an eight.

The placenta was one piece, with two umbilicus attached. Our small experience doesn't extend to whether it was two placentas fused together, or simply one placenta. The boys are for all intents, identical. The only way to be 100% certain is to do a genetic comparison, which we have NOT had done. Baby #2 looked at me as I was talking to him. I said "Hi, Sam!" just out of my head. Tom said "SAM!" and liked it, so Baby #2 was named Samuel.

Sam weighed 7lbs. 2oz.. We're not sure exactly what time he was born, as no one thought to look at the clock, with the small crisis that went on. When we thought to look, it was 12:05, thirty minutes after Daniel's birth.

The kids arrived home from vacation Bible school a little while later. Everyone was amazed at how short the labor was. I had been bleeding enough that I was getting very lightheaded. I kept the twins nursing, and kept massaging my uterus to keep it contracting and tight. In hindsight, I probably should have gone into the hospital to be checked at that point for tears. But I didn't. I stayed in bed the rest of the day, except to go to the bathroom. I drank copious amounts of Gatorade.

That night, I called my sister to let her know about the births. She totally freaked out, and was not assured that everyone was fine. She lived 500 miles from me, so she called the local sheriff's department, and asked the sheriff to come out and force me to go to the hospital! He called me, and I assured him that it was NOT necessary to go to the hospital.

The next morning, the sheriff and two child welfare social workers showed up on my doorstep! I had to show them the twins, and walk around and demonstrate I was NOT in need of transport to the hospital! We all three passed our "once over" exams, and the sheriff saw no need to make me go to the hospital. I was pretty upset with my sister!!!!

The twins are both doing quite well in every way. They are now eleven years old. They are little wiz's at the computer; starting to read; normal little boys.

I am personally convinced that a doctor would never have let me attempt a vaginal delivery upon discovering that BOTH of the twins were breech, and fairly large babies (for twins). Their birth was really the fastest of all my labors, and in spite of the bleeding afterwards, I don't believe the birth would have been any "better" had I gone to a hospital.

Your comments on our rather unusual birth of breech twins at home may be directed to me - Tammy. Thank you for your interest.