Having a Cesarean is the strangest thing. You are put on a stretcher, given a spinal block injection (which makes you numb from the waist down) and then they wheel you into an operating theatre. There you are prepped surgically, your birthing partner (spouse/ friend/ parent/ boyfriend/ girlfriend) walks in wearing full scrubs, and the operation begins. You feel a vague cutting, then a few tugs, and ta-dah! You've given birth! A few more tugs and ta-dah! You have twins!
The lack of participation on my part was quite shocking. I felt a bit cheated, to be honest; like I hadn't really given birth - which was true in the physical sense. Unfortunately both of the twins' heads were up under my rib cage (and making themselves very well known!), so that wasn't an option for me.
Regardless, I was and am delighted that both babies popped out fully developed, of a good size, and utterly perfect in every way. No bias here, of course!
When it came to naming the babies, Thomas was certain from the get-go that we were having one of each gender. We tossed around a few other names for girls and boys, but Thomas wouldn't commit to anything other than one boy and one girl. One girl was always going to be Alice, so naturally she was Twin A. When the second girl was born I turned to Thomas and asked, "can we name her Charlotte?" to which he readily agreed.
And so it was! Twin A became Alice Bindie Bouchery, and Twin B was named Charlotte Emma Bouchery. (See the birth announcement for the specifics.)
There's not really a whole lot more to tell. I spent 2 nights in hospital, with a lot of attention from the grandparents, Thomas, and Margaux. Thomas had a whole two days of paternity leave... Welcome to the Middle East. The recovery from a C-section is absolutely awful - especially if you have a low pain threshold - but thankfully now it's a distant memory.
