Twins With Different Birthdays: A Hopeful Twin Birth Story

Last updated on December 23rd, 2025 at 11:50 am

One twin mom shares the hopeful and unique birth story of her twins with different birthdays!

At my 36-week appointment with my OBGYN, one of the docs in the group suggested to me that I would be a good candidate to deliver vaginally.

This came as a surprise to me. I had been preparing for a C-section since I found out it was twins. I knew both babies were head down (and had been for a while), but when I found out it was twins, I let my birth expectations go out the window.

And I just trusted my doctors to make the safest possible decision for my babies. In fact, my section was scheduled for 37 weeks exactly. My husband and I had even attended a C-section birthing class. I had C-section recovery items already purchased at home.

Have you taken your expecting twins class yet? We offer a great class on demand so you can take it on your own schedule! There are so many video modules covering everything from your twins’ baby registry to your first week at home with twins! Sign up today to get started before your twins arrive.

But when my doctor suggested I could deliver vaginally, it planted a seed in my head. She said because I am tall (nearly 5’10”) and because both babies were head down and I was already progressing, there wasn’t really a compelling reason not to.

Then, the moment was quickly upon us…

It was a Friday afternoon, so she told me that I could call the hospital on Monday morning and change my C-section appointment to an induction if I’d like. I didn’t even get to make that call.

On Sunday night, I went into spontaneous labor when my water broke. I was doing some deep squatting and curb walking, doing movements my pelvic floor therapist suggested, and trying to help babies descend. Then we went to the hospital.

At that point, I was having mild contractions. When the doctor on-call heard I wanted to try to give birth vaginally, I could see her frustration.

“Your colleague said that I was a good candidate,” I remarked. “Unless there is a compelling reason not to, I’d like to try.” I said. I wasn’t pushy. And neither was the doctor.

But she did warn me that there could be hours between the two deliveries. I didn’t really believe her…

Quickly, my pain started to increase. They gave me sitotech to help move my cervix along and planned to give me pitocin, but there was no need. I was progressing fine on my own. I was dehydrated and having close to 10 contractions every 10 minutes, so I got the epidural around midnight.

From there, I felt much better. In fact, they even slowed down my contractions with terbutoline to give the babies a break. In the morning, a new doctor came on shift. She was new to the practice (not a new OBGYN, but just for this practice – but I think her patience and desire to not rock the boat with her first patient worked in my favor).

She too warned me that it could be hours between the babies.

And her concern was because Baby B was the bigger baby, it would be much harder to get him out afterwards. And the fear was my cervix would un-dilate after the first baby’s delivery and he would descend and get asphyxiated. In that case, we’d move to an emergency C-section.

Here comes Baby A…

By 2:30pm on Monday afternoon, I was fully dilated. I had the shakes. It was close to time. I would be delivering in the OR, just in case. I met with the anesthesiologist before they wheeled me into the OR.

I made a joke to him, that he and I would be best friends if it came to a C-section (because in my C-section birth class they said you’d want to be in close communication with your anesthesiologist). He looked at me and shook his head. “If you see me coming, you’re going under,” he said. It hadn’t dawned on me that it would be THAT kind of emergency C-section.

I looked at my husband and said, “Let’s rock and roll.” I felt calm but jittery. 4PM in the OR. The OR was packed. I had just enough movement in my lower body to lift myself onto the operating table. We started pushing with my contractions, and it was hard work. Different than I expected. I pushed a lot with the many contractions.

It was exhausting and uncomfortable on the operating table, but after about an hour of pushing, my daughter, Iris was born at 5:24PM.

And it was a wild experience because it was almost like we couldn’t even celebrate her arrival.

Very quickly, my head snapped over to see how Baby B was managing.

Here comes Baby B…(well, not quite yet)

His heart looked okay. The doctor quickly reached up to make sure he didn’t flip and tried to guide him down. He stayed head down (and in his water in fact!). We gave a couple pushes to try to get him out. And quickly we realized that he wasn’t progressing.

And my cervix had undilated to 6cm. They said: “Okay back to Labor & Delivery you go. You’ll have to labor again to 10cm for him.” (Later on, I found out that they needed the OR for a more pressing delivery, but that worked in my favor.)

So back to L&D I went. I got skin-to-skin with baby girl. She latched. I rested. And so did my uterus. My contractions slowed down. It was tired.

By 8:45 pm, they started me on pitocin to try to get things moving again. Started at 2mg, then 4mg. Around 10:15pm, they broke Baby B’s water. By then, I knew they would have different birthdays.

My doctors kept saying we’d have the baby before the end of the day, but I knew we wouldn’t. Eventually around 1:30am on Tuesday, I was fully dilated again. Around 2:45am, it was time to push again.

Okay, let’s do this again…

This time I got to push in the L&D room. Cozy, on the bed, with just my husband, my doctor, and my nurse. The experience was totally different. I didn’t have a giant twin belly in the way when I was curling into my push position.

The bed and atmosphere was much more comfortable, and the pushing was different entirely. It wasn’t as frantic, and they weren’t encouraging me to go as quickly. It felt less emergent.

My contractions were still few and far between too, so it took around an hour to get Baby B out, too, but I pushed way less. There was a lot of down time and chatting in between contractions / pushing.

At one point, Baby B started to distress and my doctor looked at me and said we needed to swap to a C-section but that we could try flipping me on my side first to see if he’d like that. He did.

Very soon after, I pushed my son, Francis, out at 3:13am—8 hours after his sister was born. Different birthdays entirely. I had a golden hour with him, too. He latched. It was a dream.

Iris was born 5lbs 9 oz, Francis 6lbs 8oz.