NATURAL HAPPINESS

More multifaceted feedback on the incident of the sudden twins and how they went undetected until they were born: Miki-san the midwife said she missed hearing two heartbeats not only because the beats were very similar in sound, almost synchronous, but because the smaller twin Miasa (2450 gms) was in back, in breech position, where her heart was not audible at the normally positioned site of the larger (2910 gms) Mitsuki's heartbeat, which took all the checking.

Then, after Mitsuki was born Miasa did an instant somersault out of breech position, and her heartbeat showed up right where Mitsuki's had been. If Miki-san had heard two hearts, as I indicated in my last post, she would have refused to have the birth at her clinic, because multiple births often pose complex problems involving low birth weight, tangled umbilicals etc.

Miki and her assistants were surprised at the largeness of these twins (twins are usually closer to premature birthweight, ca 2000 gms), and they were very impressed with the quality of the placenta. Seems a lot of the placentas they see nowadays are less than optimally healthy, in one way or another, which is no surprise.

Anyway, Kasumi hadn't wanted to go back to the hospital she'd been sent to last time, because there they took Kaya away as soon as she was born, and against Kasumi's wishes fed her formula instead of letting Kasumi breastfeed. Mother and baby were just stats to them.

So as chance would have it, Kasumi came to Miki's clinic early in the morning, barefoot and bent in labor, unable to tell Miki-san for example that she had gained 3 kg in the last few days, which would have caught the midwife's attention for sure; she would have checked very carefully and had to send Kasumi again to the noisy hospital where the food was terrible, where Kasumi would be drugged and perhaps advised to undergo a caesarian so as to free up the schedule, followed with treatment by dour clock-punching nurses (not to knock the nurses themselves, who are worked unbelievably hard in Japanese hospitals and simply have no time or energy to be as personable as they no doubt intended to be when they chose their profession).

Instead Kasumi was given no drugs, in a bright house where three cheerful aunties gave her all their attention, smiling and laughing and singing and talking to the babies (babies love that), whom they kept with their mother, to whom they brought fine home-cooked food. So it seems the twins worked out all that subterfuge on their own; they did it on purpose, so that they and their mother could be together in natural happiness, right from the start.


[Please note new Midwifery links in side bar, inspired by these events; many more excellent links can be found at TreeOfLife. (Added Aug 11) RB]