Preferring a more natural birthing experience, Gerri Wolfe, 41, said was “devastated” after discovering a complication during her 36th week of pregnancy that left her with no choice but to have a caesarean.
Doctors told her one of the twins was putting pressure on a scar from a previous caesarean and a natural birth would be dangerous.
“I was desperate for another and, when the doctors told me it was too big a risk, I cried and cried,” she said.
“As my hope for a natural birth slipped away, I began thinking about how I could still have that ‘I did it’ feeling.”
The procedure is essentially a traditional C-section, save for final moments, in which the mother is permitted to pull the child out of her own womb herself.
Gerri went one step further and asked for a Maternal Assisted Caesarean. In this procedure the mother has to scrub up like and wait for the word from the doctor.
She reached down, felt for her child and picked her up. A minute later she was helped to deliver the second child.
Upping the ante on her daring self-assisted delivery, Gerri pulled not just one, but two children out of her womb, giving birth to healthy twin girls, Matilda and Violet. Unsurprisingly, this wasn’t Gerri’s first time giving birth. She has given birth to 10 and 11 children, respectively, so she is experienced in the process.
The newborns were allowed to leave the hospital after their whirlwind entrance into the world and slumber peacefully at home with their mother, surrounded by nine older siblings, and their adoring father.
Gerri says she has no regrets on bringing the twins into the world on her own terms.
“It’s my body, it’s my birth, it’s my baby,” she said.
