A woman from Australia reached inside her tummy to pull her twins out during her caesarean section.
Gerri Wolfe, 41, went for a maternal-assisted C-section after developing a complication at 36 weeks of pregnancy. Just before Christmas, Gerri was admitted to Newcastle's John Hunter Hospital on Dec. 22, and went through a C-section with the help of an independent midwife and doctors.
Gerri was able to pull out Matilda, her first twin daughter, without any problems. However, the second twin, Violet, posed complications for the mother. Violet was not in the best position to be pulled out of Gerri's belly and came out backwards making things complicated for the mother. However, Gerri successfully took out the other twin and placed both of them on her chest.
The twins are Gerri's 10th and 11th children, and it was her fifth C-section. All her previous C-sections had gone well, but she was devastated when her fifth one developed a complication.
"My other caesareans were very sterile, very surgical, very impersonal," said Gerri.
The mother revealed that she did not want to have a traditional C-section and recalled reading about the maternal-assisted C-section online. Even though the procedure is not very different from the normal C-section, Gerri's doctor was not convinced. Gerri's husband also thought that his wife was joking. However, the mother wanted to go for this novel type of C-section.
"It's my body, it's my birth, it's my baby," added Gerri.
The doctor did some research and found that the potential risk of infection was not as high as previously thought and agreed to Gerri's demand as a special circumstance.
Gerri revealed that, while in the operating theater, the doctor wanted her to be completely sterile. She was told not to touch anything unless asked to do so. When the doctor instructed her to reach inside her belly, she pulled out her twin daughters from her belly one after the other.
It was a wonderful experience to deliver her twin daughters, she said. She also does not plan to have more kids.
Matilda weighed 3.04 kg and Violet weighed 2.54 kg at birth. Gerri was discharged from the hospital one week after the C-section.