Saturday 14th of May 2022
At 2am I woke up to go to the toilet to do my hundredth wee for the night and noticed a slightly bigger than 50c piece wet patch in my underwear. I buzzed for the midwife (as I’d been in hospital for over 6 weeks with an open cervix) to inform her about it and she said to put a pad on and she was going to see if the doctor needed to do a VE. When she came back to the room she said the doctor would be in to see me in 15 to 20 minutes so because I wasn’t contracting I should lie down and close my eyes. 10 minutes later with many thoughts going through my head I felt a lot of pressure and a pop and felt my membranes release as I started my first surge. I buzzed for the midwife and the doctor followed shortly after and in a span of 15 minutes I’d already had 3 surges.
The doctor did a VE and we soon discovered I was 6cm dilated and he could feel some of Twin A’s hair. He informed me I was going to have my babies and to call my husband Alex to head to the hospital, because of all the rainfall and us living 2 hours from the hospital I was in, unfortunately Alex did not make it to the hospital in time.
I was wheeled down to the birth suite where my surges were soon becoming closer and closer together. As I have been in hospital in bed rest for a number of weeks I had been put on a blood thinner clexane injection to prevent blood clots, because of this medication I was unable to have an epidural which after many previous discussions I had felt the epidural was the best option for me - in case my 2nd twin became distressed after birthing the first twin and needed an emergency c/section. After another discussion with the doctor we decided as I was labouring quite fast and was only 30 weeks+5 days pregnant the ceasarean section was the safest path for my babies. Because of the clexane injection this meant I would have a caesarean section under General Anaesthetic.
I was then quickly wheeled into an operating room where my surges were only seconds apart. I was fully dilated. The doctor asked me to try and give a big push to check to see if my first twin was already too far down to start the procedure. She wasn’t quite there yet so they put in a fetal pillow and sent me off to sleep to ensure the quick and safe delivery of my babies. The team did an amazing job and took many photos of my identical twin girls’ first moments. The twins were born at 4:13 and 4:14am.
When I woke I was told that my babies were doing really well and they were safe! My best friend Penny was by my side in recovery shortly after that to see if I was ok. She then put Alex on the phone to me and he said he was just parking the car and he would be in straight away. Ten minutes later Penny left me in recovery so that Alex could come in and we exchanged a tear and a very big cuddle! He then went down to the NICU to meet our little darlings and check they were safe.
After recovery I was wheeled once more back to my room where Alex and Penny were waiting for me. Alex showed me the photos of our beautiful baby girls and we went through the photos that the doctors took together. I then expressed my first 2mL of colostrum and the nurses took me down to meet our babies.
I held both of my babies hands and Alex and I had skin to skin with our 2nd Twin Wren, the following day we had skin to skin with our 1st Twin Ivy. We have never been more in love than in these moments. Wren was at first put on oxygen when she was born but by lunch time she was off it and both were on C-pap machines for 7 days. In total Ivy spent 7 weeks in hospital and Wren stayed for 8 weeks. The twins are now 3 months old and absolutely thriving.
Without Hypnobirthing although we had so much intervention, we would not have been as prepared or educated to make the right choices for us and our babies.
Thankyou so much Jess, we are forever grateful for your knowledge and guidance 💛
