The Twins Birth Story - Part I

When I found out I was pregnant with twins, I cried.

Hysterically.

Not happy tears.

disbelief and terror an hour or so after finding out {12 weeks + 5 days}

It took some time to come to grips with the reality but as time went on I began to become excited about twins.

Superficially I also was excited that I wouldn't have to endure a "full-term" pregnancy like I did with Ned who was four days over. My naivety led me to believe that all twins were born early - ideally around the 36 week mark.

But as that day approached, and disappeared, I was quite happy that they were still safe and secure in the confines of my belly and that they would come out when they were ready. Plus, I was totally again, naive, about special care requirements for babies born early.

Yet again my mindset changed when I was given an induction date. It was to be the night before I was 38 weeks meaning I would more than likely give birth bang on 38 weeks pregnant.

That spurred me on to get them out sooner and not have to go through the induction process. Last pregnancy I tried some of the ways that are supposed to naturally induce labour - a ridiculously hot vindaloo curry {never again}, long walks, and even the deed. Clearly none of those methods worked so this time around I didn't bother researching what else I could try via Dr Google.  Instead, I remained active throughout the whole term {for many weeks this meant barefoot group fitness classes} and hoped that that, combined with wishful and positive thinking might convince the twins to come out sooner, and without intervention.

The Sunday night before my planned Wednesday evening induction was spent mostly awake and restless. I had myself convinced that 'this was it' but when it all basically subsided on Monday I was left disappointed and thinking that induction was a certainty. Throughout the day I was in a bit of a bi-polar state wanting to rest and then wanting to keep busy and active in the hopes of getting the labour going. By late afternoon and really with nothing worse than period pain I'd been texting my student midwife and we both agreed that I should at least go up to birth suite to see where I was at. I think even then I was over exaggerating my symptoms.

My birth plan as organised with the team of obstetricians at the hospital was a natural birth with a planned epidural. We had discussed going to the hospital whenever I felt like I was in labour to make sure that twin I was still in a head down position, and suitable for a vaginal delivery, and to get the epi organised early so I didn't really have to endure too much pain.

We arrived at birth suite around 7:30pm after calling through a couple of hours earlier and I'm sure the team thought it was a joke that we were even there. Even I knew that I was not in active labour showing absolutely no signs of discomfort and felt like a bit of a fraud being there but I just wanted to be in labour {remember the aforementioned wishful thinking}

Regardless of my {non-active labour} state we were admitted into a room and left to chat, listen to the football on the radio and bounce like a crazy woman on the exercise ball trying to get things going. Again, the midwives could see I wasn't really in any pain and after around an hour or so they examined me to see where I was at.

Three centimetres and early labour was the news.

To be continued ...