Nothing, and I repeat nothing will ever replace the multitude of emotions that you will experience when you first find out you are pregnant with twins or triplets. And that is perfectly normal.
You will spend the next few days…..or even weeks or months……..oscillating between excitement and fear, plus every other emotion in-between.
Twinfo is here, every step of the way, starting withy our online pregnancy course.
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Author: Sherrie Phelps
My pregnancy and birth story is almost like something out of a movie! We had possible TTTS, TAPS, preeclampsia, HELLP Syndrome and twins!
Easy smooth pregnancy until my ultrasound at 26+5 weeks at Dubbo Base Hospital. The doctor and MFM at Nepean were concerned about possible TTTS so they told me to go to the birthing unit and do at least 15 minutes of CTG monitoring to see how the babies were coping.
Because they don’t usually do CTGs until 28 weeks due to small babies being able to wriggle away from the monitors we were in there for a while. I started getting anxious and started having a panic attack. The midwives put electrodes on my ankles, wrists and chest for an ECG test and a cannula in my arm. My husband ran into the bathroom nearly throwing up cause he hates needles. Several hours later we went home.
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Entertaining children at a young age can be difficult. Entertaining more than one of them at a time can be even more difficult.
Children under the age of 6 months need a lot of stimulation and as they can not do much for themselves it means that you need to be very hands on with them. Your babies may not be sitting up on their own yet, but may be able to sit up assisted in a small enclosed chair or surrounded by pillows. At this age, the activities that you will be doing with your babies will help grow many skills for them including their fine motor skills and communication skills.
So its time to venture out of the house with your babies and their older sibling. How stressed are you at the thought of it? Leaving the house with a toddler is a mission as it is, but when it comes to adding in your baby twins as well, it can become a very stressful thought. However it does not need to be as difficult as it might sound. If your toddler is use to being in a pram and now they have to walk, you might be caught with some resilience from them, however in time they will get use to it. There are a few ways that you can make the outing easier on everyone.
One option if you are not ready to have your toddler walking is to have one of your babies in a carrier on you. This way you are then able to have the other baby in the pram with the toddler in the other seat. This means that everyone is secure and there is no chance of your toddler running off. You can then swap the babies throughout your time out so that they both get some time up close snuggling with you.
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One of the first “care” decisions you will need to make when you find out you are pregnant with twins or triplets is if you will birth in a public or private hospital.
We asked some of our Twinfo members why they decided to birth in a private hospital for twins or triplets.
We chose private as I was high risk with my own medical conditions, and after ivf we wanted our own private doctor, I needed my own room as I have anxiety and stress around others. And wanted my husband to be able to stay. I was told with being public having him stay wasn’t able option. Our health fund paid majority of it which is fantastic. We chose our hospital for the facilities though, as they have a pregnancy assessment unit. Plus our OB’s office is a street behind the hospital. Great facilities (wards, food wise, rooms, NICU etc) and we live 30 minutes away. We were out of catchment zone for their public hospital though.
Author: Belinda Smith
Falling pregnant naturally with identical triplets was of course never part of our plan! We ‘discovered’ our little bundles at the first scan (13 weeks) leaving us very little time to adjust to the news and accept how different our life was about to become. Of course we knew that being triplets they would be born early. However it was still a bit of a shock when they came at 27 weeks.
My pregnancy was actually pretty enjoyable and incident free. I had a bit of nausea in the first trimester and tiredness like I had never experienced before. Once we got to the second trimester I was feeling great. Given the risk factors we were facing the babies were scanned every two weeks from that first scan and they received great reports every time – great length and weights and no signs of Twin to Twin Syndrome.
So when Baby A’s waters broke at 27 weeks and 0 days we weren’t really expecting it. In fact that next week I had plans to pack my hospital bag and get my hair coloured one last time before the babies were born.
One of the first “care” decisions you will need to make when you find out you are pregnant with twins or triplets is if you will birth in a public or private hospital.
We asked some of our Twinfo members why they decided to birth in a public hospital for twins or triplets.
Private hospitals are expensive and I don’t have private health cover. I have no complaints about the public system, particularly in my twin pregnancy. Saw the same OB for the vast majority of my appointments. I had a six night stay in a private room after my delivery (my husband also stayed in the room for those nights). Plus received great care both during the pregnancy and after delivery. All I paid for out of pocket was my gestational diabetes supplies and $13 for the vitamins my Twin B was discharged with.
Also, with what I know now I wouldn’t have chosen private even if I did have private health cover. I’ve seen too many people get turfed from private OBs when they became too high risk. And those with complications who were hoping to deliver in a private hospital end up needing to deliver in the public system because private wasn’t equipped to care for them/their babies.
Working on the assumption that a baby uses 5 nappies a day (which is probably an underestimated figure!) you will use approx 5,500 nappies per child for the estimated three years they are in nappies. That’s a whole lot of nappies when you multiple that by twins or triplets!
Sadly disposable nappies have not come as far as we would like and the components in most mainstream disposable nappies will not decompose and the nappies will stay in landfill for over 200 years before it breaks down. This is such a scary thought and although there are now a number of bio-degradable and compostable nappies on the market, many of these still need to be in certain conditions for them to actually break down and the Australian landfill tips do not always have the right conditions.
This is one of the reasons that cloth nappies are becoming popular again and a lot of new mothers are starting to use them. There are many benefits to using cloth nappies for twins or triplets aside from reduction in landfill. And the positives definitely outweigh the negatives.
Author: Rachel Pollard
Rachel is a twin mum herself, and a self confessed pram nerd. She loves them so much she has set up her own business, Polish My Pram, cleaning and selling second hand prams.
Here are her top seven points to consider when choosing a twin pram.
If you are going down the route of getting a travel system, make sure your get a decent capsule that will last the time in order to get your moneys worth. For example -Maxi Cosi Adaptors which are Compatible with a lot of model of prams, not just Maxi Cosi fits – Joie, Nuna, Cybex all fit also!
You are not limited to that ONE brand (and in my opinion all of the above are honestly better than the Maxi Cosi capsules). Travel system prams are a god send in themselves. Such ease of use when out and about, especially for those first 6 months (just a guideline for use- you can get up to 12 months + with certain capsules).
Author: Stephanie Ernst
I’m going to be honest here. I’m a mum of identical twins, and everyone talks about those legendary “Mum Goggles” – you know, where your twins look NOTHING alike to you. Everyone else can’t tell them apart.
Confession. I mixed mine up a lot when they were babies—a LOT. And what makes this potentially more embarrassing is that my girls were born with Twin Anemia Polycythemia Sequence, so there was a colour difference for a while. But, you know, when they’re side by side, that’s one thing. I have baby photos now where I’m squinting and guessing who it is.
And of course, let’s not forget that one day, in that sleep-deprived newborn twin haze we all know so well – I grabbed the wrong baby and took her to her sister’s doctor’s appointment.
We know that identical twins have different fingerprints (get that dummy down to forensics!) and that there is the option of dressing them differently – that’s not always in line with what you as a parent want to do. And that’s perfectly fine!
So instead, just for Twinfo, I’ve created the “Sleep-deprived twin mum’s guide to telling your identicals apart.”
