Category: Birth

Arti and Ganesh met on a dating website in India and married before heading to Australia, only to find out once they arrived they were pregnant with twin boys. Arti is hoping for a natural delivery but understands it might not be possible as twins are considered a high risk pregnancy. The midwife struggles to find the twins heartbeat for monitoring but she finally finds them both beating away. Dr Pesce arrives to help deliver the twins just in case there are any complications. Arti is absolutely amazing and the twins arrive naturally without a hitch! One needs a little help breathing as he’s a bit stunned but both Swarit and Taksh are totally healthy baby boys.

Are your boys fraternal or identical?

Swarit and Taksh are fraternal boy twins.  They are both totally different from each other in every way.  Not only do they look totally different, but they behave totally differently.  One is always smiling and wants to interact with toys, the other is happy to just lay there and observe.

My aunt had twins a long time ago, but no one else in our family has twins.  It is very special.

How old are they?  And how are you coping with it all?

The boys are 4 months old now.   It’s getting a bit easier.  I wont lie, the early days were very very tough.    I just kept repeating what my friend told me.   That “It is just one day you need to get through, it is a new day tomorrow”.

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***** Please note, this post contains the loss of a twin *****

As parents we all love hearing birth stories.  This was one of my driving reasons to publish as many twin and triplet birth stories on the Twinfo blog that I could.  However, reading about it is one thing, watching it unfold in front of you is another.  Which is the reason why over 484,000 people nationally are tuning in to watch Channel 10’s new factual series, One Born Every Minute Australia.

One Born Every Minute Australia is based on the UK version, and it takes us right into the birth units, via 60 high tech cameras, at Sydney’s Westmead  Hospital. I was honoured that Channel 10 asked me to interview Bianca, one of the participants.  Bianca and her husband Daniel, appear in episode 5 of the show where we follow the birth of their twins. 

About Bianca and her family

At the time of speaking to Bianca, which was a week before the episode was aired, Bianca’s twins, Hunter and Brooklyn, had just turned  3 months old.   Being a twin mum myself, the first question I asked her was how was SHE?  And how were the babies sleeping?  Bianca thought she was “doing OK” and that thankfully her boy twin, Hunter, was generally sleeping though the night.  Brooklyn, however wants a few more extra cuddles from Mum, but she is close to sleeping though. 

Which is lucky, as Bianca has three other children.  She has an 8 year old, who lives in Sydney with her Dad, and 4 year old Mackenzie whose dad passed away when she was six weeks old.   Bianca and Daniel also have Peyton, who was born last August, and now they have the twins.   Payton was only 4 months old when they found out they were expecting twins.   To further complicate things, when Bianca and Daniel were 7 weeks pregnant with twins they were given the devastating news that 4 year old Mackenzie had Leukaemia. 

Personally, I cannot wait to watch Episode 5, and I’m thrilled to share my chat with Bianca with you.

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Author: Laura Mind

I am finally, after 7 months, able to tell my twin birth story, which involved a full placenta abruption with twins.  It’s taken 7 months for me to be able to speak about this without me saying it as if I’m a 3rd person, totally removed.

The birth of my twins

On the 15/2/2019 my DCDA twin boys were born 1.26 & 1.27 pm on a Friday.   I was one week from my scheduled C sec, but I wouldn’t make it.    

At 10.35am, after feeling somewhat off and not taking my kids to school (at the time a mother of 3), I reached over to grab my then 1 year olds toy to feel bleeding.  I reached down, my hand was bright red! I knew I had to get to the hospital straight away.  Then I got my 7&1 year olds into the car and drove myself 20 mins to the local hospital.

My mum’s house is one minute from the hospital.   I drove up her driveway screaming beeping my Astra sedan horn furiously.  “Get in now I’m bleeding” I screamed at her.  She got into the driver’s seat and as I tried to move to the passenger seat the blood started leaving me at an alarming rate.  She drove to the hospital where I got out alone.   l walked the 67 steps, it took to get through the door to the women’s assessment unit.  By this time, a trail of blood was flowing from me and pooling to the ground at my feet.

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Author: Shay Baynton

I fell pregnant with my multiples just before Xmas 2013, we were both so excited to be adding to our little family, at the time we had a nearly 2 yr old, Luna. My husband Andrew has worked FIFO or DIDO for nearly as long as we have known each other, first as a driller all over QLD and the NT then with Rio Tinto in QLD. At the time I fell pregnant with our twins we lived in a tiny mining town 3 hrs from the nearest big hospitals Mackay. 

My first inkling that this pregnancy was any different from my first began very early in the first few weeks; the all day sickness was relentless. Eventually on Xmas Eve, after 3 days of keeping nothing down, I ended up in hospital. It was early days and after the usual treatment I refused to stay not wanting to miss Xmas morning with my toddler at home. Andrew had just finished his dayshift swing and managed to make it to town to take me home from hospital.  And so began the juggle of managing a twin pregnancy plus toddler at home with a partner working a rotating roster 3 hours from home. 

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Bringing home twins when you have a toddler waiting to welcome them to the family can be a juggling act. Here are some tips to make the whole process a bit smoother.

Bringing Home Triplets or Twins When You Have a Toddler

Try as we might to not disrupt an older child’s life when several siblings come home from the hospital, it is likely to happen anyway. Bringing home triplets or twins when you have a toddler waiting to welcome them to the family can be a juggling act.

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Author: Melissa Lourey

Finding out we were pregnant with twins

We found out we were having twins at our first ultrasound at 12 weeks. It was my second pregnancy and I did the math and realised the twins would most likely be born before my daughters second birthday. Despite the typical pregnancy complaints (and the initial shock of finding out there were two), things were going pretty smoothly, and I waddled my way through the first two trimesters without any drama.

28 weeks pregnant with twins

At 28 weeks I tested positive for gestational diabetes but it was kept under control through diet. My dream birth scenario was to make it to at least 37 weeks and go into labour naturally and deliver them vaginally. The universe had other plans.

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Author: Melanie Geary

As soon as I found out I was pregnant with fraternal twins, my dreams of a natural calm birth felt like it was slowly slipping away.

The only stories I had heard of were c-sections, or an attempted vaginal birth then emergency c-section, and very premature babies to top it off. I was petrified and spent the first few weeks considering just booking in for a c-section rather than attempting vaginal at all.

Thankfully my midwife was so supportive of my wishes for a natural delivery, as was the obstetrician that oversaw my pregnancy (if twin A was head down). The hospital strongly recommended an epidural and considering up the pro’s and con’s to this was on my mind for months. I was also concerned as I was a public patient I would get whichever obstetrician who was there on the day and they might try to change my birth wishes.

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Author: Sarah Fraser

Back in September last year I was blessed to welcome 2 healthy babies into our family, making them kids number 3 and 4 for hubby and I. Plus 4 under 4 

I always knew the twins would come via c-section as both of my previous pregnancies were also c-sections due to them being breech and not turning. I am also lucky that with all 3 pregnancies I have never experienced labour (bonus!!). 

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Author: Anonymous Twin Mum

Let me just start this by saying I don’t know if I have ever been 100% certain on having babies. My husband and I thought that we would leave things to chance and see what happened, if we didn’t conceive then that was it. Well, little did we know that we would conceive within the first month of leaving things to “chance”!

I guess all the usual things happened in those first few weeks. I took a pregnancy test at home first one was negative, did a second 3 days later which was positive. Went to the GP, had the “I’m pregnant” conversation and was sent for blood tests and an early scan to confirm the pregnancy. I had a conversation with a friend about 3 days before my scan and had a joke saying that I bet that I am carrying twins, we laughed and wrote it off as joke. Well we all know what happened next, we went and had our scan and there were two heartbeats with perfectly defined embryonic structures!

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