Author: Lauren Neuner
It was a Tuesday afternoon and I was excitedly clock watching, counting down the hours until my dating scan. I was not convinced that I was pregnant, I had absolutely no symptoms, no morning sickness or anything, I just felt like my normal self. I had only just had a chemical pregnancy the month before so I didn’t exactly trust the pregnancy test anyway.
Finding out I was pregnant with twins
Before I knew it though I was laying down on the bed at the ultrasound, my husband next to me and we were anxiously watching the screen to see if we could see anything.
“Oh there it is!”, the sonographer said. And sure enough, there on the screen was this tiny little jelly bean shaped baby, we could even see its tiny little heart beat flickering along. My husband and I stared happily at out tiny little baby, relieved that everything looked okay.
“I will just have a look around and check everything else is okay”, the sonographer explained. He moved the little wand thingy over my belly and that’s when I thought I saw another little jelly bean, he quickly moved back to it. “Oh! There’s another one, you are having twins”, he said in a very matter of fact tone, as if this was everyday information to tell someone.
Our reactions to finding out I was pregnant with twins
My face lit up with excitement though, I was one of those crazy ones who always wanted twins, but having no known sets of twins in my family the chances of that were slim to none. I could not believe my luck! “This is too good to be true”, I thought to myself, but somehow, I was lucky enough to be staring at my two little babies, their hearts both beating along strongly.
I looked over at my husband and his face wasn’t so much excited but more of a shocked look, one might say a normal reaction to finding out you and your wife were going to bring two lives into the world at once.
We went out for dinner that night to celebrate our exciting news and started to imagine what our life was going to be like. Later that night as I lay in bed I started to think about all the fun ways we could share this news with our families and our friends. I still thought this was way too good to be true though, things didn’t usually go my way so I wasn’t used to something going so perfectly.
First GP appointment when pregnant with twins
The next day I had an appointment with my GP to go over the results. I was feeling very optimistic but she kept telling me about all the risks with the type of twins I was having (MCDA – Monochorionic/Diamniotic Twins, meaning they shared a placenta but had separate sacks divided by a thin membrane), she talked about how they would probably come early, maybe even earlier. I just sat there and nodded away, not really worried about anything she said. She tried to bring me down to reality but I was still on a high, nothing was going to take my optimism away.
Bleeding while pregnant with twins – the first bleed at 8 weeks
One week later around 8 weeks pregnant, while I was at work, I went to the toilet for what was probably the 100th time that day, but this time when I wiped there was blood on the paper. My heart sank to my stomach, “no, no, no, this can’t be happening!”, I thought. I wiped again in the hopes that it was just a mistake but no, there it was, all over the paper. Panic set in. Goodbye optimism, hello reality.
I left work and went straight to my GP. She couldn’t get me in to have an ultrasound until the day after, but she assured me that bleeding in pregnancy can be very normal, but she also told me if something has happened it is not my fault. It didn’t make me feel any better. I needed to see my babies to know they were okay before I was convinced this was normal. Time went ever so slowly until the ultrasound the next day. I remember wishing so hard that my babies were okay.
Finally, the time came for the appointment. My husband and I were so nervous. We stared at the screen, I crossed my fingers. There they were, both hearts beating away strongly. What a relief! We even got to hear both of their heartbeats, a sound I will never forget!
Telling our parents I was pregnant with twins
That night we shared the exciting news with our parents. I handed my mum a box, in the box was a onesie that said “I (heart) my nan”, she looked at it with a smile and then it suddenly hit her what it meant. “There is just one thing, we are going to have to decide which one will wear it first”, I said. Mum and Dad looked at me, I could see them thinking what I meant. “WHAT! TWINS!”. They couldn’t believe it!
The next few weeks went by without much drama. I hadn’t told any of my friends yet, we also hadn’t told my brother or my husbands brother and his partner that they were going to be uncles and an aunty, I wanted to wait until our 12-week scan before sharing the news. I kept thinking of all the ways I could surprise them with the news that I was pregnant with two beautiful babies!
Every time I went to the toilet though I would brace myself, convince myself that there would be blood again, if I did this maybe it wouldn’t be so hard when or if it happened again. My optimism had not returned since our first scare and I had convinced myself this was just all too good to be true, these exciting things just didn’t happen to me.
Bleeding while pregnant with twins – the second bleed at 11 weeks
And then it happened again, I was 11 weeks pregnant and at home this time when I saw the blood. I wasn’t as panicked as last time, I don’t know if it was because I had convinced myself that this was going to happen again, or if I just knew it was going to be okay. Calmly I took myself to the GP so I could get an ultrasound ASAP.
I went on my own this time, convinced my husband I would be fine. Once again as I lay on the bed in the ultrasound room, I crossed my fingers that everything was going to be fine. The sonographer started the exam. This time the babies actually looked like babies! She quickly located both of their hearts and we could see them strongly beating away. Another sigh of relief. She told me the bleeding wasn’t anything to worry about but she didn’t tell me what it was either. I didn’t really care though; I was just so excited to be able to see my babies and see they were both growing really well.
More bleeding
It was the weekend before my appointment with the Maternal Fetal Medicine Unit (MFMU) and I was out shopping with my mum. Suddenly I felt a small gush, I knew straight away what was happening and started to rush to the nearest toilet. The whole way there I could feel my pants getting soaked in blood, I could feel it running down my legs. Thank god I had black pants on!
I rushed into the bathroom stall and quickly sat down; I had never seen so much blood in my life. It was everywhere, all over the floor, all over my hands, all over everything I touched. It was gushing out into the toilet. Once it finally stopped, I cleaned myself up best I could and then called my mum and asked her to buy my new clothes because everything was covered in blood. Thank goodness she was actually with me!
Since the sonographer had told me the bleeding wasn’t anything to worry about, I just assumed this bleed was for the same reason, I didn’t feel like I needed to rush off to the hospital, although I strongly encourage you to if you ever have bleeding like that while pregnant! So off we went and continued on shopping, I think I just wanted to take my mind off what could be happening.
Subchorionic Hematoma and Twin Pregnancy
Two days later I was still bleeding and it was time for my appointment with MFMU. I was finally hoping to get some answers. I sat in the waiting room with my fingers crossed, wishing for both my babies to have strong healthy heart beats. When it was my turn, I told the sonographer what had been happening.
That was when I finally learned that I had a subchorionic hematoma which is a pooling of blood, it was nothing to worry about and it wouldn’t cause any harm to my babies. What caused it was my uterus growing so so quickly to accommodate my rapidly growing twins, something quite common in multiple pregnancies. I was so relieved! After our scan we met Wendy who would be our main doctor during my pregnancy, she was lovely and dealt with all the high risk pregnancies so I knew we were in good hands!
A Subchorionic Hematoma and Twin Pregnancy meant I had constant bleeding
From then I bled heavily until around the 20th week of my pregnancy, it wasn’t fun. And even though I knew that a wouldn’t cause harm to my babies it was still pretty scary to have huge blood clots coming out of you while you are pregnant. I still got to do all those fun pregnancy things though like buying all the baby clothes, picking the cots and the pram and the car seats and the other thousands of things babies apparently need!
I was one of those super lucky people that was heavily pregnant during the middle of summer, 45°C days and I’m over 30 weeks pregnant with twins! Oh the joys! I pretty much lived under the air conditioner like a beached whale!
A planned c-section after a Subchorionic Hematoma and twin pregnancy
I had booked in for a planned C-section at 36 weeks as I felt this was the safest for my babies. A couple of days before I needed to get my steroid shots. I squeezed my big pregnant belly into the car and took myself up to the hospital. But then I then had to waddle my way all the way from the car park into the hospital, the sun blaring down on me. I didn’t think I would actually make it into the hospital doors, but thankfully I did.
As the babies would be coming early, I needed steroid shots to help the twins lungs. I was starting to get anxious that they would need to spend time in the NICU, but mostly I was excited to finally be able to meet my babies. I wondered what they would look like and what it would feel like to hold two babies. After a Subchorionic Hematoma and twin pregnancy I was more than ready to meet my babies.
The day before my C-section felt so strange. It was so hard to think that this time the very next day I would be a mum! Everyone tells you to enjoy the time to yourself and sleep while you can but I was way too uncomfortable to enjoy much. I was definitely ready to get these babies out of me! I set an alarm for early the next day, we were really lucky to have the first C-section of the day, one of the perks of having twins is you usually get to jump the queue a bit!
Giving birth after a Subchorionic Hematoma and twin pregnancy
We were stopped at the traffic lights on our way to the hospital when we finally talked about what we would name them out loud. We were to afraid to say them too soon, we thought we would somehow jinx it. Finally we decided twin A would be called Alexander George and Twin B would be Harry Allan.
The next few hours seemed to go by really quickly! It felt like it was no time at all before we welcomed two beautiful babies into the world. Harry weighed 2.7kgs and Alexander weighed 2.3kgs. They were tiny, healthy and perfect. They came straight to the ward with me, they needed no time in SCN or NICU. We spent 5 nights in hospital before heading home and begin our crazy but happy life.
A Subchorionic Hematoma and twin pregnancy was stressful, however, they are now happy healthy 3 year olds!
