Author: Alisha Winslade
Finding out we were having identical twins was exciting yet overwhelming.
Not knowing much about twins google was my go to for all things twins until I read about a rare condition called Twin To Twin Transfusion Syndrome ( TTTS ). TTTS only occurs in identical twin pregnancies. It scared me but I never thought it would happen to me.
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!
From that point I had a relatively easy pregnancy, although we had one interesting complication at around 28 weeks. I was doing a day trip for work that took me to a regional area with patchy, at best, mobile reception. I’d had a routine blood test a day or two earlier (at this point I was on fortnightly blood tests). Anyway, so I am away having a great old time then I must have hit a patch of service and I got what felt like a million missed calls, texts and voicemails. Stupidly I listened to the voicemail first which was the admin lady from our obstetricians office saying that they were having trouble getting a hold of me (funny that).
Apparently I needed to get to my obstetricians office immediately and to pack a hospital bag as I would be admitted to hospital. Meanwhile I felt as good as anyone carrying twins would feel at that point. Anyway after much confusion and trying to contact them back it turns out that my liver panel had come back with some abnormal results, so into the obstetricians’ office we go……
After they were finally satisfied that I was actually ok and after a repeat blood test I was allowed to go home. Incidentally I tested positive for glandular fever – quite comical now and I know at the time they were worried about preeclampsia but at the time it was a really stressful thing.
From that point out we were fine, until we hit 31 + 4 I woke up at around 3 am I think it was and everything was wet – at the time I didn’t think much about it I thought perhaps I had peed the bed (pregnant women do that right?) so I cleaned up and went back to bed (idiot!). Next morning I got up and did my normal routine for getting ready to go to work, except I felt like I was constantly peeing myself. Now I am starting to click on that something might be up. So I rang a friend (who is a nurse practitioner) and her daughter who was visiting, who happens to be an obstetrician. Anyway long story short Twin 1’s membranes had ruptured, and my husband was halfway across the country for work…
From that point I was admitted to hospital and on strict bed rest. I was loaded with antibiotics and steroids and passed through the 48 hour critical window with no changes. From that point it was such a waiting game. Every day was the same routine checks from various people at various times.
Exactly 1 week later everything changed, the day started out like all others had, but at about 7 pm I started to have terrible pains in my lower abdomen and my discharge had changed from clear fluid to pink fluid. I knew the drill. I notified the nursing staff, the student midwife came and did a CTG on the babies but couldn’t detect contractions. But I just didn’t feel right, so I called my husband to tell him that he should come in as I just felt “weird” (we lived about 1 hour away from the hospital).
The midwives convinced me that I was constipated and advised me to get up and have a hot shower. Well you know how you think that the midwives should have a pretty good idea at what is happening, so you put faith in them to do the right thing. I got up and prepared myself to have a shower. Well as I was getting ready I felt like I might need to have a bowel motion so I, as you do, went to the toilet. However this is where I stayed, I remember trying to get up off the toilet at one stage but I just couldn’t move.
I delivered the first of my twins into the hospital toilet, unsupervised with no one around.
At 9:02 pm I delivered the first of my twins into the hospital toilet unsupervised with no one around. From here things are a little blurry, I push the call button the midwives came in causally until she realised what had happened. They quickly took Twin 1 away got me off the toilet and onto the bed.
It was then when my husband came running through my hospital room door. He says that at that moment in time I looked like a ghost. I honestly don’t remember much about leaving the ward and getting to the delivery suite. I remember going into the elevator and then into a room in the delivery wing. From there things went quickly but slowly.
At that point everything about labour had stopped, when they did an ultrasound Twin 2 was high, transverse and had a presenting cord. Our obstetrician (not the same one we had been seeing throughout the pregnancy, but an on-call) said that he could break Twin 2’s waters and induce. We responded with what’s best and safest? Twenty minutes later, at 10:32 pm, Twin 2 was delivered via caesarean.
Both the twins were rushed to NICU – they were on CPAP for 8 hours overnight and remained in NICU for about 36 hours. After that we were moved to SCN (or the fat farm as it was called) where we remained for the next 4 weeks. The stay in SCN had its ups and downs. The twins presented with all the ‘normal’ premmie baby things: issues regulating body temperature; UV light therapy’ caffeine therapy; pictures with Santa’s hand and Christmas etc. We were finally discharged at 36 + 4.
There are very few people who know what actually happened to us in hospital, I think that I will struggle with what happened for a while longer. It’s taken me about 2 years to build up the courage to write this, which I have spoken about since joining the Twinfo page when we were still in SCN!
Today we are at the terrible toddler’s stage where life is filled with the joys that are temper tantrums! Many days are filled with laughter, and yelling, but mostly we are grateful that we don’t have persistent health issues from our 32 + 4 babies. We have vague recollections of the past 2 years, and a mild case of PTSD, but we count ourselves as lucky, although there are no more babies on the cards for us one set of twins is enough. Hubby took care of that one…
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Author: Ashlea Sinfield
So my story starts off as a normal surprise pregnancy. I had fallen pregnant when my daughter was only 4 months old so a massive massive surprise it was indeed.
I went to the doctors and had bloods taken etc. Did all the routine stuff, and didn’t have a clue I was pregnant with twins. The bloods came back, and I was apparently around the 8 week mark. So they sent me for an ultrasound which I did the next week and they didn’t see anything. They said I was too early and they could see my ovary had released an egg – or something along those lines lol. I went home and didn’t think anything of it and rebooked for three weeks later…
So the night before my 8 week ultrasound I had a dream that the male ultrasound tech told me I was having twins when I went for my ultrasound. The dream so sooo real feeling it actually freaked me out. Later that day I toddled off for the ultrasound, I lay down and the tech started. He looked at me and said I don’t know if this is good or bad news. My reply was there’s two isn’t there?
And yep there sure was lol. I held myself together for the rest of it even though I was having a major anxiety attack. I walked out the door and called my best friend who thought I was lying to her lol. Then called my other bestie who had actually already told me I was having twins so she predicted it as well lol.
So after the initial shock I drove home and gave my partner the ultrasound slip and asked him what he saw. He said tw A and tw B. And I was like what does that mean. He had no idea and then I filled him in that it meant twin a and twin b. He looked at me in shock and said are you bleeping serious. Hahaha mind you we have a 7,6,5,4 year old and 4 month old at the time so being pregnant was absolutely crazy in itself. Let alone with two little babies!
My first trimester pregnant with twins as pretty easy no sickness just super dooper tired… Uneventful until 11 weeks when I had a SVT (supraventricular tachycardia) attack. I literally thought I was having a heart attack I couldn’t breathe. The Ambos were called and I was admitted to hospital for a week to try to get my heart rate under control. I was put on heart meds again as I have a previous heart condition that makes any pregnancy risky but having 2 on board made it even worse. So I was super high risk from then on.
Pretty uneventful just kept cooking my little beans all was going well had weekly antenatal appointments had 4 weekly ultrasounds.
Other than being extremely short of breath I was actually do way better than anyone expected. Despite having a pre-existing heart condition and pregnant with twins,my heart was holding up well. I was feeling quite positive. The only downside is from 14 weeks till 6 weeks after birth I had to have clexane needles daily. And I really despise needles! But I sucked it up for my own safety and the safety of my babies.
At 20 weeks we did a gender reveal and got our 5 older kids to pop balloons and suprise suprise two baby boys.
So this is where it all started happening and my not too bad pregnancy started to hit some major road bumps.
Not all baby related some purely hospital related I felt like the hospital I was at was trying to get rid of me in a sense because I was high risk. And I am extremely overweight. So they kept sending me up the Mercy and the Mercy kept sending my back saying that my hospital was fine to look after me as long as the babies didn’t come before 32 weeks.
I was sent to the Mercy via ambulance from my hospital twice due to bad doppler readings from one of the twins. Both times when I got to the doppler readings were fine. They couldn’t understand why my hospital rushed me down there, as it was only one doppler reading that that was a little off. Also, because my twins were both in the 90th percentile there was no cause for alarm. I just needed to be scanned more regularly to watch for any changes. So back home I went.
At about 32 weeks I got dreaded gastro and it was horrendous! It’s bad when you’re not pregnant by when you are it was so so so much worse. I went to the hospital to get a needle to stop spewing and some tablets and it all calmed down so went home again.
The whole last trimester I was in and out of the labour ward clinic for multiple false alarms. I bled a few times, nothing crazy just some spotting. Lost my mucus plug early, had some high blood pressure that never eventuated into anything. Plus numerous early labour scares. Safe to say I hated hospital by the end of the pregnancy.
At 32 weeks the hospital decided to give me a round of steroids and now I look back I’m happy they did as it good timing.
The day started off normally. I was 33+5 weeks and had a meeting at 2pm with the senior doctors at the hospital to plan my delivery. I had been scheduled for induction at 36 weeks because of my pre-existing heart condition and pregnant with twins. They were worried my heart not being able to cope with the last month of pregnancy. Plus being a multi pregnancy and I’m morbidly obese. So all major risk factors. And we wanted to avoid a c section at all cost, because of the risk to me.
About 10 am I started getting pains that I fobbed off. I was like “nope, it’s Braxton Hicks. I’m not going to the hospital as I gotta go this afternoon. I will wait till I go I’m sick of it being a false alarm and I felt like an idiot every time I went in and it was nothing”… So the pains kept coming and they were uncomfortable but didn’t hurt so I was like nope not labour. My partner even said I think you’re in labour and I snappily said I think I would know if I was in labour lol…
We went and ate Maccas at the park with the kids and watched the ducks. The pains were still coming. I didn’t time them because I truly believed I was not in labour and I wasn’t wasting the hospital or my time on a false alarm again. I was waiting till 2pm until my appointment.
So we went and did what we needed to do. We picked up my also heavily pregnant bestie as she needed to go to the hospital for a CTG. We dropped the kids off to their Nans. My partners mum said you look like you’re in labour again. I dismissed this coz I would know if I was!
Or so I thought lol.
2pm rolled around we got to the hospital car park still having pains. I got out the car and put my 13 month old in the pram and started walking into the hospital. Then bam…… a pain hit me and stopped me in my tracks. I had to wait for the pain to pass before I could walk. At this point I kinda then said OK I think I’m in labour. I got to the lifts and the pains were smashing me every 2-3 minutes. They were hurting now; making my eyes water and taking my breath away. We got upstairs to labour and delivery for the meeting.
As soon as the doctors saw me they said you look like you’re in labour. We had the meeting anyway, with me contracting the whole way through it. They stopped the meeting early and walked me to the delivery room and told me to jump on the bed. They wanted to check me and do a swab to see if labour was pending at the same time.
I told my partner to run home to get our things, and he took my 13 month old with him to go drop her off at his mother’s. As he walked out the door the doctor walked in to check me saying let’s see what’s going on here. They went to pass her the swab and she said don’t worry about giving me that she’s 9cms and the waters are bulging!
The next minute they pressed the met call button and a billion people ran in. They were shoving IVs in my arm and I just remember dissolving in tears. I was freaking out like I didn’t know what the hell was happening. I just remember thinking my partners gone and I need him with me… Lucky he heard the met call and he ran back. He just had a feeling it was me. Luckily my best friend was getting her CTG done, so he took my 13 month old to her and said Ash’s having the babies can you mind her.
I was then rushed down to theatre with contractions coming every minute. They said I can’t push, so I tried not to. They tried to put in an epidural numerous time and they finally got it in. I lay down but it didn’t kick in for the first twin. Tyler, 5 pound 1 ounce, shot out. Then there was panic, as the second twin Grayson, 4 pound 3 ounces, who was head down had flipped as soon as his brother was out… I was told this is common, hence why they want people to have pain relief. In case they have to reach in and get them out. 4 doctors, one after the other, were reaching in, trying to pull my son out. I was 1 minute off being cut open then they grabbed his little foot and pulled him out…
Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the boys as they were taken straight away. I did hear them both let out little tiny cries, so I knew they were alive…
I went to recovery for 2 hours before I was finally taken back upstairs.
I had a shower and walked over to special care where my partner was with the boys I walked in and I saw my twin A, or as I like to call him, Tyler, in the incubator. He was tiny but perfect. They told me he had just been taken off CPAP but was on air.
I walked over to twin b, aka Grayson, and he was sooo tiny and was on CPAP.
Softly I touched their little arms and feet. I was so overwhelmed, but the special care nurses were amazing and were very informative. They were both on antibiotics for 48 hours as a precaution, as they didn’t know why I went into labour. I was allowed to go back and hold Tyler at 2am that morning but I would have to wait to hold Grayson until the CPAP was off. Luckily he was off it within 12 hours and they were both kicking goals…
The next night I got to hold them both and it was the first time it all actually felt real…
Days passed and they got off the air. 5 days passed and they were into open cots having little suck feeds every few feeds.
Then all they were in for was to establish full suck feeds and get past the gestation that the hospital allows them home. so they were only in special care for 2 weeks and 3 days then we got to bring them home…
What can I say we have 7 kids out life is full on but perfectly imperfect.
The twins are thriving.
Tyler has colic and is exhausting but I think the end is near as he is settling a lot easier now.
Grayson has itchytosis, a skin condition where his entire body peels. So we have to moisturise him 3 times a day, but he is the happiest little man.
They are 4 months old and have just started giggling. They light up my life daily. I cannot even remember what life was like without my littlest men. They truly complete me
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Author: Tracy White
19th May 2015, the day we found out we were not only expecting 1 baby but twins!!!
We found out quite early as I suspected I was pregnant due to having similar tell tale signs as my first and I was starting to show already. We booked in for our scan after having confirmation from the blood test. This will be an ultrasound I’ll never forget!
The sonographer scanned my tummy with full force (not cool when u have a super full bladder and are hanging for a wee!). When she hit the right spot she turned the screen around to show hubby, I and our eldest daughter (just turned 7). My daughters face lit up but then she turned it back to her and kept moving over my belly, I looked at hubby with a worried look on my face and asked the sonographer if everything was ok? She paused and turned the screen back around to us with the response “and there is the second heart beat”!!!!! SAY WHAT NOW!
I was pretty emotional after finding out it was twins, knowing the financial position we were in and out lay of now having to buy 2 of everything.
Author: Charmie Lyng
Our fraternal twins (although, I’m convinced they’re actually identical!) are now 2.
We had all but given up on having another baby, when lo-and-behold, I was a few days late, usually it’s like clockwork! When I took the first pregnancy test it showed two faint lines, the following day another test revealed two very obvious lines. We couldn’t believe our luck! The morning sickness was next level, although manageable. The tiredness was out of this world. Particularly as I was running around after a very energetic 4 year old and juggling full-time work.
Author: Nicola Rainford
Our pregnancy was not easy. It started with Twin B being in the 5th percentile for growth. Skip ahead to 24 weeks pregnant and an ultrasound found increased umbilical cord pressure for one twin (Twin B – Logan). We were transferred from Werribee Mercy Hospital to Sunshine Hospital. Here they also found Twin A (James) has craniosynostosis (part of the skull already fused) and Logan was still extremely small. They decided to do an amniocentesis. We feared there were some big chromosome issues with Logan and James. Thankfully this came back all good.
Author: Anonymous single mum of twins
At 7 weeks I found out I was pregnant with twins! I knew I didn’t want to find out the gender of my twins, although my partner did. However, I knew he couldn’t keep a secret so was adamant that neither of us would find out!
At the time, I was doing FIFO to Nauru- 3 weeks on, 3 weeks off.
At 18 weeks I was on island and so told the necessary people that I was pregnant. I soon found out that I was not allowed on island because I am an Australian citizen. This was despite the 14 other pregnant asylum seekers in camp. I tried arguing my case and was well aware that at that stage, regardless of where I was, if anything happened, they would not be viable. No one would budge. I returned home to find myself now jobless and pregnant- no one was going to employ a pregnant women, train them up, only to have them leave soon after. I took to tutoring a few different students in my neighbourhood and for a few different tutoring companies.
Author: Sarah Haxby
After the birth of our son my husband was reluctant to have the second child that we always planned on. It was a long process ending up in an emergency c-section and my husband was afraid that would happen again. Although not an overly traumatic tale, I think he was a little traumatised by the whole thing.
Skip to a year later, we had a lovely date day and he agreed to try for our second child. We decided to wait until the middle of the year so there would be about a 2 year age gap.
Amazingly I fell pregnant the first month we tried. Went to the doctor for my routine checks and my hcg levels jumped a lot quickly. I joked to my husband that it was a sign of twins. For the next two weeks until my first scan we both kept talking about twins and having dreams about twins. So when my early scan arrived at 6 weeks it was no surprise to us that there were two.
Author: Jessica Belfield
I found out I was pregnant quite early (day before my period was due actually). Had some bleeding at 5 weeks. When I had an ultrasound, they weren’t able to tell us anything at that point. I had to have another scan at 7 weeks. From 7 weeks I had the most awful morning sickness or more like whenever I ate food sickness or moved or did anything really. Everything was going great.
At 12 weeks, had my next scan, we were chatting away with the guy doing my ultrasound and then his face changed, he’s like hold on a minute. I looked at my husband thinking the worst. He then turned to us and said “Its TWINS”. I laughed, saying you are joking right?? He was like “No, its twins turning his screen to us and pointing them out to us” My husband sat there in shock…I continued to laugh. We found out we were having MCDA twins. Identical twins. Wow. He also explained that could also be why my morning sickness was really bad.
Author: Josie Teggeris
6 weeks pregnant and over the moon BUT I’m in hospital on a drip for extreme nausea and constant vomiting. By morning I thankfully felt better and it was during a routine ultrasound that I was told there was not only one baby growing but two!
Blessed with two, double the trouble but throughout my pregnancy it was double the damn hormones! This lead to an early diagnosis of the medical term for severe all day sickness called “hyperemesis gravidarum”. This was horrible, this was constant and by week 12, I had to stop work completely. My amazing OB advised if it hadn’t subsided by this stage it will continue throughout the whole pregnancy. And damn it, he was right.
My pregnancy was dependent on medication. This was to help subside the vomiting and nausea but it didn’t stop it from coming out up to 6 times a day. To say my pregnancy was terrible was an understatement, because it was completely debilitating on all levels.