(Note from Twinfo: This is the third part of a five part series, where we will follow Nissa’s journey. The links to the other parts of her story can be found at the end of this post).
Author: Nissa Vagg
The Scare
Apart from being super sick, my pregnancy in the beginning was fairly uneventful, as I imagined a pregnancy should be. Until at 16 weeks, I started bleeding. It was a normal day at work, but feeling strangely wet, I rushed off to the bathroom – there was so much blood. Panic instantly consumed me, and my heart was breaking for my babies, was I losing them? Oh God not my beautiful babies, were they already gone? I didn’t see how there could be this much blood if that weren’t the case, but I also couldn’t believe they were gone. I had pictured us together, I was going to hold them and name them and live happily ever after… they were meant to live… this wasn’t supposed to happen.
Frantic Escape: Racing Back to My World
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” I chanted, shaking my head furiously. I needed somehow to bring myself back from this alternate reality that I’d found myself in. I needed desperately to get back to my world where I was happy and pregnant, and nothing was wrong. After telling myself to snap out of it, I pulled up my knickers, grabbed my keys and ran out of work. Shaking and crying I drove myself as fast as I could to the local hospital – I didn’t flush the toilet.
My babies were both boys, I knew that, and it made the possibility of losing them so much more real. 5 days earlier I had been worried that something wasn’t right, and I’d paid for an extra ultrasound. Everything was supposed to be fine, the stenographer didn’t pick up on anything unusual (except for two glaringly obvious doodles).
“Don’t give up,” I pleaded to my boys. “Be strong, you can do it. Just hold on, please hold on, we’re nearly there.”
Twin Pregnancy Second Trimester: Racing Against Despair
As I sped to the hospital, I tried to keep focus on the road while all my being was concentrated on willing my boys to live, and at the same time in the back of my mind, I tried to imagine how I could possibly handle the grief if they were already gone. There was at least a chance that we could conceive again, but it was no consolation – I could never again have the future that I’d been waiting for, I would never again conceive twins. And what if only one was gone? The tears came hard and fast and my head shook involuntarily, trying to banish the horrible thoughts so I could focus on driving and saving my boys.
When I pulled up out the front of the hospital, I expected an emergency team and an emergency department, but it was a small town and an even smaller hospital – there was only one doctor. Ross met me there, and despite my begging for someone to help me, no one did. No one rushed, and the doctor didn’t come. A nurse just sat me by a computer and started to take my details – it slowly dawned on me that no one was rushing because there was nothing anyone could do.
Twin Pregnancy Second Trimester: Isolated in the Waiting Room
Put in a room I was left to wait for an obstetrician from a nearby clinic because the doctor on duty refused to use the doppler (apparently it wasn’t his ‘area’). While Ross paced, I cried, going back and forth from positive to negative. Holding my tummy, I talked to my babies, telling them emphatically that they were OK, that they must stay strong, that mummy loves them. A minute later I’d lose faith.
“This can’t be happening,” I cried, in between panicked sobs. “Not again. Not my babies!”
Four agonising hours later an obstetrician arrived, and she confirmed that the twins still had heartbeats, but was unable to give us any more information. She said these things just happen sometimes and sent me home to rest. It wasn’t much to go on, and I still had no idea if my babies would survive.
We needed a change of plan.
The Waiting Game Continued
After 2 weeks of self-prescribed total bed rest, the bleeding stopped, and another scan confirmed that everything with the twins looked okay. I decided that I was never again doing anything, that in my mind, might risk my babies lives. I would not stand for any excessive length of time, I would not exercise, I would not lean forward too far and squash my belly and I would not have sex again until after they reached ‘viability’. For me, there was no longer such a thing as ‘too careful’. If the universe had once again given me these miracles, I had to do everything in my power to ensure their safe arrival, no matter what that meant. Once again, I felt like the luckiest, and most blessed person in the world! I even allowed myself to go back to daydreaming about our future…
Dreams of Parenthood
Magical images filled my mind of me breastfeeding and bathing my little bundles in sweet smelling organic products, wrapping them up, kissing them on the head and watching a movie with Ross while they slept. Growing vegies and experimenting with cooking all sorts of tasty healthy foods for them to try. Lazy afternoons spent fishing on a river as the sun dropped low in the sky, our boys with mini fishing rods catching more fish than me. Weekends at the snow with our little men like waddling blueberries in their pudgy suits, and camping trips spent playing guitar around the fire and telling them not to eat bugs. It was such an exciting time and it gave me so much pleasure to imagine our instant family and the amazing bond our boys would have.
To read the first part of Nissa’s story – “Finding out we were pregnant with twins” Click HERE
Read the second part of Nissa’s story – “Twin Pregnancy first trimester – the waiting game” click HERE
To read the fourth part of Nissa’s story – Twin pregnancy third trimester – The first labour” click HERE
To read the final part (fifth part) of Nissa’s story – Giving birth to Twins – The miracle of birth” click HERE
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