Special Care Nursery

We were very lucky with our twin girls in that we had no real health issues, even though they were born 6 weeks early.  Their main issues were related to feeding, as they weren't able to suck properly yet.

I was in hospital for 9 days before I was discharged.  This time around I did not have the luxury of having my husband stay with me in hospital, so those first couple of weeks were quite hard on both of us.  For me, it would have been nice having someone to help me get around after another C-section, and for him he missed out on spending those first couple of weeks bonding with the girls. 

Once I was released from hospital, I was provided with a bed in the boarder mother's room.  I ended up spending my nights at home though with my son, who was only 14 months old at the time.  I would get up around 4:30 and drive in to the hospital, spend the day with the twins, and then head home for dinner and a sleep. 

The girls were tube fed for the first 2 weeks, and then bottle fed, so there was no reason for me to stay overnight other than to be near them.  However I did have my son to consider as well, and I missed him terribly during those first 9 days when I was still admitted to hospital.

The twins spent their first night in isolettes.  I managed to get myself into a wheelchair to go down to the nursery and see them.  It was so strange having to keep switching between the two, and trying to give them both the same amount of attention.  I have to say it felt completely surreal.  Not less than 2 years earlier I had given up on having children altogether, and now I was looking at my twin girls (babies # 2 and 3).

Here is a photo my husband took a few hours after they were born.  Alyssa is on the left, and Olivia on the right.

Happy Birthday !!

On Monday, the 3rd of October 2011 our little girls arrived in spectacular style...

Three weeks prior to their birth, we commenced renovations on our kitchen.  It was meant to take 1-2 days maximum to be completed, however there was one drama after another and it actually took 3 weeks.  This meant 3 weeks without a kitchen - no sink, no cook top, no oven, no dishwasher, no benches, nothing.  To say it was frustrating would be an understatement, especially considering that I was 31 weeks pregnant with twins when the work began and my son had only just turned 1.  So we basically lived on take away, eaten from paper plates, for an entire 3 weeks.  I can not ever look at that food the same way again, it was completely horrendous.

So a couple of days before the girls were born, my son happened to catch gastro from day care.  Hubby and I also ended up with the same bug, and were both so sick that it was an effort to do anything at all.  On the Sunday night (the 2nd of October) I started getting really bad pains, that I believed were contractions.  We rang the maternity ward and they said it was most likely just symptoms from gastro, and to stay home for the time being unless things got worse.  I did not get much sleep that night...

On Monday, the 3rd of October 2011 the plumber walked out our front door after having finished the last of our kitchen renovations.  Yay !!  Time for me to clean and sort our kitchen... but first for our CTG at the hospital.  At the time I was having regular CTG's to keep an eye on the babies' heart rates.  I'd also already had 2 rounds of steroid injections to help mature their lungs in the case of another early birth.

If it weren't for my husband, I wouldn't have gone to this particular appointment.  I felt sooo sick.  All I wanted to do was lay on the couch and have a nap, before getting stuck into the kitchen.  Fortunately he persuaded me to go for the CTG.

From memory, I believe the appointment was between 9 and 10 am.  I had nothing with me - no mobile phone with important numbers, no wallet, nothing.  Straight away the CTG showed that I was in labour, and things moved very quickly from there...

As I didn't have my phone with me, I also didn't have the numbers of the people who had offered to look after my son for us (we have no family members where we live, with both sets of grandparents at least 2500km away).  We got hold of someone in the end, and my husband went off on the 30 minute drive to take our son to my friend's place.

While he was gone I was wheeled straight into the OR to get prepped.  The nurses kept trying to ring my husband to find out where he was, but the babies needed to come out...

So as my husband was parking the car in the hospital car park, Olivia Kathleen and Alyssa Grace made their grand entrance.  They were born at 11:40 and 11:42 am, so it all happened very quickly.  It was quite upsetting that my husband missed the whole thing, but at the same time one of the most amazing experiences.  Seeing one baby, and then a second baby enter the world. 

Fortunately one of the nurses was able to take some photos for me, otherwise the only images would have been the ones in my memories.  My husband walked in just as I was having a quick cuddle with Alyssa.  Olivia had already been taken away to the special care nursery.  Apparently she had needed some help with oxygen during those first moments of her life.

So here they are...

Olivia Kathleen (Baby B) - 2.08 kg or 4.59 pounds

Alyssa Grace (Baby A) - 2.69 kg or 5.93 pounds