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

Surviving a Twin Pregnancy

Well as you can probably tell, I got quite busy last year and I stopped writing posts and only posted a few pictures of ultrasounds with not much more.

In June 2011 we had our morphology scan for the twins.  It turns out they are actually MCDA twins (or identical) and not fraternal, and we found out that we were having girls.  If you've ever wondered about the different types of twins, check out this link  Twin Pregnancy Information

Twin A was still getting along perfectly, however Twin B wasn't doing as well.  We were originally told that she may have vasa previa, with a velamentous cord insertion.  It was not something that I'd ever heard of.  Of course I'd heard of placenta previa (blood loss for the mother) but not vasa previa (blood loss for the baby).  We were told we would need further specialist ultrasounds to keep an eye on the condition.

I didn't get upset about this until we got home, as I had no idea what all the medical terminology meant.  But when I started googling (yes, I know it's bad) I came across the International Vasa Previa Organisation.  Vasa Previa Orgnisation  Obviously after reading about it and what possible outcomes we could experience, it made for a very stressful and upsetting couple of weeks and I found it quite difficult to bond with the girls for fear of something terrible happening.

Fortunately, at our next ultrasound we were told that Baby B did not have vasa previa.  I could breathe a sigh of relief over that.  She was however much smaller than her sister, and she had abnormal placental bloodflow.  This basically meant that she wasn't getting the same amount of nutrients or oxygen through her umbilical cord, and was therefore not growing as well as Baby A.

So the 2nd half of my twin pregnancy really wasn't much fun.  I was constantly worried about the girls, and we had a detailed specialist ultrasound and follow-up doctor's appointment at least every fortnight.  We were very lucky that Baby B did keep growing and didn't experience reverse flow through the umbilical cord, but even at birth she was 610 grams smaller than her sister.

Then there were the 'normal' issues surrounding a twin pregnancy...  My stomach got so HUGE that it was equivalent to someone 5 weeks overdue, and I was only just over 34 weeks when the girls were delivered.  It's easy now to forget just how uncomfortable I was, but at the time it was a real struggle.  The skin was stretched so tightly that it was super shiny, and I ached just moving around.  As for my belly button, well we won't go there...

One of the more annoying things was knowing that I needed to get as much rest as possible before the girls arrived, but not being able to.  The simplest things like rolling over or changing position in bed felt like a huge effort.  I'd have to heave this big stomach over with me... which ultimately lead to having to get up and go pee because of the massive amount of pressure and weight being put on my bladder.  The slightest little kick from a teeny tiny foot and I'd be off again...  I did however, manage to evade stretch marks once again.  I got one above my belly button about a week before the girls were born, and thankfully it's all but disappeared now.

Having already had 1 premature birth though, I knew that I wouldn't come even close to full term with the girls.  I can only imagine (and shudder) how difficult it would have been with a few extra weeks worth of growth !!  All you mums out there who did, or who had triplets or more.. well you deserve a big pat on the back !!  You definitely have my respect !! :)

Sixth Scan - 31/May/2011

Fifth Scan - 28/Apr/2011

Fourth Scan - 19/Apr/2011

Third Scan - 01/Apr/2011

April Fool's Day !!

No ultrasound pic, but there were still two babies in there and Baby B has actually caught up in size to Baby A !! There are measuring about 17.1 mm and 17.2 mm and had heart rates of about 170 bpm.

My doctor believes they are DCDA twins (or fraternal twins). Now I just have to wait another 2 weeks for the 10 week scan to see how they are going. Seems like such a long time to wait... if only I could announce the big news today, on April Fool's Day, as I don't think anyone would have ever believed that I'd be having twins !!