Melissa shares the birth story of her identical twin girls
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The DRs had booked me in for an inducement in mid Feb due to a condition I had which we found just in time before it caused any damage to the twins. This condition affected my bile salts and liver and this could potentially have been fatal for my daughters. I was 36w+3d when I went in to have the girls.
We turned up on the big day at 7am, after being admitted, I was checked around 8am by the midwife and it turned out I was already 4cm dilated (and I had just driven myself to the hospital and had NO idea!) anyway they broke my waters and we waited for it to begin. They thought the twins would be here by approx 5pm that evening … 5pm rolled on and we were still waiting, 7pm came and went and still no babies … well around 12.30am they decided I was 9/10cm dilated and it was time to push.
When I heard those words ‘its time’ I burst into tears. All my excitement and fears I had been going through in my mind that whole day and the lead up to the inducement was finally here. Could I really push the girls out? How am I going to love both of them, is it possible to love them both? My world just started spinning. Both twins had been fighting all day to be the first one to get their head engaged, I guess they both wanted to come out first.
I tried pushing Twin 1 however she got stuck around the pelvic bone, so they tried the vontouse … however this flung off babies head splashing the DR with my body fluids, after numerous attempts to get little miss out they decided it was time to move me off to theatre and prep for a C-Section just in case. They discussed this with me, however after all the action so far I was so dazed and confused I said to the DR ‘I have no idea what you are telling me, I see your mouth moving but I really cant hear a word your saying. Just do what’s best for the babies”
So they wheeled me off to the theatre, Mum came with me – she looked so sweet in her scrubs. The DRs decided to try a few more times for a natural birth, after what felt like a lifetime the DRs said we’ll try one last time otherwise we’ll cut them out. This time I managed to push my daughter out, that moment I had her on my chest it was amazing … it didn’t last long they took her away to get her checks from the pediatrician.
Now for Twin 2, she was originally head down as she was supposed to be, but once Twin 1 had moved out she had all this room and decided to do a 180 degree turn. Once my waters had been broken for Twin 2, this also covered the attending Dr. Two hits in one night! She ended up being delivered breech and her head got stuck inside me and I had to wait for another contraction to come on before I was allowed to push the rest out otherwise it could have caused harm to her. 26 minutes after Twin 1 was born here was my second daughter. She is just as beautiful as her sister, and when I had her on my chest I felt the same sense of overwhelming love and adored her just like I had her sister. Twin 2 was taken to be checked over and they were both rushed off to NICU.
After delivering the placenta, I don’t remember much else my body went into shock. I remember looking in the lights they have above the bed watching what they DRs were doing. There was so much blood they were trying so hard to stitch me up but they had their work cut out for them. I was in and out of consciousness and had no idea what was going on, there were so many people in the room!
Eventually they finished and it was about 3.30am and I was moved into the recovery room, still slipping in and out of awareness I had my mum, dad and sister come and visit me individually, it had been a long day/night for them all.
Early hours of the morning around 5ish they decided I was ok to go the post maternity ward, the nurses still kept waking me what felt like every 5 minutes to check my temp/blood pressure/pain/etc. I finally woke up properly at 7am felt my stomach and it was squishy. I had had my babies, yet they weren’t in my room and I had no idea where they were.
Soon after 7am, a midwife came to check on me (again), all I wanted to do was know where my newborn daughters were, were they ok? Did they need me? Was anyone with them?
The midwife who had just come on shift couldn’t tell me anything and the NICU unit were doing their shift change so they weren’t answering phones. It was horrible. Finally they tracked the girls down and they did all their checks to make sure I was ok to go down there. After losing a lot of blood during the birth, seven hours later I was been wheeled down to meet my daughters.
When we went into the nursery I felt so overwhelmed by seeing all these little babies in incubators and cribs with machines galore attached to them. I was lead to Twin 1 but Twin 2 was on the other side of the room. I didn’t know which child to watch, I couldn’t be in two places at once. I requested both daughters be next to one another, and the next day they were. It made it heaps easier to be able to be close to them both, doing cares on them, watching them both sleep and dream.
Even now I struggle to describe the thoughts and the feelings I experienced when I first entered that nursery. My little daughters had nasal tubes attached for feeding and were lying on heating pads. It was incredible.
We were in the NICU for 11 days, It was about day 3 in the NICU unit that it really hit me that I was now a mum, I was completely responsible for these two girls. I started getting tears in my eyes these two little girls were mine, I brought two healthy girls into this world. They started thriving. I loved going to see them and spending all my waking hours there with them just watching them sleep, all the nurses/DRs knew I wouldn’t be in my hospital room during the day so they came to me in the evening or would make sure I was the first they visited in the morning.
Now seven months on, they are rolling around the room, acknowledging one another playing, giggling and smiling with each other. I even caught them giving each other kisses the other day. The bond between the girls and I are totally unbreakable. I never need to had worried whether I could love them both, I have plenty of love to go around for the both of them, they are just gorgeous. My little angels!
