Hey guys! I’m here to talk about the things you should expect or may expect when you’re expecting twins. I personally tried to find pages and stuff on the things I’m going to mention because I didn’t know what to expect and I wanted to be prepared. Anyway, so for me, I didn’t find out I was having twins until I was 21 weeks pregnant due to us going away to South Africa, where my partner is from to visit his family and the dating scan fell on the time we went away. From the start I had a feeling there were two in there as I grew quicker and when they began to kick I could feel it on one side and then suddenly on the other. We got back from our holiday and I went to the hospital a couple of times for my midwife appointments but they were slow on getting me a scanning date but at one of the appointments I had one of the midwives decide to just do one of those small scans so they could make sure everything was okay and as she was doing it she was showing me the head of the baby and as she moved around she saw another one and just started laughing while I was sitting there thinking “I’m so screwed I’m going to have 3 under 2, how am I going to do this?” But we got through it! After I found out, I was thinking we needed two of everything and I need a twin pillow and how does this all work? But I’m generally a very calm and stress free person because I believe that everything happens for a reason and there’s no point of stressing because you have to go through and deal with it either way. Some of the things I wanted to know were:
•what’s the chances of having a c-section? •What kind of things happen when you give birth?
•What’s happens in the special care nursery? •How does a twin induction work?
Starting off on the topic of a c-section. I was worried that I would have to have a c-section regardless if I had a good pregnancy or not but that’s not the case, I spoke to my midwife who explained all the things that could happen during the birthing process. To begin, they will most likely ask you to have an epidural for the possible chance that you will need an emergency c-section. Ways this can happen is if one baby isn’t growing properly, a baby goes breach and they are unable to get the baby out safe, or if you and the babies are generally over exhausted. That’s just some of the many ways that it could go wrong. I’m no doctor but this is just some of the things I got told by doctors and midwives. If you have a good pregnancy and everything is going well there is a high chance you can have a normal vaginal birth safely and get those babies out!
Heading into the birthing and induction part of things! I had a natural birth for my twins as well as my older daughter so I’m unaware of how a c-section goes or feels but I have the general idea. I had an induction in the morning on the date of my twins arrival, I have never had one before that so I had no idea what to expect. So pretty, much they’ll take you in to the birthing suite and lay you on the bed and get you all organised. If you have agreed to an epidural (I recommend you do) & it was also my first epidural too, they will do that after they start your induction. So they will start off by breaking the lowest twins waters and wait for things to progress and then come in with the epidural, I asked for them to wait a bit only because I wanted to go through some of the pain because I personally love it and the process of giving birth. But once it was in everything was way more relaxed. They said to me that I’m one of the most chill people they’ve seen when about to give birth haha. The epidural honestly isn’t painful all I felt was a bit of pressure and a sting but after that it’s fine. Everyone is different with the epidural but with me it took 5.5 hours for my right leg to come back to life. After having the epidural all you do is pretty much wait around until you’re dilated enough to start pushing.
Now when you’re giving birth & the first baby is out you get a ton of nurses holding your other baby through your stomach while they’re still in your stomach so they don’t turn around and go breach or end up sideways as that can lead to a c-section, I wasn’t prepared for it so it was very full on. For me once the babies were out I got to hold them each for a small amount of time before they got taken to the special care nursery where I didn’t see them for another 5.5 hours due to not being able to move my leg. While they were in there I had one of the nurses from there come and visit me so they could get colostrum and take it back to the babies. By around midnight I finally got to go and visit them and they were all snug in a little double hospital bassinet. Babies are usually in there for 14 days before they’re checked and decided if they’re ready to go home and if they’re not sucking properly straight away they will put a tube through their nose and put milk through it so they can eat. It looks painful but it’s what’s best for your bubs. Make sure you ask if you can do certain things as well as when and how you should be doing them because that will not only make you feel better but it will also show them that you are ready to look after them and that you’re comfortable doing so. You’ll be up every 3 hours to go and feed your babies because they will have a feeding and sleeping schedule for them that the nurses like to stick to. After the 14 days or so and you’re close to going home they will room you in with your babies (your partner can come too) and they’ll see how you go with them through the night and then check all the vitals the next morning to make sure everything is okay. It’s a tough little while but they’re getting the care they need and you’ll be super grateful to have them home!
Thankyou for reading and I hope this helped somehow! I will be doing another one dedicated to twins and other things such as breastfeeding but I didn’t want to shove it all into one big post! Keep an eye out for it and show someone you know who is having twins it might help them out, I know I would’ve loved something like this.
Hope you guys enjoy! ☺️
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