We were absolutely over the moon to find out we were having another baby. We always wanted a close gap between our kids and expected to stop at two. I was hit with immense exhaustion almost immediately, and at our first scan, we found out it was ridiculously early, somewhere around four weeks.
My partner (Tom) almost immediately asked if it was two separate sacs that we saw. Our sonographer, who was also a family friend, hinted that there was and told us to come back in a couple of weeks and confirm. It was two weeks later that we found out our baby was actually two. Pregnancy was full-on. The first 6-7 months were a breeze. It's not that hard having two in there, I thought to myself.
At around 32 weeks, my mindset completely changed, and I could not believe my body was still holding up. Between hospital stays every week for gestational hypertension and looking after my one-year-old when I wasn't in the hospital, I was beyond exhausted.
Fast forward to 36 weeks; I was discharged from the hospital for the weekend. I chilled out and went to bed early on the Sunday night. I woke up at 4 am on Monday morning, nothing unusual as I'd been waking up 4/5 times a night by this stage anyway. I got up, went to the bathroom and jumped back into bed for 10 minutes. My toddler woke up about 5 minutes later, so I started walking him around the house, thinking he would go back to sleep.
I'd walked him for about 2/3 minutes when I had my first contraction, it wasn't too intense, and I just continued to rock him think it was probably the Braxton Hicks I'd been having for months. I had another one and decided to wake up my partner just in case. A couple more contractions, righto we are on, I told Tom. Contractions were still spaced out, but as we were having twins (a previous quick labour), the hospital had always said to be there at the first signs. For this reason, we called our sons Pa, who picked him up right away. I was desperate for a shower and went to have one before we left. Tom talked me out of it and said, come on, let's just get to the hospital, and you can have one there. I rang the hospital and spoke with a family friend who's also a midwife, having a baby in the car herself. The only thing she said was to get an ambulance if you need one. I laughed it off, considering I wasn't even in what I felt to be active labour yet!
We were in the car by 4:30 am; contractions were still 5-10 minutes apart and not awfully painful or intense. Convinced we had time, I made a joke about stopping for a coffee.
Ten minutes later, they were closer to 3 minutes and upped in intensity.
So I rearranged myself on the seat and sat backwards as we drove.
Another 10 minutes passed, and I mentioned to Tom that there was no longer a break in between them. They still weren't awfully intense, enough to take my breath away but having a baby before I knew that was probably not going to make it.
Still 10 minutes away from the hospital was when I gave in, and I knew he was coming. The first push and our little man was here at 5:01 am with Tom catching him in one hand, trying to pull over with the other. He had his cord wrapped around his neck twice but was screaming and pink.
Tom unwrapped him- we kinda sat there for a moment checking him out, thinking shit, we totally just delivered this babe ourselves. It really wasn't the freaked out shock that you would expect to be in if you had just delivered a twin alone, and all the newborn bliss was there. However, It was about 2degrees outside, the fog was super thick, and we were on a major causeway with no shoulder to pull over on- so we kept driving on. I remember thinking how tiny he was- and trying to wrap him in my shirt as there was literally nothing in the car to keep him warm.
Then, remembering that was only half of the task, all my attention went to twin B. I knew that she had been head down at our last ultrasound, but she had been turning the whole time, and neither of us was prepared to deliver a breached baby in the car.
Tom upped the speed on the way to the hospital and, whilst on the phone to the birth suite, told them to meet us in ED.
We arrived at the hospital at around 5:15, and me and our little man were wheeled up to the delivery suite. There was probably about eight or so people escorting us. Everyone was in a rush, and all I could think was, hell yeah, we just had a baby. I hadn't had any more contractions, so it had been a nice break.
We got to the room and straight away had an ultrasound by the obstetrician. Baby #2 was head down and all ready to go; everyone relaxed for 5 minutes and just let me chill, the tension was lifted from the room, and the 10+ people in our tiny room seemed to slowly filter out. Twin B' waters were then broken. It was short-lived, and our girl went into distress.
I was told she needed to be out now- which felt impossible as I wasn't having major contractions anymore, and I really had no urge to push. Everything went super quick. A midwife was holding my girl from the outside, making sure she didn't turn (with a lot of force).
The obstetrician was telling me when to push because my body wasn't anymore. It felt nothing like the chilled 'come when you're ready experience' with twin A half an hour before. Two pushes later, and our little girl was born- at 5:26 am. Healthy and screaming.
Both babies were taken out of the room but were brought back moments later, and we had two hours of cuddles with them. Unfortunately, I had a spike in my blood pressure that ended up in a met call. At the same time, the babies temperature was taken, and it was found that they were not regulating their body temp properly.
So once again, the room was filled with people for me, and the babies were taken off to the nursery. Thankfully my blood pressure was controlled with meds, and everyone slowly started seeping out of the room.
Tom went down to see the babies who were both in humidcribs with IV's. I had an amazing midwife who made sure as soon as we got the all-clear, I could go down and see them again. She even delayed her break to make sure I got down there as fast as possible. Finn weighed in at 2.5kgs and Indi 2.6. I'd had two babies in a one hour labour, and inevitably we were in shock for most of the day.
However, we were all healthy. The babies spent a week in special care, and we were all discharged a week later.
