Birth story - Holly and babies Daphne and Rose

I'm so excited to share my birth experience. I had my son 4 years ago and had such a lovely water birth using PBC techniques and up breathing. This time I was expecting things to be just as straightforward and would have liked a homebirth until we found out that it was TWINS 🙈

I'm a midwife and to me twins just meant prematurity, intervention and a c section. It did take me a while to come to terms with the fact that I wouldn't have the birth experience or to be honest the parenting experience that I expected. As the birth got closer I found that I genuinely couldn't even think about it. There was no fear, there weren't really any feelings at all. I think this was just my brain and body protecting me. I still started to prepare by using the Freya app to listen to the tracks and practice my breathing as it had helped me so much last time but I did feel a bit in denial about having to birth two babies!

It's recommended that twins are born around 37 weeks and I chose to bring that forward a bit as the babies were measuring very small. Having a scheduled date really helped to put my mind at ease so that we could sort out childcare and start preparing.

The day of the induction I felt weirdly relaxed. I had my waters broken at 1120 at 3cm and went for a long walk, bounced on the ball and kept active but didn't feel that much was happening. I started the oxytocin hormone drip at 1530 and was very keen to get things moving so welcomed every contraction as they got more intense.

I had a clip put on twin 1s head to make monitoring their heart rates easier. I was able to mobilise as much as I wanted even though I had the drip up and the monitors attached, I didn't feel restricted at all. I stood up leaning over the bed, got on a mat on all fours and squatted a lot!

Contractions built up gradually. A misconception of the hormone drip is that strong contractions will start immediately and be more painful, it really wasn't the case. I put on my tens machine which felt really good, like having a back massage! At 1745 I started using the Freya app to talk me through my breathing as contractions were 3:10 lasting around 45 seconds. They became more and more intense but I just wouldn't use the word painful to describe them. None of it felt beyond me, I felt in control and calm.

After an hour of these more intense contractions I could feel pressure but I honestly didn't believe it was happening that quickly and thought I must not be coping very well. I had the transition "wobble" where you feel that you can't do it and think it's still going to be ages and I remember saying "I don't want to do this twice, this is ridiculous!!"

I got on the bed as the clip on twin 1s head had stopped working so wanted to have it repositioned which meant an examination to see how dilated I was. Actually when I got on the bed it started working again and I asked not to be examined as I honestly thought I wouldn't have made any progress! I started spontaneously pushing but still didn't believe it after such a short amount of time! Pushing felt difficult but my body completely took over and it didn't last long at all. I had my husband with me, the support of all my colleagues and friends and I felt so well looked after. Daphne was born at 1914, cried straight away and we had skin to skin and delayed cord clamping.

My waters broke with twin 2 almost immediately and I could feel her coming down. This was the part I'd been most scared of as if twin 2 turns into a difficult position or becomes distressed sometimes an emergency c section is needed. But everything felt fine, I started pushing straight away, again my body just taking over. They scanned her and a consultant examined to make sure she was coming down okay as she was breech. 10 minutes later Rose was born! Again we had delayed cord clamping and skin to skin and it was the most massive relief to have them both here safely. I honestly couldn't believe it. Established labour had only been about a 90 minutes long!

They both wanted to feed straight away and I managed to tandem feed them within half an hour of them being born. There are no words to describe how elated I felt. I had just given birth to TWO babies. I'd had quite a lot of intervention, things that I know a lot of people get very worried about such as an induction and the hormone drip and honestly I couldn't have had a better experience. I felt totally in control, none of it felt beyond me. Even with a cannula, a drip and continuous monitoring I moved as much as I wanted to. I had low lighting, calm voices and even fairy lights strung up around the room 😂

I hope my experience gives some of you hope about induction, intervention and twin births. I think it goes to show that a positive birth experience may not look the way you thought and it's more important that you feel empowered to make decisions that feel right for you and are supported throughout.