Birth story - Jessica and babies Amelia and Jasmine

I completed the course last year during my first pregnancy and absolutely loved it so purchased it again this time round. When I found out I was pregnant again so soon after having my first baby I was so worried that my body wasn't ready and wouldn't cope with labour. When I found out it was twins, I became twice as worried and knew I wouldn't be allowed a home birth. The idea of a hospital birth and giving birth in front of a crowd terrified me. I suffered really badly with sickness and my back has never known pain like it!

June 26th I had my first consultant appointment. She examined me and I was 5cm dilated?! She called the labour ward and told them that she could see twin 1's head 😅. My first labour was 3 hours and my partner ended up delivering our daughter at home, wasn't the plan but was amazing. The consultant told me she wanted to admit me asap so my partner didn't have to deliver twins at home too. She sent me home to get my bags then my partner dropped me back to the hospital again.

I started off in triage and was monitored for 45 mins. I sent my partner home as my sister was watching our 1 year old and we only live 5 mins away. It was super busy on the labour ward and I wasn't in active labour despite being 5cm's, so I had to wait for a bed on a ward before delivery could accept me from triage.

The next morning at 7am I was told they had a room for me and I rang my partner and told him to head over. Woohoo! I had to be monitored before they could artificially break my waters and the twins were so cwtched up it made it difficult to get both heartbeats so it took 2 hours. My waters were then broken at 9am and contractions started straight away. I was having 3 or 4 in 10 minutes that were lasting about 45 seconds to a minute. Contractions were manageable the whole time and I just breathed through them, they were never painful just increased in intensity and weirdly never felt too intense either. I asked to try gas and air so that I could practice breathing with it for when things did get too intense. I didn't want to use too much as I found it made me too lightheaded and way too relaxed.

At 12.30 (3.5 hours later) I was examined and was 10cm. We couldn't believe it!! Contractions had started to feel a little pushy but it was so painless I never would have guessed I'd progressed to 10 so fast. I let my body push involuntarily for about half an hour as the pushy feeling was increasing although still not overwhelming. At about 1pm Midwife told me to try and push 3 times during each contraction, so I did this gently (never been a fan of actively pushing, didn't push at all with my first daughter).

Amelia was born at 13.14 and 9 minutes later Jasmine was born! We were over the moon! Midwife had never seen someone give birth so quietly 🤣 I just breathed and didn't make a sound. Even shocked myself with how I handled it.

I had a small tear from how fast twin 2 was born but was stitched with gas and air and healed really quickly. I also had the syntocinon drip as a precaution after the ginormous placentas came out. Didn't realise they would come out as 1!!!!

We all went home within 24 hours as had to wait for a Dr to check them both over when they were 6+ hours old. Ever since, we have been loving life as a family of 5! Still can't believe we have a girl gang and 3 babies well under 2 years old. Can't wait to watch them all grow up as best friends. ❤❤❤❤❤