Birth story - Jodie and baby girls

This is a LONG one, sorry not sorry. I want to share it all though in case any of it helps someone in a similar position.

I feel like I need to give some context before I start telling my story. I am THE most squeamish person in the world. I’m a terrible over thinker and faint at the slightest thought of anything which in my head feels “unnatural”. This can sometimes be quite funny, and my fainting history includes amazing examples like standing OUTSIDE the shop while my friend got her ears pierced, or walking round Morrison’s buying soup after collecting my husband from the hospital after him having his wisdom teeth removed. I hate injections and blood tests, and to me the thought of surgery is my absolute worst nightmare, so much so that I put off getting pregnant for a good few years even though we really wanted children because I was so scared of having a c-section. I forced myself to get a big tattoo as part of my mental preparation for getting pregnant, a way of proving to myself I could do things I was scared of if I had to!

2020 and we’d planned one last holiday before trying for a baby (another delay tactic by me!) but the holiday got cancelled due to COVID and so we agreed it was time! We were really lucky to fall pregnant very quickly.

My pregnancy was great. I had no sickness at all, but did feel extremely tired from about week 6, and I did notice my jeans were getting a bit tight by about week 8. I googled how quickly you get a baby bump and the answers I got made me put it down to the lockdown takeaways we’d been having! I never once thought there could be two babies in there!

We’d booked a private scan for 11 weeks as we knew my husband wouldn’t be allowed in to the NHS scan due to COVID restrictions, and we wanted to be together the first time we saw our baby. Well we had the shock of our lives when the sonographer calmly said “yep there’s two healthy heartbeats in there”. My husband asked him if he was joking and I just remember saying “I don’t think they’re allowed to joke about stuff like this”! I spent the rest of the appointment mouthing ‘WTF’ to myself behind my face mask.

It wasn’t until the drive home that I realised - twins meant everything I didn’t want from a birth. The risks that come with twins mean that the chances for medical intervention are much higher and so I instantly started panicking that I’d have to have a cesarean and it was too late to change my mind. It’s fair to say that night I had a huge meltdown. I can’t do this, why twins, why me...?

I had my NHS scan the following week which confirmed the twins were MCDA, identical twins in separate sacs but sharing a placenta. This meant I was quite high risk and moved to consultant led care. I would have fortnightly scans to keep an eye on the babies and make sure everything was ok.

Due to a(nother) meltdown at my first consultant appointment (this time over a blood test) I was referred to the perinatal mental health team, who put me in touch with their psychologists to discuss anxiety reducing techniques in an attempt to keep me calm. And then I also found PBC!

I’d always planned to do hypnobirthing so when my friend recommended the digital pack I bought it straight away and my husband and I watched all of the videos together. I was really torn watching them- half of me LOVED what they were saying, had me believe I could manifest the birth I wanted and even got a teeny bit excited to give birth. The other half of me was saying don’t be stupid, these videos aren’t made for twin pregnancies, none of this applies to you. I cried through a few of them, and I skipped the cesarean video. Even listening to someone else talk about it was too much for me.

It’s fair to say my consultant was a cesarean advocate, he told me when we got closer to the time he’d like to book me in to which I told him he had the wrong girl and the only way I’d be having a cesarean was if it was an emergency. I honestly don’t think I’d have had this confidence without the PBC constantly reminding me I was in charge.

I decided to use a ‘don’t think about it and you might not need to give birth after all’ method of coping for the remainder of my pregnancy and it worked well up until about week 32 when the mental health midwives said we needed a birth planning session. The first question they asked was what’s your ideal birth to which I answered “someone else doing it” and I think they quickly got my vibe! Joking aside, the session was really useful, there was a consultant, a midwife and a psychologist all there and the consultant talked me through the ways of giving birth to twins- from my ideal all the way through to my nightmare. They asked how I’d feel about being in theatre from the off, even if delivering naturally because the rooms were bigger and it would give all the people that needed to be involved more space. It was a no from me. I made it really clear that I wanted as few people as possible there and that I didn’t want an epidural ‘just in case’ even though this is heavily recommended for twins. I left with a birth plan that said everything it needed to, even though I got the feeling they thought it was very unlikely to happen how I would like.

I was told that 34 weeks onwards was ‘normal’ for identical twins to be born, and I’d be steered towards induction if they weren’t here by 36 weeks so I had a 2 week window for things to kick off naturally.

I knew how important being relaxed was to bring on natural labour so I gave my husband strict instructions to bite his tongue in every argument and let me just have it my way! I ate loads of pineapple and had chilli with every meal!

34+6 - I was completely in the zone doing a jigsaw relaxed to the max when my waters broke. We called the hospital and they said to come in and that because I was so premature (even though normal for twins) I wouldn’t be going home again. They gave me the first of two steroid injections in my bum (horrible, awful, the worst) and moved me to a bed for the night. A few hours later about 1.30am I had my first contraction, and an hour later I downloaded the Freya app to keep me company for the night of no sleep.

The following day (35w) I had contractions all day which varied in their intensity, but I found them manageable with up breathing, the help of Freya, and a tens machine. This continued until midnight when I was moved onto the labour ward and examined. I was 5cm.

Tea lights on, room spray spritzed, music playing. 2 hours later at 2.30am I was 9cm. The midwives couldn’t believe how relaxed I was and put the quick progress down to that.

However at 8am I was still 9cm, and the external monitor kept falling off twin 1 and this had meant there had been 45 minutes where they didn’t have any visibility of how they were coping. The atmosphere had changed a bit, I had an anaesthetist come in and check my back and I was asked to take off my jewellery. I knew what this meant. The doctor came in and said she was going to recommend we go to theatre. Everyone left the room and I burst into tears, my worst fears moments from coming true. The midwife then came back in and said she was going back to argue my case with the doctor. It wasn’t that they couldn’t pick up a heartbeat, it was just that the bands had fallen off. I agreed to a clip for twin 1 (which I’d previously declined) for constant monitoring and had the hormone drip to speed things up. It was agreed we could give it an hour or so and the consultant would come back and then we’d make a decision based on progress.

This was it. Time to shine. I told my husband to put S Club 7 greatest hits on. I needed to get back to a positive mindset otherwise it was never going to work.

Miraculously, things went to plan. Twin 1 was back being monitored, the drip was gradually increased and with a bit of gas and air I got to 10cm. I told the midwife I needed to push. She disappeared and came back with a grin on her face - she’d agreed with the consultant that they would deliver with just the two of them in the room, something she’d never seen done before. Everyone else would be waiting outside the doors in case they were needed.

It was all a bit of a blur from here but at 13.39 twin 1 was born and 13 minutes later at 13.52 twin 2 followed.

Two healthy, beautiful, identical twin girls

I had a 2nd degree tear, and the stitches were (mentally) the worst bit of the whole birth. I got through it with an eye mask on, headphones in and I sucked on that gas and air like my life depended on it.

I STILL can’t believe what I did. 36 hours of contractions! Stitches! Injections! A cannula! A drip! I literally felt like superwoman afterwards and I feel SO positively about my birth, something which I honestly never thought was possible.

We stayed in hospital for 5 days, more routine than anything else, and then we took our baby girls home. They are nearly 4 months old now and absolutely, totally, utterly amazing.

Thank you PBC for everything, I really couldn’t have done it without you and Freya - and all of the expectant mamas to be you’ve totally got this If I can do it, anyone can!