HELENA SHERIDAN – TWINS

On discovering we were having twins me and my husband Dominic were absolutely delighted and a little shocked ! After the first scary weeks of pregnancy I began to look forward to my first appointment with the obstetrician.  He, however, assured me that I would probably have a caesarean birth, premature labour and generally a pretty hellish time as a twin pregnancy and delivery was so high risk!

The battle was on!  I decided to have a hospital birth in case of any complications but was absolutely determined that it would be a natural one!  I had given birth to my first child at home and could see no reason why I couldn’t have a natural birth again.  I changed to a different Obstetrician, did a huge amount of research and started to prepare both my body and mind for the birth with reflexology, yoga and relaxation techniques. 

I discussed my birth plan with my Obstetrician and the Manager of the Labour ward to ensure that everyone knew and accepted my requests for the big day.  The hospital criteria was that I give birth in an operating theatre with half the hospital staff present, had an epidural and two monitors strapped to my belly so that I couldn’t move around at all during labour.  I requested to be given a normal labour room with a pool and for my birth to be midwife led unless there was an emergency situation.

At 38.1 I had a show and was having some pretty strong Braxton hicks and by the next day  my blood pressure had gone up to 160/110 (probably a sign I was going into labour).  My Obstetrician told me to go home and get my stuff and come back at lunch time.  He advised me that if we broke the first babies waters that afternoon although the contractions would be very intense I would still have a chance of the natural birth I hoped for, leaving it longer could mean an emergency caesarean.  I took his advise and went home, I had a bubble bath collected my things and we went in with a great feeling of excitement.

 At the hospital everyone was absolutely fantastic. The midwives were very excited about the prospect of a natural twin birth. Annie arrived shortly after us,  my waters where broken at 3.30pm and I set off  to do some stair walking.  By 5pm we agreed I was in labour, the contractions started at 4 minutes apart and lasted for 40 seconds  Very quickly my contractions got much stronger and I had this desperate urge to do a poo!!  Annie had to wait outside about 3 different loos around the hospital and began to encourage me to go back to the labour ward as she thought things were progressing very rapidly and didn’t want to be delivering twins in a loo in the hospital foyer !! 

We arrived back at my room at around 6pm. I still felt very relaxed and although the contractions were very intense it felt wonderful! I got into the water  which brought with it an enormous urge to bear down and a tone of panic in the midwives who quickly helped me out of the bath and onto the bed. I had an internal examination which showed me to be 8cm dilated.  I had them bring up the backrest on the bed to upright so I could lean on it and squat.  At this stage the contractions were coming so fast that I could barely say two words between them. I had some entenox and could hear Annie saying she didn’t think it was going to be long and then whispering in my ear “you are doing brilliantly” which were both really encouraging. I then felt the head of baby number one coming down, the stinging sensation and then the lovely slithering feeling as the body comes out and little Molly was born weighing 7½ lbs.  I cut the cord. As requested she was given straight to me so that I could put her to my breast. Her apgar score was 9 and 10 so there was no need for her to be taken away and for the second birth Dom could hold her. The contractions began which was a little daunting, but I just stayed relaxed and 18 minutes later Luke was born weighing 8 lbs. I held both babies and it was truly wonderful!!!  It had all worked out perfectly!!