Liam and Dale’s life story – the birth of my sleeping angels.
Its two weeks today since I found out I'd lost my twins - writing all this down helps I think. Its long and I'm sure destressing in parts.
My DH and I were so excited to be pregnant (again) after a blighted ovum in January. We felt so blessed that it had happened so quick for us, almost like it was meant to be. Things just felt great from early on, no bleeding, minimal cramping, just happy pregnancy vibes.
At 7 weeks I had an appointment with my OB to have a scan to check all was progressing. We were so happy to see a baby on the somewhat small and outdated screen, but to see the grainy image and hear a rapid heart beat was the best news ever. Yea – this time it was going to stick and we were going to be parents.
The following week all those healthy pregnancy vibes disappeared and I was so sick. Yuck – could morning sickness really be this bad. I was bed bound almost all day and was throwing up what seemed like constantly. After some trial and error I was prescribed Zofran which is seriously brilliant and I’m sure was the thing that kept me out of hospital.
Fast forward to our 12 week scan and a fabulous bombshell is dropped – ‘do you know you have two in there’ is what the lady said. Wow – twins and they are identical. Add every emotion possible and that’s how we felt. We felt such happiness that we were blessed with two babies, but coupled with a sense of loss that we were not going to have all the single baby pleasures.
Whilst I still was feeling pretty yuck, the morning sickness gradually eased so I was only really bad in the evenings. That suited me fine as I could keep doing some work during the day in between resting, yoga and planning for the babies. We were just so happy!!!
Fast forward again to 19 weeks and yet another bombshell is dropped – this one was not at all good, or to be honest expected, ‘I’m sorry, but both your babies have died about a week ago’ said the lady. ‘It has all the hall marks of twin to twin transfusion. You need to go to see your OB now, he is waiting for you’.
DH and I were devastated – we asked how is that possible, we did everything right, everything we were told to do and yet I have two dead babies in my belly. Why me, this is not fair.
We arrived at the OB’s and he was equally devastated. There did not seem to be any answers for what had just happened. He was adamant about getting us into hospital to have an induction. He even wanted us to go in that night – I refused, but consented to go in the next morning.
The next day at 6.30am my husband and I arrived at the hospital and were taken through to a delivery suite. This would be our home for two days. I was poked, prodded, lines were inserted, blood was taken and I was to swallow a couple of pills whilst also having two inserted towards my cervix. These internal pills were given every five hours and they made me so ill. I had a massive reaction every time from shaking so hard for an hour afterwards to seeing my temperature rise to 39.2 later that evening.
Things were not really progressing beyond some mild cramps and all these bad reactions. It was clear my boys were not ready to be born, and my body was not ready to let them go.
Finally at 6.30am on Thursday 29 July 2010 the cramps intensified to contractions which started at three minutes apart. Within two hours they were constant at one minute apart and were leaving me little time to recover between. I was offered gas and took it. The gas helped me to focus on breathing and it took the edge off the worst of it.
At about 9.30am I felt the urge to push, it was like a pressure on insides pushing down. The midwife suggested I try a few pushes and go with my body but after a while it felt like nothing was progressing, the bubs just did not want to come out.
I was told to breathe through the next few contractions and not push, the idea was that I needed to be a bit more dilated that I was – at the time about 5-6cm. After feeling pretty crappy about this whole labour thing I decided it was time for pethadine (or really any drugs they would give me). Thankfully my midwife said no and got me to focus on the job, and minutes later my OB came in with a lovely big stick in hand (well that’s what my DH said it looked like).
With a few adjustments here and there he broke the waters of my first baby and moved him around from trying to come out bum first. Little Dale was born with only two of three pushes at 10.08am, weighing 140g and measuring 11cm.
What seemed like seconds later Liam had got himself into position and in a tidal wave my waters broke and one push later at 10.11am the lovely Liam entered the world. He was 160g and measured 12cm.
Another couple of jabs here and there and I was hooked up to a drip and passed the placenta. Both the babies were then taken away to be cleaned up. The midwife came back with the boys in what seemed like just minutes and we had our first cuddle as a family.
Liam was more developed than Dale and was dark red in colour (due to the twin transfusion – he had got too much blood) but he was so peaceful, almost cheeky looking. Dale was clearly the younger brother, and the way the midwife had arranged the boys with Liam’s arm over Dale’s looked almost protective.
We cried and we held each other as what had finally happened to us sunk in. After a while I was moved to a private room in close to the midwives, but away from the other mums and their babies. DH went home and to get some air and I had a nap with my babies who lay beside me in a lovely little sea grass bassinette.
DH came back later that afternoon and we had dinner together as a family. He sat on the end of the bed and we pulled our babies cot close by. We looked over and smiled at our previous angels who we would never know or see again in this world.
We left that night after the midwife had made arrangements for the funeral company to collect the boys. We arranged a cremation and today our boys ashes sit in our lounge / dining room so they are always within our sight.
I miss them and my body aches for them everyday. I’m writing this and I should be 22 weeks pregnant – instead I gave birth to my babies at 19w4d.
If there is any positive that can come out of this I ask you all to spread the word on the importance of regular scans from 16 weeks for women with identical twin pregnancies. If I’d been scanned early this story might be very different, of course, it might not have changed the ending, but at least I could have fought for my babies.
