My birth story… by Amy Miskelly
It was confirmed that I was pregnant again when Mollie was 7 months old, but almost immediately I began bleeding. My doctor booked me in for an early scan so off me and dh trotted on Monday morning after a very tense weekend of waiting to see if the ‘baby’ would make it or not. I was scanned in the same room as I had been when had early preg scan with Mollie and also where we had lost 2 babies before her so it was a tense time. The nurse in there with me had been there for all of my scans so was a friendly face.
So there I am lying on the bed, dh off to one side, when we were asked if we minded if an advanced trainee sonographer scanning us. We said no, so off she went (the trainee), all over my stomach, stopping and starting, looking at the monitor and frowning. Obviously I thought it was bad news, and when the trainee turned around to the sonogrpaher and said “Do you want to tell the client” I burst into tears.
I was pretty sure my baby had gone to be with its 2 siblings, so the ‘proper’ sonographer whips the screen round to me, plonks the scanner on my tummy and says “this one is fine and this one here is doing just fine as well. We’ll just make 100% sure that there aren’t any more in there!” by this time the tears are tears of joy, the nurse next to me is crying, dh is in shock and all I can say is “No, no, not twins!”
I had morning sickness, I had heartburn in fact I had everything possible during that pregnancy and then some! We didn’t want to know what we were having and the sonographers at each scan were very good and avoided any ‘tricky’ areas when I was watching the screen … until Joshua did a slow roll over one day just as she was doing his hips and we got a pretty good view of what was very obviously a boy! Because no-one was sure if they were id or not we asked what the other one was and it was a Thomas.
7 turbulent months later I was trying to lift Mollie into her high chair, or was it out of it ? … Whatever, I got the most awful pain across my abdomen and within the hour we were at Grimsby Maternity unit. I physically couldn’t walk inside the door and just froze and the next few minutes are a bit hazy but I do know that ‘wheelchair man’ came to my rescue! I later learnt that a consultant attending a birth in the labour suite saw me slumped against the wall and rushed up with a wheelchair!
I was rushed into a labour room, given all sorts of test and steroid injections to boost the babies lungs, we were there for 3 hours before they decided I wasn’t in labour after all and possibly had some sort of an infection. I was in the unit for a week being monitored and had my kidneys scanned, still very sick every day and because of that wasn’t allowed home.
Eventually I did get back home but a week after that Thomas who was the highest twin decided he wanted to be the lowest twin and tried to turn over … and got stuck – so back to Grimsby I go with a very strangely shaped bump all off to the left hand side. I was in agony, couldn’t bear for anyone to touch my bump and remember swearing at the consultant who had to manipulate Thomas back where he should be. All this happened towards the end of August and I became paranoid that I would have one on 31st August and one on 1st September putting them into 2 different school years …
September arrived without too many incidents! and Dean, Mollie and I were enjoying a Sunday morning cuppa with biscuits in bed … when i got out of the bed my waters broke – all over the poor dog who way lying next to the bed trying to cadge biscuits! Once Mollie was safely deposited at my mums it was off to Grimsby yet again but nothing was happening. I was given more steroid injections as I was 5 weeks early and remember hearinglots of laughter when someone new read my notes as to where I was when my waters broke [it is in my notes as ‘all over the dog!].
After 24 hrs I was rushed into a labour room. Rushed not because of an emergency, but because the rooms were chokka block with mums and someone from my ‘team’ had pounced on an empty one! Epidural was put in in case of a section and I was induced by drip … not a too eventful labour apart from the BP machine going haywire and not stopping pumping up!
Once things got moving they broke my 2nd bag of waters and didn’t listen when I told them to stand back – when I had Mollie I literally flooded the delivery room! – Joshie was deliverd first, it says ventouse in the notes but the cap came off just as I pushed him our so it’s up for debate! A quick cuddle and he was off to SCBU. Then I fell asleep – really! – I was totally wiped out, I’d had little or no sleep the night before and very little the week before and was just physically exhausted – such a dignified postition as well – legs up with all to see!! Dean says I was snoring at one point …
Thomas seemed to be quite happy where he was and didn’t want to put in an appearance but because his brother was out he had to be out as well! It was now 45 minutes since Joshua’s arrival and the emergency team in theatre had been alerted that I was on my way. My epidural was topped up and they were ready to take me to theatre, except I was hanging onto the sides of the bed yelling “NO SECTION, I’ve got a 14 month old daughter at home, HOW do you think I’m going to manage all stitched up!!”.
The consultant in the room was very dry and replied “Mrs Miskelly, it’s no good hanging onto the bed, it’s on wheels, we can take you anywhere we like!” but he did listen to my ‘request’ and offerd to try and break Thomas bag to see if he would “drop enough to grab his feet”. (We knew he was going to be delivered breech] to which I agreed. So they did, Thomas did as requested and dropped far enough for them to literally grab his feet and pull him out. There were a few tense moments when he wasn’t breathing and I only got a very quick glimpse of him before he joined Joshie in SCBU.
An hour later I was taken to see them and found out that Joshie weighed in at 5 lb 9 oz and Thomas 6lb 13 oz … I hate to think what weight they would have been if I’d gone to term with them!
Joshie came out his incubator after 2 days and Thomas 2 days after that then they both progressed amazingly and were allowed home at 6 days old. Writing this, they are 6 years old and I wonder where the time has gone to!
Hope you enjoyed reading !