So what are your plans for birth at the moment? You said you’d moved away from the caesarean as a kind of..?

Well, I had always assumed that I would have a caesarean, really. And so I was quite shocked when the last scan was that the baby had turned round. And that was quite alarming really, because I hadn’t psychologically prepared myself yet [laughs] for a natural birth. But, and again I’d sort of taken the approach that, that whatever, I didn’t have a sort of particularly strong view against a caesarean or in favour of a caesarean. But that the reality was that however the babies were going to be placed, that was going to dictate what it was. There was nothing I could do about it. But I had in the back of my mind always thought because it was twins that I probably would have a caesarean. So I’ve had to sort of re-think now, and get my head around the idea that it’s not. And that’s kind of quite a difficult thing, because the advice that the consultant’s given me now is that a vaginal delivery would be, would be fine even if the second baby is breech, so long as the first ones head down.

But that I should have an epidural, because there are, theres likely to be intervention with the second baby, either to turn her if shes not the right way or to, if shes going to be born breech they’ll have to have, they usually have a forceps delivery. And so that all sounds a bit horrendous, but again I’m going for an, to see the consultant next week on Monday, where well get a better idea. Although ironically having had all of these scans up until now, she said that I don’t need to have another one, which would seem like, now I feel very indignant about it because I’ve got used to having them. And at this crucial stage shes telling me I don’t need to know how they are and what they’re growing like and everything.

Because the information they give you is obviously again to say that they’re, that everything’s going fine, but they also can tell you how much they weigh, which is quite a sort of factor with twins because of the risk that they might be small. And so I’ll feel that when I go on Monday I’m going to say, ‘You know you said I don’t need a scan – can I have one?’ [Laughs] Just to, just to see how they are. But, yeah.
Right, so all a bit up in the air at the moment.

Yeah, up in the air, that’s the best way to describe it.
Has that made it difficult to kind of discuss like in antenatal classes with other parents what you might do, knowing that you’ve got these special circumstances?

Not really, no. Well, I mean, I suppose I’ve only, I’ve been to two classes and I also went to yoga, one session of yoga, antenatal yoga, where we had a lot of discussion about what was what, and up until, and all of that was before the baby had turned. So I’ve always had the discussions with people on the basis that I was assuming I’d probably have a caesarean. And most people that I’ve spoken to are very, are keen to have a natural birth, whereas I’ve been much more ambivalent, so. And especially in the yoga class, the teacher there was very keen to sort of, to be saying, ‘You know, you don’t need to be too anxious about births, and they do have successful twin deliveries at the hospital’, and she was aware of people who’d recently had twins there without any difficulty.

And I was surprised at the extent to which there isn’t really very extensive provision of antenatal classes. Because I had thought that you would go to classes for quite a long time, and that would be your opportunity to meet other mums and things like that, because having, I mean, working full time, I don’t know a lot of local people in that kind of way. And I certainly don’t know many people who live locally with children. But it seems that quite a lot of antenatal classes don’t take place. And they don’t have the staff to run them and they’ve had no specific availability of any antenatal classes about twins, because the person that they had, has gone, is not there anymore who was doing twins. And I think that’s a bit of a shame. I think that that does mean that there is more of a gulf for me in terms of it being a medical process, as opposed to something more sort of normal and part of, just part of your life, because theres quite a gap.

They were born by caesarean because there were difficulties with the labour. I had considered an elective caesarean and had discussed this at length with my doctor. She had been very supportive of that because I’d had such a very poor, it says ‘POOR OBSTETRIC HISTORY’ in capital letters on the front of my file, I saw it at the hospital. And, which was good because it made people read my file, because the number of times nobody has read your file and you have to explain everything to them is quite frustrating. But she had said she would quite willingly book me in because I was, I had effectively had a labour and had a dead baby and I, at the back of my mind was the thought that that could happen again. And I think also I know caesareans carry their own risk with them, but it seemed a medical intervention risk rather than letting nature take its course. And letting nature take its course hadn’t got me very far, and medical intervention had got me to the point where I was going to have healthy babies. So she was quite willing to do that but made the point that twins quite often come early. That she would not book in an elective caesarean a month prior to delivery date, she wasn’t prepared to do that which, she said theres no point in taking them out before they’re ready. But it, they made it very clear in my notes that, that there was to be no risk taken and at the end of the day I wanted a healthy baby, well, two healthy babies.

I went into labour and my daughter, her head became stuck and couldn’t get her out, and while her head was stuck my son’s heartbeat went into, it would, it kept going up and down…

So the delivery was by caesarean section and was very efficient. The doctor came to me at 11’30 and said, he actually gave me the option. He said, ‘Could you, one of them could be born vaginally but that would have to be with ventouse or with those horrible big metal stretchy..

Forceps?

Forceps, that’s it, forceps. And, no, I’d seen those, they’d shown me those at an NCT lecture. They’d shown me forceps and I just thought, no, that’s not good, don’t really want that. And the other one would have to be born by caesarean anyway, and to be honest, to be messed about in both areas seemed a bit unnecessary. So it was decided to do a caesarean. That was 11’35. I remember looking at the clock and my daughter was born at 12’00 lunchtime and my son was born at 12’02. And they were reasonable sizes, my daughter was 4lbs 10, my son was 5lbs 10.

Okay this is your second pregnancy isn’t it;

Mm hmm.

Do you want to tell me a little bit about the first pregnancy and delivery;

Right. The first pregnancy was fine, actually. I mean, it was through the summer so it was quite hot and I was quite large. It was always going to be a big baby so, you know, I felt really quite sort of encumbered by it, but it was fine. I had slightly high blood pressure, but nothing out of the ordinary. And then at about thirty weeks it was discovered that the baby was breech so then there was quite a lot of anxiety because I desperately didn’t want to have a caesarean, and I knew that was sort of the natural outcome of having a breech baby, so I did lots of things to try and turn the baby myself, like lots of scrubbing floors and lots of exercises. And as it got closer and closer to the due date I spent quite a lot of money seeing lots of people like acupuncturists and chiropractors and people like that, who all thought they could do something to move the baby, but nothing happened. And then we had an ECV treatment at the hospital and that was successful, and that was very straightforward.

Tell me about the ECV?

It was basically where, it was all, it was quite straightforward. The obstetrician just literally put her hands on my tummy and moved the baby round like this.

What does ECV stand for?

It stands for I think it stands for external cephalic version, I think. Meaning it’s a turning of the baby from, from outside. And it was quite manual, we were in the delivery suite and I was all hooked up and things so it seemed it was, that was sort of hi-tech but the actual procedure itself was just literally the hands of the obstetrician, that was it. And she managed to move the baby round.

I went in on the Monday and I had to have a heart trace of the baby, and they said, Oh, can you go up to the delivery suite, please So I went up to the delivery suite and I went up there, I stayed there until 5 oclock in the morning and then they said, Oh, it’s fine, you know, you haven’t started your labour, so well keep you in Sent my husband home at 5 oclock in the morning and then he came to pick me up the next day. And then they told me to come back on the Wednesday for another heart trace; came back on the Wednesday, they sent me back up to delivery and then they then started me off because – which I didn’t know at the time, I only knew when I was 8cms dilated – that the baby had been in distress on the Monday and on the Wednesday. And then when I was 8cms dilated they realised that my daughter was coming out bum first, breech, double breech instead of her head, obviously. The surgeon came in to see me, asked me what size shoe I was, so..

What size shoe?

Shoe, because apparently your shoe size is the size of your pelvis.

Is that true?

Yes. And because I was only size 3, anyone who’s a size 5 and above could bring a breech baby. Anyone who’s below has to have a section and I was a, only a 3, a size 3, so I’ve only got little feet. And I went in, I got, he done like a scan and showed me, you know, that it was bum and everything. But she was breech at 5 months and I did try to tell them quite a few times that she hadn’t turned round but, you know, according to the midwife and everyone else she had, you know, but she didn’t. I went in, I had an epidural, which was fine, because I was sitting talking to my husband while I was getting it done. It was quite strange, it quite surreal, actually, lying there talking to my husband while, you know, obviously they’d cut me open and what have you and then woke up in recovery. I was okay the next day, I wasn’t too bad, but it was, she was, she was great and I was great. We went home 3 days later, the midwife came out to visit us, took the stitches out after so many days and she was perfectly fine.