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[dcdatwins]

Twin 1's balloon was blue and twins 2's was pink, what an amazing and lucky act of god, our rainbow babies were creating a rainbow of their own in 2 colours. A boy and a girl WOW!!

After that night was a flurry of activity, I'm relatively sure us and the amazon delivery man were on first name terms, our families were sending packages by the dozen in yes you guessed in pink and blue. We created an amazon baby wish list which was so helpful as we shared it with our family and friends who could not visit at the time with restrictions, but they then knew what we needed, and whenever and item was purchased it notified us and then disappeared of the wish list so that no one else could buy it, definitely a must for any future parents.

We had our first twin consultation who confirmed that we were expecting DCDA twins as they each had their own placenta and their own amniotic sac, and apparently the most risk free twin pregnancy which should have eased me but still didn't. I was elated that the twins were safe and healthy and growing but that little niggle of doubt was still in the back of my mind, that something was going to go wrong, this was obviously due to past experiences but I didn't want to share this with my husband ( yes he is one of the most sensitive guys on the planet but when it comes to me and the kids he would worry constantly and try fuss and talk about it which to be honest at the time I didn't want to, and may didn't want to admit my fear, almost like if I spoke about it then it would come true) he was at that stage almost beating his chest and acting like the most virile male on the planet.

I had fortnightly scans to check the position and growth of the twins, they were concerned about my little girl (Twin 2) as she appeared to have slightly low amniotic fluid and wasn't quite growing at the same rate as her twins brother, but they weren't drastically concerned.

As I reached the 30 week mark my appointments then changed to once a week just to monitor the babies closely, this was comforting as I knew they were safe every week but also worried me, my mind kept questioning why they had increased my frequency at going to the hospital, did they know something they weren't telling me? Were they concerned about something, again my mind in over drive though as every appointment they were happy and just monitoring them.

I went for my usual weekly appointment on 24/02/2022, had my usual urine sample, blood pressure check and scan, then went in to see the consultant. She felt my stomach to check on the position of the babies and froze, she then decided she was going to do an internal check. The obvious panic rose in my chest, and as this was during covid I couldn't have my husband there with me, which only made things worse, my rock was sat outside in the waiting room oblivious to my fear and panic.

She performed the internal check, my hands gripping the side of the bed, knuckles white, I dared to open my eyes, behind the mask I could see the change in her face and knew she was smiling, I dared to ask the dreaded question if everything was ok....

[dcdatwins]

This then lead to my husband having the biggest manly smile on his face that you can imagine, as a solitary tear or joy ran down my face, the reality hit....TWINS.....TWO BABIES!! The first thing to come out of my mouth should have something of joy and relief, but it was in fact;

'I'm booking you in for the snip'

To this day I don't know why this was the first thing that I thought of but it was, we sat there for what felt like an eternity while she checked that there was 20 little fingers and 20 little toes, 2 sets of fully functioning body parts, then she asked if we wanted to know the genders, Our family had planned a gender reveal, so we asked for them to be put in to a little envelope.

We left the hospital elated and happy, our baby had turned in to two and they were both healthy, not one but 2 little rainbow babies and miracles.

We returned home to text messages and voicemails from family members asking if we were okay and if the baby was okay, I suspect that because we had taken a lot longer than originally planned they were suspecting the worst had happened, they were soon in for a shock, just like we were, but a great one.

We took the envelope over to my mum and left it on the doorstep, she was planning our gender reveal, as this was during covid we had to be very careful about how this was to be done. As we sat in the car and waited we got a phone call,

'TWINS!! IT'S TWINS' My mum cried down the phone, she then told us it was ready, my husband then went up to collect the gigantic box ready for us to take home. We had no idea what was in it.

We set up every device in the house on to video call and called our families so they could be part of the gender reveal without breaking any form of covid rules. Opening the box and out came a flurry of pink and blue balloons, two balloons stayed in the box weighed down, on the ballons were the words Twin 1 and Twin 2....

[dcdatwins]

The start of our journey

So the start of our journey was when we lost our previous baby through an ectopic pregnancy, it was scary and horrifying, I was told the original symptoms were IBS but in fact it was not. I nearly lost my life through this, my husband and I had to really consider another child ( we have two daughters already), then the delights of covid hit. We were both working in hospitality ( Him as a head chef and me as a front of house manager) Our income dropped rapidly. I took a job in the care sector to provide for my family. This was a very rewarding job but during the testing times of covid and a care staff shortage it was manic to say the least, long hours and the obvious risk of contracting covid and passing it on to my family. We found out we were pregnant in early November 2020, we assumed I was very early on in pregnancy due to me still running about at home and at work in size 8 jeans!! We decided to get checked straight away due to our previous experience and pregnancy loss. The thought of going to a hospital was so scary to us, as not only was Covid still very high in our area at this time but also the fear of it happening again, the fear of knowing the child we already loved was not to be, and could also endanger my life. The prospect of this was awful, I am not a person who usually suffers from any form of anxiety and for this I have always thanked by lucky stars, but walking in to that hospital I was almost hyperventilating with fear. Sat in the waiting room were quite a few women with similar looks on their faces, the fear of what being in this area with people you didn't know, people who you didn't know if they were testing for covid as regularly as they should, and who may have had their own personal fears as I did, this was evident behind the hospital issue covid masks and the noise of the TV in the background. My husband had been sent to a separate waiting room that was just for the partners of the expectant mums, this was so difficult my husband was not sat holding my hand while the tears silently fell down my face.

We eventually was called through to the sonographer, I laid on the bed and silently prayed for my little bean to be okay. The sonographer was concentrating so hard on the screen, the silence was almost deafening, I just wanted to scream please just tell me, but I couldn't, as secretly I didn't want to know. Another sonographer appeared at the door to ask a random question that I can't fully remember now what it was, the sonographer asked her to come and look at the screen, by this point I was starting to really worry. They both looked at the screen for what seemed like an hour but was more like 2 minutes., Eventually the words

'I'm sorry to tell you this'

Came out of her mouth, I grabbed my husbands hand not sure if I wanted to scream or sob, while my husband did the male thing of rubbing his thumb over my knuckles (I'm not sure whether this was to calm me or him) she continued with;

'It's twins and you are a lot further on than you suspected, you are measuring at exactly 24 weeks today!!

[dcdatwins]

Hi everyone,

So this is my first post, I am starting this as when I found out I was pregnant with twins I had no idea where to turn for help and information that was not all horror stories, I want to share my story with the world of twin parents and expectant twin parents to show that yes this was a completely different pregnancy ( as you would expect with twins) but also the positive side of it as well, also some little things I learnt along the way for both pregnancy and life with these twinlets.