arrivals

For those of you who might have fleetingly wondered where I'd gone... there's good news!

Our much longed-for and awaited Abraham and Penelope* were born at 2:49 and 2:50am last Sunday, 12th May - in the early hours of US Mothers' Day. They were both just shy of 6 lbs.

They're basically the best, snuggliest and tiniest creatures either of us have ever encountered. And we kind of can't believe we're all here after what felt like such a ridiculously long road through infertility and a complex twin pregnancy.

The babies and S and I are home, settling, and processing the crazy events of the last week. The babies are healthy and doing well - if small and sleepy - and we're both simultaneously completely in love and completely losing our marbles.

To backtrack...

Last Saturday night (the 11th, exactly 35 weeks) things took a bit of a turn for the worse with the pre-eclampsia. I'd been feeling sort of rough all day, extremely lethargic and finding it hard to even walk around the house (or lift my arms!) which I sort of chalked up to the second blood pressure medication the doctor had introduced on friday. My blood pressure was still really high, but it had been for a few days so it hadn't spiked yet into more serious territory though it kept being right on the borderline.

In the evening the niggly headache I'd had all day seemed to get a bit worse. My parents and S and I were watching the last couple of episodes of The Americans (which I enjoyed, but will forever now blame for maybe expediting things with it's emotional intensity). After we finished watching TV I found myself asking S to turn off the lights in the living room, wanting to sit in the dark for a bit. Though at that point I'd still convinced myself that this was just a normal headache - I used to get migraines that felt very similar - he and my mom were starting to get super concerned and called the doctor.

While I got ready for bed and prepared myself just to sleep it off, S was talking to the doctor who basically said 'come straight in, I'll meet you there.'

When we arrived at the hospital we were hooked up to the fetal heart monitor and both babies seemed to be doing just fine, which was a huge relief. When the doctor arrived we had a pretty short conversation - I was trying to insist that the headache wasn't so bad and could we just see what happened? Even with all the weeks of waiting and wondering and the celebration for having made it as far as we did, it still felt like it was happening too soon, and that I wanted more time.

The doctor, who all along has had a bit of a rough 'tell it like it is' style, said to me that he'd been waiting for some kind of significant change and that this was it. He told us that we could wait, but the next thing we'd be waiting for was probably a seizure, at which point we'd be rushed in and seriously concerned about things like brain damage in one or both babies. Obviously at that point both S and I were like 'ok! let's just go then! take them out this second!'

We had to wait around for a bit while they assembled the team, it was so casual - the doctor just got on his mobile and called around for an anaesthetist (anaesthesiologist) and a neo-natalogist and was chatting with everyone like 'hey, how's it going? how're the kids? are you around for a c-section for a patient with severe fulminating preeclampsia?' (i.e. me...). So off-hand, you'd think it was just during a round on the golf course.

Luckily we'd had dinner fairly early, and though we had some ice cream a bit later we didn't have to wait too long to get to the point where my stomach was empty again. Meanwhile the doctor put us in a room and told us to make a playlist! The whole thing was completely surreal, this room overlooking the Houses of Parliament that were glowing at night and S and I scrambling to try to figure out what music our babies should be born to...

Finally it was time to go and we all ambled down to the operating theatre together, as everyone in the hospital went about their business. S and I must have both looked so terrified, S took a few pictures of me and I look like I'm just about to totally lose it - I've not really ever had surgery before except getting my wisdom teeth taken out as a teenager and I had absolutely no idea what to expect.

Once S had changed into scrubs we were taken into the operating theatre and various people were introduced to us - a nice surgical midwife and the anesthetist who acted sort of as our guide/narrator throughout the process as she was up by my head. Probably the most painful parts of the whole thing (before recovery, which is another story) were getting in the IV line and the spinal block, which seemed to take ages. But it definitely worked - to the point where I was still saying how nervous I was about them cutting when they were 5 minutes into the surgery.

I could feel some tugging and pulling but S and I were sort of chatting throughout, listening to the music we'd chosen (the song from our wedding, amongst others) and getting periodically really teared up when suddenly the doctor was saying 'get the camera ready Dad!' and seconds later he was holding up a screaming purple baby above the sheet.

The first baby out was Abe, who looked so confused and so much like a baby velociraptor. Next was Penny who had these insanely long and skinny fingers reaching out to me over the sheet. They wanted to check them both over quickly before handing to me, but we were able to hold them straight after that, I held Abe who just sat there blinking up at me so calmly (though he'd been shouting the house down moments before) and S held Penny who had her eyes closed and because she had more vernix looked a bit pallid. I kept asking S if she was okay because she seemed so quiet, but he assured me that everyone in the room had been impressed by her very lusty screaming a minute before.

I was in okay shape and was able to hold onto Abe, I thought I might be shaking or too out of it but actually the whole thing felt so weirdly calm. The two of us were borderline hysterical, we couldn't believe that anyone had just given us these two little people to look after, and I still really can't fathom that they came from inside my body. There's such a total disconnect between my big round belly and these two babies who seem so much like they just fell from the sky.

To leave the operating theatre they put both babies on me and wheeled us all out to the high dependency unit - where people with pregnancy complications are monitored after surgery/labor. We were the only ones there with our babies, everyone else had to send their babies to the special care unit but Abe and Pen were in such good shape that they were able to stay with us - though they were fairly concerned about Penny's temperature regulation at the start.

I had been so prepared for complications with the babies that I'd psyched myself up to not be with them, but in the end we got really lucky and were able to keep them with us and try skin-to-skin pretty soon thereafter. I think in large part this was due to the steroid shots I'd had at 32 weeks to mature their lungs, and of course to the amazing gift of the extra 3 weeks that we had to keep them cooking after the initial pre-eclampsia diagnosis. Though they would probably have eventually been okay without that time I know the initial period would have been a lot more difficult.

At that point I had no milk or even colostrum to give them - apparently this isn't unusual with pre-term deliveries, pregnancies via fertility treatment (list of things no one warns you about til later...), post emergency c-section and pre-eclampsia. So they were cup-fed with formula in order to raise their blood sugar. I felt conflicted about this but at the same time really just wanted them to be okay and didn't want to be so precious about how they ate that I would in any way endanger them. The whole milk question has continued to be bit of an issue but I'll write about that another time.

After a few hours of monitoring me and the babies we were able to go back up to our room and again, they just put the babies on my chest and wheeled us all around together. I kept thinking that it felt a bit like being on Mr. Toad's Wil.d Ride at disneyland, being in a slightly jerky fairground ride that's whizzing around these corners in an intentionally disconcerting way.

Back up in our room we were back admiring the view over the Thames, though now in daylight, and staring at the babies for hours. I couldn't get out of bed for the first 24 hours, so S would switch off which baby he gave me and which one he would hold.

My parents and S's parents both came that first day to give them cuddles and say hello and welcome to the world. We got tons of comments from everyone on their very fashionable outfits - almost all entirely supplied by my Brooklyn hipster sister who I'm sort of dying to introduce them to.

We were in the hospital until Wednesday, trying to sort out feeding (the biggest on-going issue) and so I could recover but everyone seemed pretty pleased with our progress and encouraged us to get home and settled in. S was and is just absolutely incredible with them - literally everyone on the ward commented on hands-on and comfortable he was. I don't know what other new dads are like but I have never felt like so much of a team as we have been - I think having twins really ups the ante on this and doesn't give anyone an opportunity to sit things out.

There were lots of comments and questions about who they look like - which we just chose not to really address though we'd look at each other each time. Truthfully neither of them look a thing like me either, so it increases this feeling of them just turning up out of nowhere.

Wednesday was the height of my hormone spike and I was super tearful all day, especially about the lack of breast milk which I was really concerned about, though it has since come in a bit (latching is another story, as is supply, but I'm hoping we'll get there). One of the midwives spent a lot of the day with us, working on feeding, helping us figure things out and being a great support to me. I was a total wreck, crying about every 30 seconds although in a pretty comical way - knowing that a lot of it was just out of my control.

At the end of the day we put them in their car seats and put on the little red and blue hoodies I'd bought for them to take them home and I couldn't stop trembling and thinking about how grown up they suddenly looked in actual clothes. My parents were laughing hysterically at me, given how completely teeny they were (not even back to birth weight yet) and how I was already feeling sad about them growing up too fast. The drive home was hair-raising, I just wanted to shout to everyone on the road to stay as far away from us as possible... But we made it safe and sound.

The first night was tough, as have all the nights been subsequently with trying to feed two sleepy and still pretty weak babies every three hours... But as nervous as I'd been about leaving the hospital with all the support it was incredible to wake up at home the next day - coincidentally my 34th birthday.

We've got a lot more to get through, and the issues surrounding the dono.r conception haven't somehow magically gone away, but honestly it's hard to imagine having any babies besides these ones - who are so much a product of the difficult journey it took to get them here. They've been making us laugh all week, with their crazy comedy faces and completely different personalities, and I know they will continue to for many years to come.

I'll write more in the coming months I'm sure about how things are feeling and progressing with the babies, and with us, as we negotiate some of the emotions that are inevitably part of this process (of being new parents, and of having different genetic relationships to the kids) but I think it's important for me to try to give myself permission to ignore some of the path here for a little while.

In the meantime, I'm thinking of all of you who have supported me (and by proxy both of us) along the way. You can't know how much your comments have meant to me, or how important it has been for me to share your stories too.

Wishing you all huge amounts of love and luck wherever you are on this road, and that you find incredible happiness somewhere along the way too.



* I will probably remove their names from this post later in order to preserve some sense of anonymity, but I really did want to announce them to those of you who have been following for awhile!

34 weeks

Hello lovelies.

So - we're still at home! babies are still cooking and looking good, estimated weights are about 5lb 4oz and 5lb 6oz each (not at all an exact science but good to know that the seem to have each grown about a pound since the last scan 2 weeks ago).

Part of me keeps thinking this whole preeclampsia diagnosis was just something we made up, and it's all been a bit of a storm in a teacup. I mean, I feel huge and lethargic and in a lot of late twin pregnancy discomfort, but that's not really anything new.

But then we got more test results today and it looks as though, invisibly, it is definitely and not happily progressing. Two weeks ago I had to do a 24 hour urine collection (where you glamorously have to collect all your wee for 24 hours and have it be taken in to be analyzed - this is getting super hard to do with my enormous belly). At the time the protein ratio was exactly .3, which is enough to confirm a preeclampsia diagnosis but well below the threshold of .5 which is what triggers a hospital admission.

Last week it had only raised to .33 so I thought we were just in for a very slow upswing, and might even have a few weeks left. Today however, it was .65.

The good news is after being passed from pillar to post during this whole crazy long process including the fertility clinic and the pregnancy, we FINALLY have a consultant who we have gotten to know and who knows and has invested some time in us.

He has signed off on me waiting it out at home because he knows us well. He knows that we're monitoring it really closely and that both S and my mom are here taking care of me and will notice right away if something goes wrong. He also knows that being admitted and having a different doctor tell me something different every 5 minutes will raise my anxiety level really high - probably triggering high blood pressure too.

I have no idea how much time there is left. I would love to get another week, even two, but I think we're really lucky to have gotten the two weeks we've had so far. I know the long term prognosis for the babies would be positive at this point but I'm still concerned about the short-term, like how long they'd have to stay in hospital for (and would I be able to stay with them?) and would we be able to breastfeed etc?

But I really hoped to make it to May, hoped to make it to 34 weeks, and we've done both of those things. I think if my blood pressure spikes tonight and we had to rush in I'd be at peace with it, though obviously more time would be better (not that this is giving you permission to arrive tonight babies!). I've been emailing with a woman I met through our twin club who delivered at 35 weeks and her babies are still in special care a week or two later, so I get that basically you just don't know until you get there how things are going to unfold...

So, nerve-wrecking but also sort of exciting (if you can say that while you wait for emergency surgery?) times too. Now we just need to settle on the names, I'm terrified we'll be in the hospital and be too paralyzed to make a final decision! For some reason having two babies in the world without names really freaks me out, but we can't seem to settle on the final choice from our girls list, or middle name for boys.

Thanks to everyone for keeping us in your thoughts, and wishing us healthy beautifully named babies that arrive safe and sound.

operation mellow

So, still here... just barely?

The last week has been a sort of whirlwind, but also one of the most strangely mellow weeks I've ever experienced.

After a long day at the hospital last weds, and then a super-fun 24 hour urine collection test on thursday (you know what is entertaining, asking a heavily pregnant lady to collect all her own pee in a big jug for 24 hours when she can't actually see what she's peeing into...), I was officially diagnosed with pre-eclampsia.

Luckily, I'm still classified as a mild case, so they're letting me stay home for the moment - but apparently that can change any minute.

We had to go in on Friday/Saturday for steroid shots to help mature the babies' lungs for when I deliver early, something the consultant obstetrician seems to think is pretty much definitely going to happen - just a matter of when.

My mom was supposed to leave town last weds but suddenly decided that she's going to stay for the duration. She really doesn't want me on my own during the day now (and S can't take off so much time from work though his colleagues have been super understanding) because apparently one of two things is likely to happen anytime from today to a few weeks from now:

1. I slowly start feeling worse (looking out for: headache, feeling jittery, swelling, abdominal pain, flashing lights, blood pressure that can't be controlled with medication, changes in the babies' movements) and have to go into the hospital until I deliver (via semi-emergency c-section) what would likely be a day or up to a week later

2. I start suddenly feeling worse (as above, but more severe) and have to be rushed straight into a more scary emergency c-section

It's really hard to know how to take in any of this information. I feel like this ticking time bomb, waiting for things to suddenly degenerate at any point.

And yet for the most part I don't really feel that different than I did a week ago - except in some ways I feel slightly better because I've stopped focusing on any normal pregnancy aches and pains (what? aching back? pelvic pain? strangely constantly runny nose? pshaw!) and am just looking out for the really big stuff.

We met with the neonatal paediatrician on saturday, and took a quick tour of the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) and NICU so we could see what we were in for. He seemed very calm about our outcome - I'm already passed 32 weeks so the prognosis for the babies at this stage looks good though they'd still be way tinier and need a lot more help than I'm at all comfortable with.

Less than 34 weeks and they'll have to go into special care regardless, if we can make it to 34 weeks it sounds like our chances of taking home healthier babies goes up by quite a lot. So I'm trying with every fibre of my being to hold on til early May when I think I'll feel more confident about this all.

Mom and S have instituted 'operation mellow' around here, enforcing several naps a day and basically not letting me do anything. I officially started my maternity leave early yesterday (I wasn't supposed to start til May 10th) and am going to try to put off my remaining freelance stuff today. It's all about clearing the decks as much as possible, although trying not to go too insane in the meantime.

I don't really know how to think about any of it. Pre-eclampsia is pretty serious, and could have really serious consequences for me or the babies if it comes on really suddenly and we can't get to the hospital in time... But at the same time I'm being monitored and taking it easy and I don't think there's much else to be done.

If I'm honest I feel pretty detached from this all. I can't really believe I could be wheeled into the hospital this afternoon, or tomorrow, or anytime soon, and yet that's the pretty strong message we're getting.

I keep focusing on totally unrelated stuff, like about is how nice the weather is and how much I'd really just like to go for a swim in the outdoor pool in the park, or how much I'd really like a popsicle (crazy icy-things cravings suddenly), and then suddenly it hits me:

This is all really happening now, this isn't the storm, this is the calm before the storm...

Wish us luck.

The (very) long process of letting go

It's nothing revolutionary to suggest that conception, pregnancy and birth are part of a process of letting go.

Letting go of how you thought things would be, of holding tight to any kind of image of how things would unfold.

This is probably true for everyone, but there's so many ways that it's doubly, triply (more even?) true for an IF/donor/twin/complicated pregnancy.

We got some more news after a long hospital day yesterday that's got me thinking about this all again, that's forcing me to let go of yet another idea of how I thought things might be.

I'm okay, but even at this late stage still shocked by how much the loss of each of these images of alternative worlds that I thought would/might be makes me sad.

First idea to let go of - I'll meet a boy, fall in love, have some sex, have a baby 

As we all know, not that easy. There was literally no sex at all involved in our process of conception. We knew this was going to be true going into into it but the more naive me of a few years ago didn't. Wouldn't have really even thought about it. Couldn't ever have known just how complicated things would get.

Second idea to let go of - we'll have a baby that is a mix of me and the man I fell in love with

The whole time S and I have been starting the process of trying to have kids, I've had to let go of this idea. And it's been a process - I've reconciled it, I'm happy with our decision - but there's always going to be some sense of loss about this. Loss of the ease, loss of the continuity, loss of the idea of looking at our kid(s) and seeing something genetic of him.

Gradually this sense of loss is replaced by other things, by a sense of hope, by a sense of love and wonder at the little people who I can't yet quite imagine but who are slowly getting ready to come into the world.

I know this will only continue to be more true once we meet our little dudes and get to know them, and start to think about how any other path would not have been the path that led to them.

But first I had to lessen my grasp on the idea of something that was never going to be, in order to get excited about what could be.

Third idea to let go of - pregnancy will be a pleasant time, with a cute bump and gorgeous hair

Okay, my hair has actually looked pretty amazing, but pregnancy has been so much harder than I could have ever pictured. Hyperemesis, polyhydramnios, severe pelvic pain, general discomfort with carrying twins, and now possibly preeclampsia (more on this in a minute), it feels like a physical roller coaster that just doesn't let up.

I look at these women around me, at NCT, amongst friends, and feel hopelessly and uselessly jealous of how easy they seem to have it. With their tiny bumps and no complications, swanning off to yoga, worrying about their babies being born 'too big' to be able to manage their pain with their 'golden thread breaths' (argh).

This line of thinking is such wasted time - those are their journeys not mine - I can't compare. I don't know what's happening for them internally, and ultimately I feel so grateful to be pregnant that I can survive the discomforts.

But it has still been hard to let go of the image of how I thought things would be for me, when it looks from the outside like other people have had what I thought I wanted.

Fourth idea to let go of - my early motherhood with a single baby, tucked adorably into a sling so I can go drink cappuccinos with my girlfriends

As soon as we found out we were having twins I had to let go of another image - the image of mobility, of getting around London easily with one baby, of going to museums and cafes and meeting up with friends.

I know this isn't something that I have to let go of entirely - twins are not a prison sentence! - but I also know that realistically getting around with two is a whole lot harder than with one.

Every time I've been on the bus lately I've looked to see if there's space for a double buggy - 90% of the time there isn't (because there's already a single buggy there, because the space isn't right etc). Our nearest train station doesn't have an elevator so going anywhere north of the river is going to involve a fair bit of a walk at both ends. I don't drive so that limits it even further.

This is minor in the grand scheme of life, and I know over the long term there's going to be plenty that I love about having twins too.

But for a long time I've been working on letting go of the idea of some magical single baby that would allow me to feel more like 'me' and still allow me to do some of the things I like to do (i.e. meet up with friends and have long chats - basically my favourite activity in the world, ever).

I don't think this mythical baby exists for anyone, but it's still easy to pretend like he or she does in my imagination.

What I'm hoping is that this is somehow easier than I'm now picturing, and that I can report back on this one happily in a few months. We'll see.

Fifth idea to let go of - that I would have any control over how the babies would come into the world

The big news from yesterday is that it's looking like I might be developing preeclampsia. I had been feeling a tiny bit headachy for a few days, and my feet were swollen after my (super lovely!) baby shower on Sunday.

So when we went in for the scan yesterday morning I asked if they could test my urine, you know, just in case (which they wouldn't normally do at a scan but did because of the headache). This little request turned into a whole nightmarish 8 hour day in the victorian insane asylum that is the ante-natal ward, where no one was quite clear on what test results were coming back, when, or what they were looking for.

My blood pressure had been high, but went down (even after being taken while a woman in the next bay was literally moo-ing through contractions 5 feet away). My blood results looked okay, but they couldn't send me home without a better picture of the urine analysis, which no one knew when would come back.

They wanted to admit me overnight pending the test results, but I didn't want to stay with no evidence that it was necessary. The hospital is such an unbelievably stressful place (I'm not normally an anti-hospital person, but that place is scary) and it didn't sound like there was anything they could do, but they also couldn't let me go without the test results. So it was a bureaucratic rather than a health justification.

Finally we spoke with a more on-it consultant at about 5:30pm (after arriving at 8:30am) who got the test results and has asked me to do a 24-hour urine collection at home today (saving all my pee and keeping it in a big bottle that S has to bring in tomorrow for further analysis).

We'd met him before and he basically said that he thought that I will either have already developed preeclampsia, and therefore will need to be admitted to the hospital for the rest of the pregnancy (which will likely not be much longer - I'm currently at 31weeks + 5 days) or that I will be able to stay home but will have to be very closely monitored with the idea that I'll be rushed in if anything happens (spike in blood pressure, severe headache, abdominal pain, seeing flashing lights).

The conclusion of this all was that the babies are almost definitely going to be born early, that it could be 48 hours (terrifying) or 4 weeks (fine) but probably not longer, and there will likely be a hospital stay for both me and them.

My biggest concern, other than that they are safe and that I am safe (neither of which are a given, but are sort of too big to really wrap my mind around) is about breastfeeding. I worry that if they're born too early I won't be able to feed them and won't be able to get it started later.

This is just one more idea I feel not ready to let go of - I feel like I've already given up on so many images and ideas that this should be one thing I can still do. I still really want to have this with my babies, when I can't have so many of the other things.

But like the rest of it, it may be something I have to let go of, to loosen my grasp on.

What about you guys? How do you deal with this process of letting go?

aliens at antenatal class

We've now gone to two ante-natal classes (pre-natal for those in N America). I've got mixed feelings.

Overall, the people are lovely and very much 'like us' as far as I can tell, in terms of age, seemingly in terms of class, style, interests etc. The class is run by the National Childbirth Trust (NCT) which has a reputation for being quite firmly middle-class, slightly hippie etc. The class meets in the function room of a local pub, which I thought was sort of quaint and British when I signed us up.

There's been some controversy around NCT lately, with some people accusing the organisation of being dogmatic and encouraging women to feel guilty if they do end up with c-sections or other deviations from their carefully crafted birth plan.

Despite this, the almost sole reason that I put our names down for it was to meet people. They match you up by area and due date, so you're sort of guaranteed local 'mum friends' afterwards. It basically feels like buying friends, something I feel is both yucky and totally convenient at the same time.

I somewhat arbitrarily thought we'd probably know most of the actual 'information' to be discussed already.

I was pretty nervous heading into the class. Nervous because we've just decided we will go for a scheduled c-section, and even if we hadn't with twins there are so many reasons why we can't have the whole water-birth/scented candles/hypno-birthing/bradley method route anyhow... and nervous because I felt scared that we'd feel really different from everyone there, because of twins, because of the fertility treatment, because of the donor history etc.

In some ways my fears have been borne out, in some ways it hasn't been too bad.

I've definitely learned a lot more than I thought I would already, even if there's been a lot of points when I've thought 'I'm glad to learn this, and really sad that it probably won't apply to me at all.'

The facilitator is lovely and not at all doctrinaire about 'natural birth' (a phrase I abhor and note that she doesn't use).

She has repeatedly said that interventions are absolutely the best route as soon as they are needed, but that you just need to consider whether or not you need them. I think this is fair and at no point have we been made to feel like we're bad people for most likely having a c-section.* She uses really inclusive language and we've already talked about scheduled and emergency c-sections several times - encouraging us to think about how we can keep ahold of what is important to us in a birth experience regardless of how things unfold.

On the other hand, I do feel like a total fish out of water. Last week I got the inevitable 'do twins run in your family?' question, to which I simply responded 'no' and didn't elaborate. Maybe I should have? Maybe that would have been a good way of introducing the subject gradually? I sort of wish I had really. But unlike at twin club where it seems like 75% of the people there did IVF I don't get that vibe at all from NCT.

I have no way of knowing anything about everyone else's history but you know how you can sometimes just tell.

I feel so enormous in comparison to all the other women there, though they are at the same stage as I am. And so different from everyone who is going on about how they 'don't want any pain relief other than yoga breathing and gas and air' (we'll see... is what I say to that), and generally somewhat exhausted by the whole thing.

Last week lots of people stayed for a drink and though I really wanted to, I was knackered and made S bring me home. Sometimes I feel like we're carrying around this secret that is none of their business at all, but kind of wafts up to my mind periodically. I think eventually if I do make actual 'friends' (rather than people to meet up with and talk about baby poo) I'll tell them then, but there's really no reason to go there now.



* However, as we're currently learning, if we go into labor before the scheduled section than there's every likelihood we could end up delivering vaginally, so we're actually more inclined to pay attention in the class than we would've been otherwise!

decisions

Lots of food for thought in the OB appointment today.

There's no real thought on why the polyhydramnios is happening, which isn't surprising as in 60% of cases there is no explanation.

Because it definitely isn't gestational diabetes (yay) we're having a more detailed anatomy scan next week at the hospital to determine that it definitely isn't some kind of kidney malformation or swallowing problem etc. The fluid on both babies is high, and their growth levels are fine, which indicates that it's probably just one of those things.

The big question on my mind going into the appointment - after making certain that the fluid levels wouldn't affect the babies' growth - was to ask about how this should affect our thinking about the birth.

I was especially thinking about this since Shelly's post yesterday thinking through some of the issues of how to approach birth when you have some potentially serious pre-identified complications.

I don't know the details of what Shelly has been told she might or might not be able to attempt. But from what I understand from our hospital policy with twins there seem to be a lot of birth options that are simply unavailable to us. So no water births or walking around or being in the much-nicer midwife led 'home from home' unit at our hospital. And much more likely induction, epidural, laboring on your back etc.

All of this was already making me feel sort of dubious about a vaginal birth, and now with considering the possible complications that might come from polyhydramnios (i.e. increased risk of placental abruption, cord prolapse etc both of which have potentially severe consequences), we suddenly and right in the middle of the appointment decided that we'd go for a scheduled c-section.

We'd been sort of swirling around it for weeks, feeling not at all confident in the care we've been getting (don't get me started on how we had to wait for an hour and a half today to see the consultant!), feeling generally worried about complications with twins and now this...

There's a part of me that feels relieved. I'm sort of glad that a c-section is more medically necessary so we don't have to feel guilty about just 'deciding' to do it because of twins, even though there's some element of that (i.e. we could still demand a vaginal birth if we really wanted one unless other complications arise later).

There's another part of me that feels a sense of loss, thinking about what I might be missing by just 'giving in' to this and not trying harder. This is likely to be my only pregnancy and will I always wonder or feel a sense of loss about this? Plus I'm worried about the recovery time, especially with twins, and how it might impact on breast feeding etc.

But ultimately, this all pales in comparison to the idea that something could go really wrong.

We're at a heightened risk for early labor in general now, so the doctor basically said were it not for the fact that I'm already working from home he'd be recommending I stop work. And no vigorous exercise (not that I was doing much) and to be really careful about movement etc. S was in a bit of a state after the appointment, feeling really powerless to protect me/us and make sure everything is okay.

If we go into early labor we'll just decide then if we want to try to proceed with it (if things are going okay and nothing disastrous has happened) or if we want to switch to an emergency c-section. But obviously for many reasons (mostly because they're not yet cooked! so please please please don't come out for at least another 6 weeks okay babies?) I just really hope that doesn't happen.

I don't think it's disastrous news at all, and the huge likelihood is that they are both doing okay, that I have a quite uncomfortable 9 weeks ahead of me (twin belly plus two babies in 95th percentile for fluid is stretching me to capacity), but that we'll all come out just fine.

But I'd be lying if I tried to act like I was hopping and skipping my way through the third trimester.

Truthfully, as much as I want to live in the moment and marvel at the pregnancy and appreciate the time with S (which I really do), if someone could just fast-forward me to the start of June with this all behind us, and two healthy babies, I'd be a very happy camper.

Polyhydramnios

I once read on a twin-mom blog about 'lasagne belly' - the apt (but kind of gross) description of the belly full of intense stretch marks that you start cultivating late into a twin pregnancy.

Let's just say, I've joined the club.

As my belly is growing ever more enormous, I'm starting to find it hard to leave the house. Not because I'm so tired of comments on it (which is true) but also because walking is physically painful now, and it's hard to get anywhere without walking unless S is with me and can drive.

But the thing that scares me senseless isn't the size of the belly - though I'm a little terrified there as we still have quite far to go - but the cause of it.

Last week we had another scan and it looks like the fluid levels on both babies are high. I wrote about this weeks ago, all worried that it was my fault and that I had gestational diabetes and had essentially brought this on myself.

Well, I had the glucose test and passed (another one on weds), and then a follow up scan where the sonographer said it was nothing to worry about. So I started to feel better, to think I could get over blaming myself.

Flash forward a few weeks later and the (now third) sonographer says guy number two didn't know what he was talking about (which is sort of what guy number two said about woman number one, so who to believe?). And that not only is Twin B considered polyhydramniotic because she's over the 95th percentile in terms of fluid, but actually Twin A is also at the 95th percentile. 

So while this isn't considered polyhydramnios, obviously it's contributing to my crazy stretched out skin and now to my dwindling sanity.

The good news is overwhelmingly that the babies are growing just fine, all the tests on their organs look totally normal, kidney function seems fine etc. Something like 60% of polyhydramnios cases are unexplained and have no further complications associated with them.

But I'm thrown back into my first trimester worry-phase nonetheless. While I'd started to settle into this feeling of things progressing (heck, we even just let ourselves buy the really expensive twin buggy we'd been researching for months), and knowing that the babies would come soon - now I'm back to all kinds of doubt. 

Polyhydramnios has a set of complications associated with it - like placental abruption or cord prolapse, which are no joke at all. And (this feels weird to write flippantly in a blog post) the one person I know in real life who I think had it with her second pregnancy lost her baby at 39 weeks. 

They're good friends and we were with them a lot at that time (lots of other friends couldn't handle it, but something about our own IF struggles made us able to talk and cry and be with them), hard to not think about it and start to spiral... yet she also had excess fluid with her third pregnancy and he was born completely healthy and no one ever said the fluid was the cause of their second daughter's death.

I think I'm okay. I think I can wait til the appointment with the OB on thursday and keep myself calm. This is not an enormous or really dangerous pregnancy complication, but something that just has to be monitored and calmly looked after.

But I have moments, where Dr. Googling obsessively gets the best of me. This is not a good plan, I don't think it does me or the dudes or S any good at all. But it's hard to help.

I want to get back to a place where I believe they are coming, that they will be healthy and outside of my body in 8-10 weeks. But there's this little creeping doubt coming back in now that makes me feel a little sick.