So I’m all loved up with my bump and enjoying my pregnancy and going for the scans every 4 weeks and I get to 32 weeks and the midwife says if the babies are not head down by now, I would have to be booked in for a csection at 38 weeks. (Twin a has always showed as footling breach and twin b has always been breach at every scan so far…doh) My initial feelings were of complete denial- ‘my babies will turn and I will be able to have a vaginal birth’. Then came feeling of utter disappointment and anger-‘how dare the drs take my choice away from me, how can they possibly make this decision so early on…and don’t I get a say…it’s my body!?’ and then came feelings of absolute sadness and emotion-‘I can’t believe I am not going to be able to give birth to my own children!’

At the time I was so upset that I wasn’t able to give birth, I felt robbed of an experience that I had fantasized about for years, I felt so sad that I wasn’t able to experience the most natural and amazing experience a human can have which is …to give birth. I was very negative for weeks I felt worried and stressed over so many unanswered questions and concerns such as;

How will I bond with my babies if I haven’t gone through labour?

How will I know if my babies are mine if they just pop up over a blue curtain and I can’t even feel anything?

How will my body know to produce milk if I haven’t released labour hormones?

How will my babies know they’ve been born if they haven’t been through labour?

Will I be able to hold my babies and do skin-on-skin in the first moments of their life?

Will I be able to sit up and breast feed my babies if I’m temporally paralysed from the chest down?

Will I be even able to care for them in the first hours after my csection?

Will I even be able to hold them when they cry if I can’t move?

 

My list of desperate thoughts was endless and I tortured myself by obsessing over these terrible questions for weeks. It was a dark time for me in my pregnancy. But then I got something which can only be called…..perspective.

Perspective which came after a lot of soul searching and thinking. Ok so what is the most important thing when you give birth…? ..that we are alive at the end of it.

I can honestly say sitting here writing this blog, reflecting back on how I felt…it really didn’t matter how the babies were born. It didn’t matter during the csection. It didn’t matter in the first moments after they were born. It didn’t matter hours or days after they were born either, and it doesn’t matter now. So if you can take any reassurance from this message…. once your babies are here and they are delivered safely…it really doesn’t matter which hole they came out of. You grew them all by yourself in your body…two human beings….and you brought them into this world and it’s amazing. You are amazing.

All those desperate thoughts and questions were fine. All of them. I was able to hold them straight away, my body produced milk, like some miracle, a few days after they were born (how on earth did it know how to do that? I don’t know! but it just did!) The babies screamed their heads off as they were born into the world so they knew that it was definately birth time. I was able to do skin on skin as soon as I was out of theatre (which felt like 5mins) and both babies suckled on a breast (which was amazing!) I was able to sit up and hold both babies with a little help and walk after 12 hours or so. And I was able to care for them and comfort them when they cried. It was all fine. All those worries and concerns didn’t even enter my head. I was just so happy they were both healthy.

The whole experience was calm, relaxed and safe. When you think about the risks of going through labour when you have twins…safety must come first. I know plenty of twin mums that have had a safe labour but for me and my babies, it just wasn’t safe, so this was the only way. Why would I risk doing it any other way. How do I feel now….? I feel that I grew and gave birth to my babies in the best possible way.