Growing Twins: A Guest Post by the Mom

I’ve only been non-pregnant for three months and I’m already losing touch with what it was like. So, I’m going to attempt to jot a few things down to commemorate my pregnant-with-twins experience. 

Being pregnant with twins is much like being pregnant with a singleton….you know, in terms of growing a person, only I had two. From the very beginning of my pregnancy, I had a strange feeling that there was something different going on. I don’t know how to explain it other than it just felt like there was a lot of activity going on in my uterus. At my first OB appointment after a positive home pregnancy test, my midwife was pressing on my abdomen and said “Oh yea, there’s definitely something growing in there”. This comment only made me worry more (yes, I admit that I was terrified of the thought) that I might be pregnant with more than one baby. A day or so before my first ultrasound, I told Devin that I had a bad feeling, which I corrected with “unsettling” feeling, that there was more than one baby growing in there. Don’t worry; it wasn’t all doom and gloom when the duo was confirmed. We were so excited. Terrified, yes, but underneath a lot of joy and anticipation.


 

Every woman’s body is different when it comes to pregnancy. I will spare you the disturbing details, but if you’re interested in learning about what nobody really talks about because they’re too busy squealing at the exciting news and discussing baby names, read Jenny McCarthy’s Baby Laughs. The woman is hilarious and has no shame at all. She will spell out all of things you probably never wanted to know about a woman’s body during pregnancy. Ah pregnancy, so glam. 

I had the typical morning sickness thing the first several months of pregnancy. Funny, because I would probably call it all-stinking-day-and-middle-of-the-night sickness if I were in charge of naming it. It was pretty miserable at times, but could have been much worse. I had terrible nausea all of the time. The only thing that I could even think about eating without doubling over was food loaded with carbs, and I only actually vomited once. I stopped to get gas on my way to work and had that moment of truth…the one where you know you’re going to throw up in the near future…but can you make it to a more suitable location before it happens? Should I just open my car door and spew in this uncomfortably small and busy gas station lot? Or can I make it if I run into the cold, poorly lit, unisex bathroom that may or may not be out of order. Either way, this wasn’t going to be pretty. I made it to the gas station toilet, but not even before the bathroom door was closed behind me. 

I am a Jazzercise (yes, it is a real thing) instructor. My goal was to continue jazzercise (if you’re still laughing, come to one of my classes so I can laugh at you) as long as I could physically pull it off. I made it to about 23 weeks before I stopped teaching classes, and 25 weeks before I had to stop my workouts altogether. My body was changing pretty rapidly, and I noticed the difference from one work out to the next. Looking back, I wish I would have slowed down with workouts a little sooner, but I let my pride get in the way of taking it easy and I kept going until I literally couldn’t make it through a class any more without feeling like the babies might fall out.  Other than quitting Jazzercise temporarily, the rest of my life carried on as usual. Except for bending over to pick things up off of the ground. A pregnant woman reaches a point where she has to decide if she really needs to pick up whatever she just dropped. Beyond a certain point of belly growth, most things just stayed on the floor. 

The great thing about a twin pregnancy is that it is automatically considered “high risk”, which means I would be more closely monitored than a singleton pregnancy. It was exciting to get to have so many ultrasounds and see our babies grow in the womb throughout my pregnancy. Toward the end, however, an ultrasound revealed that the babies were measuring very small. I would need to come back for a non-stress test (a 20 minute monitoring session of babies’ heart beats, movement, and blood flow through the cords) twice a week. If the tests revealed that the babies weren’t getting the nutrients they needed inside my body, they would have to deliver early. But at each test, everything seemed fine; we just had small babies. 

I was 33 weeks along and had just put the finishing touches on the nursery before heading out for a last second doctor’s appointment. I had been having pretty bad cramps for a couple of days and a nurse suggested that I come in to be “checked”. At this appointment, the doctor checked to see if I was dilated at all. Why had nobody told me what being “checked” entailed? WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?! I’m pretty sure I said something like that out loud to the doctor. And I definitely said “That was terrible!” It really was. I was 2-3 cm dilated. The doctor said that I might be in labor and that I needed to drive myself to the hospital right away. WHAT?! I held it together until I got into the parking lot, at which point I started sobbing so hard, you would have thought I was going into preterm labor 7 weeks early. Oh wait, I was.  You can read more about this experience in one of Devin’s recent posts: (click here). Long story short: after a 4 day hospital stay, 24 hours of which entailed being forced to use a bedpan, I was sent home where I would remain on bed rest until the real deal. I wouldn’t wish a bedpan sentence on anyone. It was such a crappy experience. Pun intended. 

Bed rest…

If you have a friend on bed rest for any reason, call them as soon as you finish reading this. No, stop reading, and call them now. Tell them you’re going to bring over a stack of books they might like, and some ice cream. Spend time with them. Send them random text messages about anything. Bed rest is extremely boring, lonely, and honestly quite depressing. I was unable to do anything, ANYTHING, besides lay on the couch, get up to pee (which happened a LOT at this point) and take a quick shower every couple of days. I longed to go grocery shopping, an activity that I had loathed just weeks earlier. We were so fortunate that I went on bed rest just one week after school got out (we’re both teachers). That way I didn’t have to miss any work and Devin was home to help take care of me. Despite the down side (literally) of bed rest, I was so thankful for every extra day that passed with those babies still cookin’ on the inside. 

I ended up making it to week 37, much farther along than I ever thought I would make it. I was so ready to have those babies by that point. Not just because I was sick of bed rest, but because of how physically uncomfortable I was. My ribs and back were in constant pain and I couldn’t sleep longer than an hour or two without waking up to waddle to the bathroom. You know you’re nearing delivery day when you talk about your cervix more than the weather. Making it 37 weeks with twins is a huge feat, and I’m so thankful everything happened the way it did so that I stayed off of my feet those last few weeks to keep them cozy for just a little longer. I miss my big ol’ belly, but I prefer my babies to that prego belly any day. It was a long and uncomfortable road, but I would do it all over again for these two little gems!