Emma's Story

I have quite a few sets of twins in my family and growing up I always said I’d love to have twins myself. After securing my nursing qualification my (now husband) and I decided to come off birth control and see what happened. The very first attempt (!) we fell pregnant. My 12 week scan wasn’t until towards end of Jan, so we paid for a private scan on Christmas Eve so that we could share with our family on Christmas Day. Low and behold there were our two babies on the screen, we got our wish! Our DCDA girls were born perfect and healthy via c-section at 36+5 weeks. We loved every minute of being twin parents to our girls, so much so that we said we would love another set one day. 7.5 years later, after buying a house and navigating some challenges in life, we decided it was the right time to try again. After 10 months I fell pregnant again just 5 days before I was due to go on holiday to America with my best friend! As soon as I arrived home we went for another private scan, we did not have the patience to wait until 12 weeks, we needed to know how many were in there! I still to this day cannot believe how lucky we were to be blessed with twins for a second time. We welcomed a boy and a girl again via c-section at 37 weeks. We love our double twin life and would not change it for the world 🩷🩷🩷💙

Courtney's Story

“Ooooh yay! I love it when there’s two!” Says the sonographer. “Sorry what?” I say. “I love it when it’s twins” she says. “Huh? Twins, what? Are you sure?”. “Yep! Look at the screen”. The husband and I look at the screen and as clear as day see two babies at my 12 week scan. “I don’t know how to react right now” I said, “it’s okay, you don’t need to react yet” she kindly says with a smile as she can see we are in utter shock. I remember the day before driving home from work thinking how wholesome the next day will be at our scan getting to meet our baby holding hands smiling at each other. But I never predicted this, instead we sat there in utter silence, we looked at each other once in pure confusion during the scan but that was it, no wholesome smiling movie moment just absolute shock, and because there’s two it took longer so that was a long time of silence. I will never forget the look of absolute shock on my husbands face staring at the pictures from the scan in the waiting room when I came back from the bathroom. 

I shouldn’t have been shocked though, there was signs before the scan. One of my symptoms was a gorgeous inflamed rash on my face … lucky me … and doctor google said this was common in twin pregnancy. I just presumed I spent too long on google. Also I’m a spiritual person and one of my readings came up that I was having twins. I thought I had gone full blown crazy and put my cards away but maybe not! Having said all this, I was still shocked when we found out.

Twin pregnancy is hard. You are literally growing two humans so rest when you can and say no to things without guilt. The exhaustion was next level, the nausea for me never went and I couldn’t handle smells, like any smell. I lived on toast and potatoes for 7 months. I say 7 months because my twins were 6 weeks early. There were complications. Other than the “fun” symptoms of pregnancy it was all pretty smooth sailing. At 20 weeks I found out I was having boy/girl twins and I felt so lucky, that was exactly what I hoped for other than the obvious of healthy babies. Then around 26ish weeks there was a sudden bump in the road. 

Twin 2 was suddenly growing very slowly, the absolute worry we felt. We started having more regular scans. A month later good news! She was growing again! (Twin 1 is the boy, twin 2 is the girl). A month later another scan. Uh oh! She’s not growing again! I had even more appointments as I think I was 32 or 33 weeks at this point. We then had to see the top sonographer and he spent a long time checking them both, mainly twin 2 and it was decided at 34 weeks it was too dangerous for twin 2 to stay in any longer as there was reduced blood flow from the placenta and limited space in the sac for her to be able to grow more. 

As soon as we found out a few months before this she was having growth problems I was TERRIFIED of having to do NICU time or worse. The thought of it broke my heart, suddenly everything I feared was going to happen. I also massively wanted to give birth to my twins naturally, it’s something I always wanted to experience. However, my midwife (who was absolutely amazing and lovely) told me I would have to have them via c-section otherwise twin 2 will most likely have sad consequences. It was obviously a no brainer to have them via c section because of this and I would do it a million times again for her but it didn’t stop me feeling disappointed.

The c-section itself went smoothly, barely felt the epidural, felt no pain during the surgery, it just feels like someone washing up inside of you. I was shaking like a leaf, I don’t know if it was the drugs or the absolute fear of the worst. We knew twin 2 was going to be small and there was always that risk and that fear she wasn’t going to make it. I will never forget that fear, not going to lie, it still haunts me now at times that feeling. I’m pretty tough but I knew I wouldn’t be that strong to handle a loss like that. Twin one was born, Oliver! He was 4lb.  His birth was a blur, I remember hearing him cry, they showed him to me briefly but he had to be rushed off to be given breathing support. I hadn’t really seen his face properly and I was still so worried about twin 2 it was hard to feel happy. I remember feeling guilty about this. Then twin 2 was born, Eva! She was only 2lbs. They warned me before she might be rushed off. She didn’t cry like Oliver, the silence was terrifying, but suddenly, magically, she was bought over to me. I was able to do a few minutes of skin time with her. I was able to breath! She was alive! She was well! She is beautiful! Her face was right in front of mine, it was overwhelming but in the best kind of way. I could now be happy, both my babies made it and survived. 

When you first become pregnant you don’t think about if your babies will survive birth so to be suddenly faced with that fear is unexpected. There’s no right or wrong way to deal with that emotion at the time.

So Oliver and Eva were born. Oliver only needed 48hrs in NICU but Eva needed 31 days. Other than being tiny she was absolutely fine. She just needed to be bigger and off the tube before she could come home. How lucky am I!? BUT I didn’t feel that way. I remember feeling so jealous of the other mamas who could have their babies next to them. The first night when both babies were in NICU I remember feeling so lonely. Being in a room on my own, I had given birth, I had technically become a mum but I didn’t feel like one without my babies there with me. I was alone and in pain. I was absolutely black and blue bruised after the c section, there was 8 minutes between their birth as in the surgeons words “she was a pickle to get out”. The shoulder pain! Oh no one warns you about the shoulder pain after a c section. Something to do with air inside you, I don’t know, honestly I was half out of it when they explained it to me afterwards. 

Oliver then came out of NICU and we was in TCU for a week. That was hard trying to learn to look after a baby and see Eva in NICU. I literally didn’t step outside once for a week as I was trying to give them both my time in two different places. I guess that’s twin life but it was certainly an extra challenge. 

The day I took Oliver home was a day of mixed feelings. Happy to go home but not the way I wanted. I always imagined bringing them home together. But I couldn’t. I ugly cried as quietly as I could in the toilets because I didn’t want anyone worrying about me but leaving Eva at the hospital broke my god damn heart. It’s not natural leaving a baby behind. And I know it sounds silly but I felt so much guilt goimg home with Oliver without Eva. Like I was worried she would think ‘oh I’m not good enough for you guys and your leaving me behind living happy family’s without me’ I know that sounds ridiculous but that’s all I could think of. I felt like a terrible mother and then I felt terrible that I wasn’t happy taking Oliver home. Mum guilt is the worst! 

So for a month we was back and fourth to NICU everyday and trying to balance newborn life at home. We were definitely living in survival mode.

Then one of the best days of my life happened. Eva was ready to come home. We were nearly running her out the hospital and down the street in fear they would chase us and change their minds. Silly I know, but we were desperate for her to come home and so happy when she could.

Both my babies are home, healthy and well. How lucky am I?!. Then BAM my mental health takes a turn. Now I’m usually a very positive person but I was suddenly overwhelmed with sadness and guilt. Exhaustion played a big part, whether it was PND I don’t know, I didn’t have the time or energy to find out. But everything we had been through suddenly hit me HARD. The pregnancy was hard, I didn’t get the birth I wanted, the worry during the birth, what happened after with NICU, not getting the breastfeeding journey and support I wanted. Missing out on the simple things at the beginning, like to this day I have never seen the stickiness  of a babies first poo. My recovery after the surgery took a long time and I was very dizzy the next day so couldn’t stand to change nappies in the incubators the first few days. It sounds silly but I was upset about all of it including missing out on the poo! 

I reached out for support from my gp as I was in a dark place mentally. She referred me to steps to wellbeing where I got free counselling. This helped me so much. I basically talked about all of this … and the rest. She taught me to give myself grace and it helped me build resilience. I know so far this all sounds like a bad experience but now I see things differently. Don’t get me wrong, I will never be happy about how hard it was, but I’m at a point now where I’m okay about it, I have accepted it. Those negative feelings do not consume me anymore and I can feel good emotions about the experience too now. Like feeling grateful that I have two healthy thriving twins.

They are 13 months now and doing great. Oliver is still the bigger twin, mainly because he loves his food. He’s such an active baby, he does not keep still for one moment, I think this is why he loves his food. Eva is smaller  but growing beautifully at her own rate. I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up being a super genius, she loves looking at books and playing with puzzle toys. Developmentally they are nailing it for their corrected age. There are no worries at all.

Twin life is hard for sure, it’s a totally different ball game. It can feel lonely as no one other than a twin parent can understand or worse, people without twins think they understand when how possibly could they. People often say the wrong thing, or thoughtless things. I just roll my eyes and try to move on or sometimes I type my frustrations out and that helps. The twin support page has been amazing. You feel part of a community and getting to speak to other twin parents who understand and give support has been a godsend. 

That is my story, I have shared it because even though things did not go to plan and there was definitely hard times, I want others to know that even when you go through a really tough time that things can be okay again. There’s days were things still get me down for sure, but there’s more times when I feel grateful and blessed. Being a twin mama isn’t for the weak, but that’s why we are blessed to be one. We are strong, we are amazing and being a twin parent is the best. I may have missed out on other experiences but I get to enjoy the best experience of them all … twins ❤️❤️

Jessica's Story

My pregnancy story started back in 2020. I found out I was pregnant in January 2020 and 2 weeks after I found out, I started bleeding. So my partner took me to hospital where they felt my belly and asked a few questions and said everything was fine and it was possibly implantation bleeding, but booked me in for an ultrasound 2 days later.

That evening when I got home I lost a blood clot the size of a golf ball. At that point I knew I had a miscarriage. I was a wreck, but went for scan 2 days later where they confirmed I’d had a miscarriage, took my bloods, but the HCG levels were still high and told me to come back in 2 days for more blood, which I did.

But the HCG level was higher, so I was booked back in for more ultrasounds and bloods. The next day I had more bloods and the HCG level had dropped, but only slightly. The scan didn’t show anything — could not see an ectopic pregnancy — so they advised I go in to have surgery to get rid of the pregnancy tissue.

I was booked in for 2 days later. Got to hospital for 8am and went down for surgery at 5pm. Was supposed to be in surgery for about an hour and a half, and was in for 5 hours. Found out next day that when I was in surgery, they noticed I had an ectopic pregnancy and my left tube was about to burst, so they removed it. If they left it any later, it could have been fatal for me.

When they spoke to me the next day, they told me I had a miscarriage and an ectopic, so I’d lost 2 babies. After that, me and my partner waited about a year and started trying again. We were trying for around 18 months with no luck. Went to doctors and they did some tests and I was referred to a fertility clinic for IVF.

When I had egg collection, they got 12 eggs and 8 fertilised. 5 made it to day 5 and I had one transferred and the other 4 were frozen. The transfer failed. I then had another transferred leading to a chemical pregnancy, and the third transfer also failed. At this point I was feeling low and like it would never happen for me.

I was going to cancel my next cycle of medication for the 4th transfer when my partner convinced me not to. So we went ahead and they asked if I wanted one or both of my last embryos transferring. I opted for one — at least if it didn’t work I had one last shot. They transferred the 4th embryo and 2 weeks later I went for blood to see if it worked.

I went to hospital in morning and was sat at my friend's that afternoon when they called. Expecting them to tell me it had failed again, when to my surprise they said it had worked and I was pregnant. I was so overwhelmed I didn’t believe them. I waited 2 weeks for the first scan at 6 weeks and I was terrified something would go wrong.

When sat in the ultrasound room, the nurse turned the light off so she could see the screen better. She then said, “I’m gonna turn lights on to give you the news.” My mind instantly went to the worst — thought that something had gone wrong — when she turned the screen and told me we were having twins and they were both healthy, showed me both heartbeats. In that moment I felt like I’d won the lottery.

We then went back 2 weeks later at 8 weeks — everything was still good — and then at 12 weeks they discharged us from the fertility clinic. We then went to hospital for a scan every 2 weeks from 16 weeks. At my 20-week scan they said it looked like T2 had fluid on the brain. I was terrified after everything we had been through to get to this point.

They referred me for an MRI and everything seemed fine, but they checked it at every scan and everything seemed fine till I got to 32 weeks and T1 didn’t seem to be growing like T2. So I went for weekly scans and it was decided I would have a C-section at 35 weeks and 5 days.

I got to hospital on 15th October at 7am. I was supposed to be first down to theatres, but there was an emergency so at 10am they took me down, had the epidural, and was ready to meet my 2 miracle boys. My husband was with me and our wedding song came on as they were taking T1 out. He didn’t make a sound and was taken straight to a room next door.

My heart was beating so fast and then they took T2 out and he was still in his sac. When they got him out I heard him scream — it was the best sound in the world. My husband then went in the room next door with him too so they could clean him up and check him out. He came back moments later with my little Sam (T2), but T1 — Tommy — had to be taken to NICU to go on oxygen to open his lungs.

But Sam stayed with me. We were taken onto the ward and my husband went with Tommy to NICU. I had them at 11:40 and 11:41 and wasn’t able to see Tommy till 6pm that evening. It killed me, but I got to be the first to hold him. Then when he went back in the incubator, they put him under blue light for jaundice.

That evening, Sam was also put on blue light at my bedside. I was so overwhelmed with love for my boys, at the same time I was sad that they had been split up. Both boys were doing well. Next day Tommy came off oxygen and just needed to keep his bottles down. Later that night at 9pm on 16th October, Tommy came to the ward and I had both my beautiful boys with me.

Tommy was off the blue light, but Sam was still on it. They were both doing so well. I had to wake them every 3 hours for a feed, but they were not that bothered about the bottle. The boys were weighed on the 17th. Sam came off blue light and I put the boys together in the hospital cot and they cuddled each other — first time they were together after being born.

Then on the 18th, T1 Tommy lost 10.5% of birth weight and T2 Sam had lost 12% and had to go back on blue light, so we had to stay in hospital. By the following Monday 21st October, both boys were feeding better as midwife mentioned warming bottles up, so we tried that and they loved it. So we decided they preferred warm milk.

However, I had a lump under my C-section scar, so they got a doctor to look at it and sent me for a CT scan and ultrasound to find it was fluid under the scar. But by that evening it had gone from being the size of a golf ball to being all the way across my belly and it was painful. I struggled to bend and pick the boys up and I went back down to theatre for them to open me back up and drain the fluid.

While in surgery my husband stayed with the boys on the ward and that night when I was back, the midwife helped me with the boys as I could not bend or pick them up. The next day we were discharged and all doing fine.

At the boys’ 6-week check-up, they noticed that the boys had involuntary movement of the eyes and we were referred back to the hospital. The boys have been back and they have ocular albinism.

Freya's Story

Walking into my 12 weeks scan, the last thing I expected was to be told I was pregnant with MCDA twins. My husband was at home with our 2 year old daughter and I went to the hospital alone to find out how things were looking. The moment the sonographer’s face became blank, I prepared myself to hear bad news. Instead I was told that there was not one baby… but two babies! ‘You’re joking!?’ I remember asking. An hour later, I walked out with my hands full of information about twins and where to find support. I had been told that MCDA twins were higher risk and I would be having a lot of scans throughout the pregnancy.

Not wanting to tell my husband over the phone, I rang up one of my close friends and proceeded to share my news: ‘They’re freaking twins! I’m having twins! Oh my Gosh!’. My first feelings were those of shock and disbelief. Having twins was not even on my radar. Not one part of me thought I would be having twins. Mainly, I felt immence guilt about how this would impact my 2 year old. Having one new baby sibling is hard for a toddler, let alone two. I drove home, saw my husband and burst into tears whilst telling him what had been found. As the day went on, I slowly started sharing the news with family members who all felt similarly in shock. It took a good few weeks, but with the help of online support and lots of research we all managed to come round to the idea that we were having twins and started to feel excitement about becoming members of an exclusive club. The twins are now 6 months old and it is hard. It is difficult looking after twins and a toddler, but it is chaotic and it is amazing and I wouldn’t change it at all now.


Pavlik Harnesses

Like many twin parents, we took our twins to have their hips scanned at 6 weeks old. Sadly, it was found that their hips were ‘immature’ and we were told to use double nappies and to come back for another scan when the twins are 12 weeks old. 6 weeks passed and off we went back to the hospital for their second hip scan. It was not good news. Their hips were still classed as immature and they both had to have Pavlik harnsses fitted. The harnsses are fabric braces that help keep the hips in a good locked in position whist the baby grows. They have to be worn for 23 hours per day for at least 6 weeks. I felt awful for them. They could no longer kick their legs and they became really dificult to hold and to fit into their carseats. In a way, I felt like it was my fault for not ‘growing’ them properly in the womb. But of course, that was not the case, and just the lack of room and being quite squished inside meant that their hip joints could not develop properly. After 6 weeks of wearing the harnesses, their hips had still not improved enough so they had to wear them for another 6 weeks.

After 12 long weeks of wearing the Pavlik harnesses, the twins have finally been able to have them off and have come on in leaps and bounds in their ability to sit up and roll. Although, it has been hard to see them in their harnsesses, I am so grateful that the immature hips were caught early and were able to be treated whilst they were still babies.

Giovanna's Story

I'd been with my now husband for a year and decided Id love to have a baby with him he was great around little children in the family and I just thought I want that with him, I already had a daughter from a previous relationship who was 12 at the time so for me to think this in a fairly new relationship I thought I must be crazy. I mentioned it to him and he also thought the same he would like to have a child of his own. We were extremely lucky and fell pregnant within 2 months of trying. On 22/12/2020 It was our first scan, the same day as my daughter's birthday and I also had my driving test booked for that morning, a lot going on already. My test was at 9:30 and on the way to the test centre I was pre occupied anyway with knowing we had our first scan at 12:30 and was talking to my driving instructor about it. Fast forward to the dreaded ending of my test and I heard the words "you've passed" I couldn't believe it, what perfect timing it was for me now to be able to get a car and drive in time for a new baby. On the way to the hospital for the scan and in the waiting room we were talking about just getting one car seat and we can move it between cars if needed, this was all brand new for my partner and something I was going to have to remember from having my daughter so many years ago so just general chit chat about the things we'll need and how it usually works for hospital appointments.

We then went into the room for the scan and of course I know the general scope of things, bit of cold jelly and the nurse scans to check baby is all good and get an idea on due date. Before starting she made a passing joke of "let's see how many heartbeats there are" now at this point there is no reason from either my side or my partners why there would be any more than 1 heartbeat, twins don't run in our family anywhere. So I said " 1 heartbeat will just be fine thanks" for me to then receive "oh" from the midwife, sorry first all we shouldn't be using the word oh when scanning people what is that supposed to mean, She looked at us and we stared at her, for her to then say "there are 2 heartbeats" well that was it I let out a mighty wail in utter shock I think and the midwife from next door came rushing in to see what was going on. The nurse said I just told them they're having twins. I was hysterical, how is this happening, is the house big enough, how much stuff we are going to need, my brain had gone into overdrive with shock. We drove home in utter silence not knowing what to say to each other. Of course we went to pick my daughter up from a family friend with the scan pictures we had and passed her one to look at to be faced with two blobs on the page. She also couldn't believe it. Everyone we told close family and friends were in disbelief. It took a while to sink in, we found out we were having MCDA twins so were high risk, I was extremely unwell during and after the pregnancy so it wasn't easy at all, don't even get me started on the newborn stage. The boys were born via C-section at 34 weeks on 25/05/2021 and spent 2 weeks in NICU but we now have two very healthy 4 year olds that drive us crazy on a daily basis and twin life is a whirlwind of emotions.