Coping With A Twin Pregnancy: Tips

If there’s one thing I can never be thankful enough for, it is undoubtedly, My Twins, my reason to live!

It has not always been a smooth sailing ride though! Right from my 6th week ultrasound scan, when twins were seen, I was put on eternal bed rest.

Initially it sounded like a lot of fun to being the queen of the house and have people do chores for you. It soon ended with the growing bump, where even sitting became a chore for me. Yes, bed rest literally meant lying in the bed throughout the day. So, no more watching TV or even going out for a drive. Visits to the loo were a punishment, to top it all, the constipation in the first trimester. I wasn’t even sure what was actually bothering me, as there were too many things attacking me at once!

My face looked different, my eyes were swollen and so were the upper parts of my lips. I was constantly losing weight (in the first 3 months I lost 8 kgs, and by the time I was full term, I just gained 3 kgs of weight).

I had to quickly come to terms with what they call preeclampsia, hypertension ad gestational diabetes. I was told that a twin pregnancy is at a high risk of all of these problems. So there you go – NO SALT, NO SUGAR. And since I was on bed rest, I had to cut down on the fats too. So I was practically eating hospital food, only made at home.

Twin pregnancy also made me prone to a lot of Urinary Tract Infections (UTI). Every month that I made a visit to the doctor, she would test me for UTI and it was positive – EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!
Then came the second trimester – now I had started coming to terms with my pregnancy. The tummy was growing and I started mapping my monthly pictures with the size of the belly. I still could not sit. My belly would constantly have labour like contractions. It would pain a lot and throughout I had been scared that I may lose one or both of my babies.

I could now feel their movements and kicks and it was so lovely… some days I could notice one movement on top of my belly and one on the lower side of it – it used to fill me up with joy!

As the final trimester came in, the kicks of my babies got stronger. One of them was settled lower, and when he’d kick, he would hit me right into the bladder and I had to rush to the loo.

When I’d sleep in the night, I needed help to even flip sides. For several minutes, I used to keep lying in discomfort, calling out my husband so that he would wake up and help me flip a side.

In my final trimester, my breathlessness also grew as the babies were taking space and the lungs had to squeeze in, in order to accommodate them. I was constantly on nebulization and inhalers. The moment I would lie down, I couldn’t breathe. The moment I’d sit upright, my belly hurt and I used to have severe cramps. Some days, I just wanted to kill somebody out of frustration of such instances, while on some others I would console myself with the thought that one day this will all be over and I’d laugh at it as if it was a joke!

With every passing day, I’d pray to god to keep my little ones safe, as it was highly probable that my babies would be born preterm and that they would need NICU time to grow properly.

On my day of delivery, which was also my birthday, I had my parents and in-laws all close to me, and I got a lovely suit made for my day of delivery that I wore to the hospital. I got my hair done and my nails done as well. I was really nervous, and I said to god, “If you need one of us today, let it be me”.

By God’s Grace, I delivered my babies full time, at 37 weeks (36 – 38 weeks is full term for Twins), with both weighing as much as an average singleton (2.5 kgs +) and they were both tall, just like their dad.

When I came back to consciousness, I held them both together and I looked at my husband with teary eyes, only to see tears in his eyes too. In our hearts, we silently said, “We did it”! We were the lucky parents of two of the most beautiful children, and we could never gauge how much of joy we experienced at that moment!

All pregnancies are difficult in a way or the other, and they all are uniquely beautiful. I feel chosen for being able to carry twins in such a healthy manner, and be able to do justice to my role as a mother.

For all the difficulties he gives to you, it’s because he loves you more than he does the others, and he knows you are his child, stronger than his other creations!