When I found out I was pregnant again, I was a mix of emotions. We’d had a stillbirth a few months beforehand, so I was really anxious that the same would happen for this pregnancy. I went for my early ultrasound and there were 2 little heartbeats! 1 was perfect, 1 was a little slow and I was told it could go either way, which that just added to my anxiety. At 8 weeks, I saw my OB and he did an ultrasound - and there they were, two little babies with perfect heartbeats. It was such a relief but also brought out a lot of anxiety and “what if”s.

I was high risk for another premature birth – I already had 2 premmies, a stillbirth, and now twins. I had fortnightly scans and my pregnancy was textbook and boring up until 30 weeks.

At 30 weeks, I had a bloody show. I went to hospital and was given a CTG. The babies were happy, I wasn’t having contractions and my cervix was long and closed so I was sent home to rest and come back the next day for another CTG (this was also fine).

2 days later, I saw my OB and both babies were happily kicking away on the ultrasound. I went home feeling like they would arrive at 34 weeks like their siblings.

2 days later, I woke up at 3am with what I thought was Braxton Hicks. I took a shower, had some Panadol and they went away, so I didn’t think anything of it as I was having Braxton Hicks every day.

I woke up and took my kids to school, came home and had another bloody show. I called my OB who said to come in straight away. He told me he would have to transfer my care to another OB and hospital as my local ones wasn’t equipped to deal with the twins coming this early.

So off we went to the larger hospital. My new OB was amazing. He even told me I could have a twin VBAC if I wanted, which I jumped at the chance ok! I was given steroids to mature the babies’ lungs, and sent for a CTG. During the CTG, I started having contractions. They were 3 minutes apart. I was moved to the birth suite and given medication to stop labour. They checked my cervix and it was still long and closed. I was hooked up to the CTG again. The meds managed to stretch out the contractions to every 5 or 6 minutes, but every time the meds wore off, the contractions picked up again. The contractions became more regular, so they checked my cervix again and it was 6cm and fully effaced (thinned out). This was it – the twins were coming. All my fears disappeared and I was so excited to meet my babies. There were coming into the world alive and I would be taking 2 babies home!

I got my twin VBAC, and each twin got delayed cord clamping for a few minutes. Twin A, Bodhi, didn’t need any birthing support, and Twin B, Layla, needed CPAP and both were taken to the NICU. They weighed 1.7kg and were in the NICU for a short period before we transferred back to the local hospital, and then home once they were feeding and growing well.

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