A birth story by a beautiful mum. Thank you for sharing. M x
Last year I moved to Toowoomba with two belly bubs.
Lots of wise people told me our future would
be busy and life would be hard, and that I would need as much support as I could
get.
I thought this meant family, so I
moved to be closer to my mum.
We have
rented a house in the middle of nowhere but mum lives around the corner.
The babies' dad is not with us.
My babies were born at 36 weeks because I had pre
eclampsia. I really didn’t want to have
a cesarean and I was scared, so our midwife came with us. The babies went straight to the special care
nursery and I couldn’t see them until later that night. I think maybe if my midwife wasn’t there, it
might have been longer before I could see them.
I felt terrible but all I wanted was my babies. For days and days I had to wait for someone
to let me hold them and ask to be able to feed them. Remembering this makes me sad – most of the
time I try to forget and pretend I picked the babies out of a cabbage patch. I hope that when they are older I can tell
them the real story without crying so much.
We stayed in hospital a long time, I can’t remember how long but I think
two weeks. It took a long time for the
babies to put some weight on, and they had to do this so that we could go
home. Also they were worried about my
blood pressure still being so high, I have always believed it has stayed high
because I have stayed stressed. It feels
like trauma. Since this time I have read
lots of stories from people whose babies were born much earlier than mine, and
spent much longer in special care or a NICU.
We are lucky. I was happy to meet
the babies and I love them so, but I still felt sad.
When we finally got home it was quite scary to be on my own
with two little babies. It might be
normal for being a new mum, and a single mum, I'm not sure because this is all
I have known. My mum came in at night
for the first two nights but we were still on our own. There were lots of things I didn't do - I
missed my daughters first bath, I didn’t take any photos of them for about three
weeks, I didn’t notice my son had eyelashes for a very long time. I struggled to juggle them in to positions to
feed or burp or cuddle them both at the same time. We all had to sit together in the one spot
because if I fed one baby and the other needed me, there was nobody to pass me
the baby. I can never remember how old
they are and I often confuse who did what and when or if it even happened. Everything was very busy and yet I still
found lots of time for 'quietness' to admire their sleepy little bodies curled
up together.
In the early days I am pretty sure the midwives came every
day. I also made a new friend; the
lovely lady who helped me feed the babies by donating some of her breast milk
to us every morning. Because my friends
are mostly living and working in Brisbane, these visitors were so
important. My house was full of
beautiful babies but it was nice to be connected with the real world, otherwise
days would have passed without me seeing other adults. The first few weekends were full of people
but gradually it has slowed down. I
guess relationships also change when you become a mumma, the people I thought
would be there are not. Other than a few
visits I have not had much help from my family, especially since the babies
were a few weeks old. There are surprises
too though, some of my older friends have been so lovely and I am also making
new friends. The friends that I am
valuing most are the ones that actually help and support me, rather than just
cuddling babies.
It is really hard to do anything with twin babies and very
little help. The places we go are the
doctors, the chiro and My Midwives. We
can't go to a shopping centre without help, and even then I hesitate. There are many shops that I just can’t fit
the pram through, for example, we have never been able to go inside the post
office. It is also difficult to find
somewhere to feed both babies at the same time; I really need a couch to
position them. They are fed on demand
and because I am always struggling with milk supply they seem to always want to
feed, we have spent anywhere between 16 to 20 hours a day breastfeeding. When getting out of the car I can’t get them
both out without having to strap one to my chest, we always need a stroller but
they always both want to be held. I
always want to hold them too, baby carriers have come in handy. We have been grocery shopping about three
times and I have now given up. Trying to
push a trolley, amuse one baby, breastfeed the other and buy groceries is just
too hard. We now buy everything online and
I welcome the Australia Post parcel guy in to our home almost everyday. On some days he is the only person I talk to,
he is friendly and really loves the babies.
Last week we did go to the shopping centre, and we could only do it by
stopping in at My Midwives first to have a feed and then walk down the
street. I also had a really lovely
helper with me, together we were positive that things would get better.
You might wonder why I continue to breastfeed when it is
sometimes a struggle. Breastfeeding is
important to us, I believe it is the best option for my babies' health and
wellbeing. My boobs are magic and solve
a multitude of problems with very little effort; they must be like a superpower
for single twin mummas. I have done so
many things to build enough milk to feed Hamilton and Daisy, and even now I am
not feeding them all with my own breast milk.
I will try very hard not to give up on this because I think it also
improves my wellbeing, something that is sometimes suffering. I spent lots of time at uni learning about children’s
development and parenting, but since I've become a mumma I've discovered Attachment Parenting is the style that fits
best with us. It means that things like
breastfeeding, baby wearing and co sleeping are important. Having time away from each other is not
important. Sometimes it might not look so practical with two babies and one
mumma, but it works for us.
As much as the three of us are enjoying our time together,
there are days and moments when we have an unwelcome visitor hang around us
too. I could call it sadness, depression
or anxiety but I prefer to call it Mabel, the person who outsays her welcome
way too often. It also makes me feel as
though she is separate from me and easier to get rid of. On the days when Mabel visits, I begin and
end the day with tears. I try to keep my
tears for when the babies are asleep but she is horrid and has some particularly
good tactics to make me cry when the babies are awake too. She tries hard to keep me from remembering
the good moments and all my dreams for our future. She loves to be around when I am tired, on
nights where it feels like I have just finished feeding one baby when the next
begins crying for food. I have asked her
to leave and I am hoping that one day she will.
Until she does, I must find ways to keep positive.
Things like Facebook have become very important to me, I can
interact with all my virtual friends whilst I am sitting on the couch
feeding. I write to my best friend every
day. I am in groups for twin single
parents, twin breastfeeding, twin baby wearing, babies born in November and
attachment parents in Brisbane. I am
excited to move back to Brisbane in August and share the babies with my
friends. I had forgotten about the
family of friends I had built around me before I panicked and moved to be with
my blood family. I am grateful for many things here, for lovely midwives and
beautiful people I have met. I am
disappointed by my family though; I thought the help we planned when I was
pregnant would look much, much different.
I must finish by saying that there are many nice things
about having twins. The first time the
babies looked at each other while they were each feeding from a boob was pretty
cool. The past few weeks they seem to
really notice one another, in the morning they have huge smiles for me and for
each other. When we do go out there are
often people who are really helpful, like opening doors for us and picking up
things I drop or leave behind. Everybody
wants to look and thinks they are cute, although mostly this gets annoying and
slows us down, so I cover their stroller with a muslin so nobody can see. Sometimes they play with each other, roll in
to each other or kick each other in the head, which causes dramas but I think it’s
funny. A few times my baby girl has
confused her brother's bald head with one of my breasts, and tried to
breastfeed from him. Lately also they have started holding hands, that is
really sweet!
They are hard to care for but not hard to love! J
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