Twins birth story

Our twins girls were born on May 20th. I'm now writing this almost 4 weeks later - while I pump and they are in the NICU. You would think I'd have lots of time to write and catch up on things while the girls aren't home, but I don't. I spend any available time at the NICU. And what's left I spend with my husband and our other daughter. It's been exhausting and we don't even have babies home yet!

The girls were born on a Sunday. I was 31 weeks and 4 days pregnant. I didn't have any signs of impending birth really...other than my standard contractions, but I'd been having those since 14 weeks. I had come off work for "house rest" at 24 weeks. My day had been filled with daytime TV and lots of laundry (preparing for two more girls).

The night before, we had dinner with friends. I had not been feeling so great, so I spent some of the evening just lying in bed watching HGTV. In fact, I hadn't been feeling so great for about two weeks, but i had attributed that to carrying two babies around. And baby B was way up in my ribs most of the time, so I was uncomfortable. Plus most of the time I couldn't really sleep at night.

I woke up Sunday morning around 6:39 slightly wet down there. When I went to the bathroom I thought I used the bathroom, but it didn't feel quite like normal. Then again, most things weren't feeling normal at 31 weeks pregnant with twins. The thought that I could be leaking did cross my mind, but I also contemplated that I may have just peed on myself - a common occurrence in twin pregnancy so I had heard.

I decided to wait and see before calling the doctor. So, I got up with our daughter to watch cartoons and decided to sit on a towel just in case. Nothing happened...then I went to the bathroom again and saw the tiniest tinge of pink - combined with that not quite right feeling when I used the bathroom. At this point i told my husband he should probably get out of bed just in case! He promptly got in the shower while I called the doctor. When the doctor heard my story, he told me to go to L&D.

We made arrangements for our daughter and headed to the hospital. My bag was already packed, so there were only a few more things to add. We called our parents on the way - even though originally i had wanted to wait until we knew for sure. Once at L&D, we were talking to the nurses for admitting and they asked I had a gush of water or anything. I was in the midst of saying no when I had a small gush. I officially knew then what was happening. My water had broke. What I didn't know was if they would want to delay delivery at all due to only being 31w4d.

The nurse checked me and was pretty sure my water had broken as well. We waited for the final call from the doctor. Once he arrived and did an exam there was no question. The verdict was that I would have the babies right then - within two hours!!!

The rest proceeded like a normal c-section. The girls were born one minute apart. My doctor came in to deliver them (he wasn't on call that weekend). He lifted each baby over the curtain for me to see before handing them off to their own NICU team. Yes, they each had their own team prepared for their arrival since they were so early. Both girls let out a cry when they were born - though small. And my one big memory was thinking how small they were. After baby B was born, I commented to my husband about how small she was and then just broke down and cried. It was a very unexpected day. They were hear and safe, just still too early.

Both girls were taken to the NICU and eventually put on oxygen.