“Our journey to conception wasn’t tricky but it did involve a lot of anguish because to be honest, we really weren’t sure if we even wanted kids. In AUgust 2020 we made the decision to have kids and I conceived in the first month but I had an early miscarriage. I was heartbroken but I’m very trusting of the way things pan out; that’s easier said than done in the hard moments, I know that. From the moment you see the positive test you start seeing a future and planning for it.

“I conceived again and had another loss but then I conceived Ophelia on our third go. Every time I went to the toilet I anticipated blood because I was so nervous. I did learn that it wasn’t my fault that the miscarriages happened, it was simply an unviable pregnancy.

“I’m obsessed with the podcast so I knew the importance of continuity of care so I reached out to a local private midwife. I still had a bit of fear that things would go wrong so my initial plan was to have my midwife’s support in the local hospital but as I learnt more and got to know my midwife, I started to consider a homebirth as a possibility. By about 20 weeks I had hopes of a homebirth but I wasn’t fixed on it; I was absolutely open to a hospital transfer if any of us felt that something wasn’t quite right.

“At 12 weeks I was told I have marginal cord insertion but my midwife wasn’t concerned; it wasn’t particularly severe. At the 20 week scan that had resolved but the sonographer noted that I had a shortened cervix but I didn’t have any other symptoms so my midwife reassured me and wasn’t concerned. My next scan was at 32 weeks and my cervix was the same so it never became an issue.

“Ophelia was born just shy of 42 weeks. I really did want to avoid induction so I did a lot of reading which helped me feel calmer. It’s just the waiting – being in the limbo zone – and there was a bit of fear. There were some teary days and I considered having a caesarean and then my husband reminded me that we hadn’t made any decisions based on fear so why would we start now? At 41+2 I had a stretch and sweep and my midwife could stretch me to 3cm which was great. I had acupuncture a few days later and when I got up off the table I felt a bit of a trickle and an increase in tightenings although compared to labour, they were nothing. It was at night when I’d relaxed that the contractions really kicked off.

“I got out of the shower about 10pm and I put the TENS machine on straightaway and laboured on the bed. I’d done The Birth Class and really loved Jodi’s episode on breath and sound so I was using my breath and the TENS and feeling really good. And before long, I got adrenaline shakes so I had another shower to try to relax my body and when I was in there I had two contractions and then got out and vomited and needed to poo – and did so about seven times. My body was really clearing out and I felt so much better because of it.

“My midwife arrived about twenty minutes later and she came in really quietly and I asked her a bit sulkily if I was in real labour and she reassured me that I definitely was. I was walking to the birth pool and I was just overcome with the intensity of it. I really had the sensation of the ejection reflex; it felt like backwards vomiting. My midwife really left Nick and I to it. He was doing hip squeezes and acupressure points and my noises were much more guttural. I asked my midwife how much longer it would be and she told me an hour…but five minutes later Ophelia was born. The first thing I saw on the video of her birth is: am I dreaming? I stayed in the pool but after twenty minutes the afterbirth pains started and I was shocked at how intense they were.

“When Ophelia was 18 months we decided to start trying and we conceived on the first time again. We were in New Zealand when we found out we were pregnant and then we just started seeing twins everywhere. It was very weird. We had a really strong intuition about it, but we were also so shocked when the scan confirmed we were right. I was unsettled by the fact that my pregnancy was immediately classed as high risk but it’s been so amazing to find my bold strength as a mother to advocate for myself and my family. I advocated for myself at every point and I came sensibly to it so the health professionals responded really positively to me.

“We hired the same private midwife even though we would be birthing in the hospital. I was under the impression that she could be my acting midwife in the hospital but that isn’t possible anymore; she was there as support, not so much my clinical midwife. She was our advisor and guide and physical and emotional support.

“In pregnancy, it felt very odd asking the obstetrician for permission. I asked about dates and a water birth and overall, he was very understanding although my midwife did remind me that it was still early (they tend to get more conservative the later I got in pregnancy). I ended up in the high risk, low risk unit which was great as everything was tracking well.

“I’d had tightenings all through pregnancy – it wasn’t just physical, you could see the tightenings on my belly. I was 34+5 and that night – after we’d bought a car and named the twins – they were a bit more intense. They weren’t wave-like but they started to have a rhythm so I decided to have a shower and I got back into bed and slept till morning. My midwife encouraged me to go to hospital and I had listened to The Birth Class again and it was Rhea’s episode that really reminded me that my one job was to stay calm and get out of the way. My mantra was to surrender and relax.

“The midwives asked me to do a vaginal examination and she said she couldn’t see anything and I said that I knew it, I wasn’t in labour. And she corrected me and told me that she couldn’t see the cervix; I was fully dilated. I just started crying; I wasn’t even 35 weeks and I didn’t know what it meant for me or the babies. An obstetrician came in and her energy was just a bit hectic for my liking. She started talking about steroid injections and the possibility of transferring to another hospital and it was really overwhelming.

“We didn’t want her in the room because she really wasn’t aligned with me so we requested that she wasn’t on our birth team. Nick dimmed the lights and I just really settled in. I didn’t have the urge to push and there certainly wasn’t any pain. One of the midwives encouraged me to sit on the toilet and left Nick and I alone in the bathroom. I remember saying to Nick that it was too easy. A midwife popped her head in and encouraged me to feel for myself and I could feel the bulging waters. I suggested rupturing them and the midwife broke them, I rolled on my side, there was a blanket over me and I felt the urge to push and the midwives pulled up the blanket and twin A – Tulsi – was on the bed! They placed her on my tummy and I was just on cloud nine. After about ten minutes she was grunting a bit and the paediatricians checked her out.

“I didn’t have any contractions and had no desire to push so my midwives recommended I go over to Tulsi to get the oxytocin flowing. I tried to get her to latch but again, no contractions. Nick was holding Tulsi and then the midwives did another vaginal examination to see how things were looking and my waters broke, I had the urge to push and Lucia was born. She wasn’t doing so well from the get-go so they whisked her away and she needed cpap and a few interventions. Both girls went to NICU and I stayed in the birth suite trying to process everything. The afterbirth pains were horrendous – for over an hour I was in so much pain.

“The girls were in special care for two weeks but for a lot of that time they were in there just to get a bit bigger and stronger. It’s been a bit of a process but since we got home I’ve been exclusively breastfeeding and I’m working from doing single feeds to tandem feeding so I can do the double-feed.”