Danni Duncan – four babies, twin birth, emergency caesarean, VBAC, bowel cancer survivor

“Chris and I had only been together a short time to be honest. We met in the November and fell in love very quickly. I was 31 and I’d said to him very early on, do you want kids, because I’m not getting any younger. By the November of the next year we decided to have a baby and we fell pregnant straight away, which was amazing. However, we did lose that baby straight away. It’s funny, when you go for your first baby at 31 you never think that’s a possibility, so it was really heartbreaking.

“We’d told our friends and family and then I went to Hamilton Island with a girlfriend. Whilst on that trip one night I said, I don’t feel very well, I’ve got some cramps happening. As a woman, and I’ve had four miscarriages, I just kind of knew what was happening. Really bad pain and then bleeding started, and I spent the next few hours in the shower. It reinstilled how much I wanted a baby though. I literally remember saying to the doctor, can we try again straight away.

“We’d booked a four week trip to the States and the doctor said the best time to conceive is every second day from day twelve. Day twelve happened to be the day we landed in LA. My period was due on Christmas Day in New York and I did the pregnancy test and it was positive. It was Christmas Day, it was snowing in New York, it was just the best. But also anxiety inducing, because I wanted to keep this baby and I was now scared, having had that loss.

“At thirty eight plus five I went into labour. My waters broke at midnight and we started active labour, which was really painful in my back. They realised she was posterior. By morning I was only two centimetres dilated even though I’d been labouring since midnight, and the doctor said, you’re not going to have the energy to push, I’m going to give you an epidural. I really didn’t want one but I was wrecked. Eventually she was posterior and they needed a vacuum to bring her down and turn her. She was born, two point eight kilograms, beautiful. Apart from a small drama with the umbilical cord and the placenta, we had the most amazing four days in hospital. I call her my trial child though, because your first is always where you have no idea what you’re doing.

“When we decided to try for a second, I actually remember saying to my mum, is there any other options, because the fertility specialist said I’d probably need IVF, which wasn’t something we wanted to do. He mentioned ovulation induction instead, similar to IVF without all the injections, so we did that. My mum’s a doctor and she ordered some blood tests, my levels were 10,000 at five weeks and she said, this should not be 10,000 right now, this is usually like 400. I was like, what? She said, you’ve got twins. We went in for confirmation and the fertility doctor said, she’s right.

“My twin pregnancy was really good, I ran up to 31 weeks and strength trained up to 34. Bo was head down from day one, my chill baby. Harlow was transverse the whole time, wriggling, and she’s the same now, a firecracker. I was induced at 37 weeks, and Bo was born vaginally with three pushes, beautiful, calm birth. But then the doctor went to check on Harlow and I saw him mouth the word, sorry. He said, she’s slid down and she’s lying across your cervix, I can’t get anything, her heart rate’s dropping, we need to get you down to theatre now. It was a whirlwind from there, an emergency caesarean, and she came out not breathing. They resuscitated her, she was one point eight kilograms, teeny tiny, and went straight to special care. I had a lot of guilt around Harlow’s birth for a long time, to be honest.

“With the twins, I really wanted to breastfeed but I put no expectation on myself. I was able to feed Bo, he was big enough, but Harlow was just too small, so I expressed and pumped constantly. By six weeks I was wrecked, mentally and physically, feeding, pumping, feeding, pumping, and I had a toddler wanting my attention too. I made peace with the fact that I was going to stop, and we formula fed from ten weeks.

“After the twins we lost another pregnancy at seven weeks, and then later I fell pregnant again and we planned a beautiful gender reveal on a trip to Europe. Everything was going so well. Then just before we boarded a flight home from the UK, I noticed some spotting and I just knew. A couple of hours into the flight the cramps started and I was thirteen and a half weeks. Harper was next to me asking what was happening. By the time we landed in Singapore I was in immense pain and had to be taken straight to hospital, while Chris had to get all three kids off the plane by himself. I miscarried that night, alone, without him. It was awful.

“We decided to try one more time and I fell pregnant with London. From the very first appointment I said to my obstetrician, I want a VBAC, drug free, no induction. He said, absolutely, let’s do it. This pregnancy was completely different, more nausea, cravings, more hair on her head, and she was growing much bigger than my other babies. At thirty nine plus five he said, if she gets any bigger I’m not going to be able to deliver her vaginally, your pelvis is too small, I’m worried about rupturing the caesarean scar. I was devastated, I unpacked all my VBAC bag and packed my caesarean bag instead.

“Then at 3am the morning of my scheduled caesarean I woke up and said, Chris, I’ve got contractions, I’m having her vaginally. I went to the gym and squatted through them. By the time we got checked in I was progressing quickly, and she was born vaginally, drug free, after four pushes. It was the most ecstatic experience of my life.

“Breastfeeding London was finally the experience I’d longed for. She latched straight away and was a great feeder from day one. I felt like I had a superpower. Then around seven months postpartum, while training for a marathon, I started feeling awful, dizzy, exhausted in a way that wasn’t just tiredness. I collapsed at home one morning and my GP ran blood tests. She said, you are so anaemic, I don’t even want you to walk to the car. A colonoscopy followed, and the surgeon said, I’m so sorry Danni, but I’ve seen something I just don’t want to see, you’ve got a two point seven centimetre tumour on your bowel.

“I was diagnosed with stage two bowel cancer that had gone into my lymph channels, which meant chemotherapy. I was told I couldn’t breastfeed London during treatment, and I remember standing in the hospital car park and screaming my head off. I managed to change my chemotherapy schedule to a shorter, stronger course so I could try to relatch her afterwards, but despite trying for six months, she never went back on the breast. That’s probably the worst part of this whole journey, to be honest.

“I had a right hemicolectomy and four rounds of chemotherapy, finishing in September, and I’m now in remission. I’ve become a huge advocate for bowel cancer awareness, especially for younger people who get dismissed because of their age. I’ve been told, you’re too young for a colonoscopy, well I had bowel cancer last year. Listen to your body, advocate for your health, and if you’re not getting the answers you want from your doctor, go and find a new one. It might just save your life.”

You can connect with Danni Duncan and find out more about how she supports women with both nutrition and exercise here. You can listen to her podcast Life with Danni Duncan.