Twins Club 4!! All welcome. :-)

[rednellie]

Right ladies, welcome aboard for mutual hand holding. Here are the stats - they're probably all wrong!

MrsStevo, #1 & 2, EDD 23/08/2011, Lincs, MCDA ID,
Tiggersreturn #2+3 EDD 26/09/11 NW London DCDA - not finding out
silverangel #1+2 Sophie, 3lb3 & Alice3lb1 born at 31+2 on 01/08/11 EMCS
PrincessScrumpy #2 & 3, girls
BB3, #2&3 (#1 DS) DCDA girls born 20.09.11 by EMCS at 37 weeks exactly - Edith-May 5lb 11.5oz and Ayse-Rose 6lb 1oz.

PeelingmyselfofftheCeiling #1+2 EDD, DCDA, Boy and Girl, Born 14 Sept
Twinnerves, DCDA, #2&3, girls Francesca and Isabella, born 18/11/11 EMCS 6lbs 6 oz and 6lbs 9.5oz
xkatyx , ID girls, DC 8,5,9months, ELCS 23/12/11 Rosie and Hollie
Quempin #1&2 EDD 27/1/12, ID boys, T1 5lb5oz, T2 just under 5lb, ELCS 36 weeks
Ravenlocks DCDA, #1&2, 6.01.12 T1 Boy, 4lb 12oz, T2 Girl, 6lb
Tabbycatt, DCDA, 2 boys, DC 2 & 3, 2/1/12 at 36 weeks, VB, T1 5lb 5oz, T2 5lb 11oz
claireinmodena dcda bg born 8/2 Emma (2,870 kg) and Riccardo (2,310 kg)
StinkingBishop 2 &3 DCDA girls EDD 19/3/12
RedNellie DC 2&3, DCDA boys, EDD 28/3/12
DreamingOfPeace, DCDA boys, DC 2 & 3, EDD 19/4/12
Skitoo: DCDA Boys, DC #1&2, EDD 14/05/12
Bigboobsatlast: MCDA Boys, DC #2 & 3. EDD 23.05.12
Buonasera, 1&2, DCDA, EDD 22/05/12 (???)
Lilyni DC 4&5, DCDA, EDD 12/06/12
goimgmadtrying: mcda id girls dc 3&4!!!! edd 05/08/12
Teds DCDA #1&2 EDD 31/07/12
Kazar99 DCDA EDD ???

Many congratulations kazar, cant wait to hear everything about the birth when you have a spare second and piccies wiuld be lively too

bailets I think I know what you mean, I felt the same after my cs . Sendibg goid vibes to you and those babies and milk to come soon.

Oh and ditto about not having to do this again, except now 6 months later I would!! -but dh would kill me and we can't afford it anyway--

Fabulous news kazar! Yippee!

Sorry you're feeling a bit pants, baileys. Hopefully a few more sleeps and your body will recover and get itself back to something like normal. Glad the babies are doing well

The info on car seats is really useful. We don't actually own a car, but are members of a car club, and we hire (for an hour, an evening, or a weekend) a variety of size of car locally (from a Micra to a Golf to an estate) depending on what we need it for.

So, my question is whether car seats are transferable from one car to another? It's very possible we will buy our own car at some point, especially with two babies to contend with, but it's probably something we'd put off as long as possible as we just don't need one day-to-day, nor do we want the expense. We'd probably be looking at secondhand car seats as we won't use them that much (is it really true that you're not allowed to take the babies home from hospital without them?!)

Wow, huge congratulations kazaar how wonderful. Glad they're both doing well, hope your daughter is off cpap soon too. Honestly, you'll feel so, so much better within about 48 hours, definitely by 3 days :) .

Car seats are transferable, some to most cars, they'll all have lists of which vehicles they're suitable in. Maxi cosi are fantastic safety wise, get a Best Buy. That's why I swapped my Ventura. Some britax ones got fab crash tests too, plus the BeSafe ones. Can't remember any more, sorry!

Kazar - look at you springing that one on us! Huge congrats - cannot wait for names and birth stories and pics from you both!

Hope you feel better soon, must be hard not having them with you all the time but they'll be there soon!

Yep car sears transferable but if you're not going to use regularly I'd get the 0-4year ones as the new born maxi cosy will only fit them for 8-9 months ish.

Hi everyone.

I'm really bad at keeping up, it's just been mega busy here. My DD ended up quite poorly last week, she had Hand, foot and mouth and impetigo, then on the Thursday she came out in a rash everywhere so I took her up to the hospital, turns out she had a viral rash as well as the other two, so I spent the week pretty much being clinged on to! Then I've started back at work this week, back doing a course so I have 2 weeks full time to do, then I only have 2 evenings a week to work. But it's been a bit mad for me, and I'm shattered.

But that's by the by :) My belly has had a spurt and I have a bit of bump ache, nothing bad, I'm just aware of it grown, and I feel about 17 weeks pregnant, even though I'm 13.5! I expect it all grows twice as big, twice as fast.

I must remember to join Tamba.

And we've bought a new car today to fit in the three car seats that we will need to have!

Oooh FreeButtonBee EDD twins carrying twins :) Sorry to hear you have been feeling so ill.

Can't believer we had an imposter in here last week :( How awful.

Congratulations to baileys and kazar :) Brilliant stuff. How fabulous to have 5 new babies so quickly in here.

Sorry I'm not doing more personal responses. I have been reading through. I'm just trying to say hi and keep in here :)

Congratulations Kazar!

And Baileys, I hope you feel better soon. Must be such a shock for your body to suddenly be minus three babies.

Hope everyone is doing well :)

Had my 28 week scan and consultant appointment today. All good and I am so pleased with their progress.

3.2lbs & 3.25lbs! This make them the size of 31 weeks at 28+2! Consultant said I am good at growing babies. Both transverse and midwife says it is causing my uterus to stretch more than normal. Makes sense as I am like a whale.

Glad my girls are doing so well though. Off to bed, I am exhausted after my 3.5 hour hospital appointment.

Hey gardenpixies - glad everything went well with your scan and your two are looking good.

Just back from my 2nd appt with the midwife who was very excited to learn about the private scan showing twins. But I've lost a kilogram and she couldn't find any heartbeats for the twins with the handheld thing, but had warned me beforehand that it may not be possible before 12 weeks (I'm 11+1) and she said they might be hiding behind the pubic bone? So I'm trying not to worry too much but I am a bit worried, especially with losing weight (I have no sickness). Anyway I have scan a week on Saturday so not too long to wait till I see them again and hopefully everything will still be okay.

hi everyone - just an update to say I've had lots of reassurance from the expecting in march 2013 thread about it being really hard to hear heartbeats until later on, so am panicking less. 12+4 scan a week on Sat so that will, hopefully, be reassuring.

Manda I am surprised that your midwife ever tried to hear the heartbeats with a doppler so early on. My midwife didn't listen to heartbeats until I was 16+4 (just checked notes). Even then she could only hear one heartbeat and that freaked me out a bit. She checks heartbeats every visit now. Midwife at doctors surgery and at the hospital said to me that they wouldn't even try listening for a heartbeat before 16 weeks because they often can't find them that early on and they don't want to stress the mother out.

Try not to worry, even though I know it is hard. Soon enough you will be able to feel them wriggling and that will be daily reassurance for you.

I'm really looking forward to that daily reassurance of wriggling, gardenpixies! Thanks for your advice. I've (almost) completely stopped panicking about that now. Today's mini-trauma is that Dr phoned with results of my bloods (fasted turnaround I've ever known on the NHS as I only had them taken yesterday) and I'm very low on potassium (despite not vomiting once during this pregnancy and eating tons of fruit and veg) and I'm borderline with an underactive thyroid! I'm hoping one of these goes some way to explain my extreme tiredness lately (tho I know multiple pregnancies in themselves bring this on!) Crikey, if it's not one thing it's another! Telling parents and brother tonight - first family we will have told! A bit nervous actually...

Good luck with telling the family. They will be over the moon for you (once they actually believe you) and then this weird thing will happen to your mother once she discovers she is going to become a twin nanny! It is lovely.

Doctor will give you the supplements your need. Consultant put me on iron tablets and vitamin D. Have a nice weekend :)

Hello everyone, sorry haven't had a chance to catch up with the thread yet.

That's me home from hospital, a week after my EMCS. I'm not too sore but still look a few months pregnant! I guess that is a side effect of the EMCS that I wasn't expecting. Hopefully my belly gets smaller soon.

Babies are called Carolyn (4lb 7oz) and Douglas (5lb 2oz), middle names still being debated (but we haven't really had much chance to think about it). It's been a very quick week!

They are both still in hospital but doing well :) both out of incubators and into cribs. Douglas is now taking bottles every 3 hours...he pulled his feeding tube out his nose this morning :) He was on bottles with NG tube top-ups if he didn't finish the bottles but if he continues to take bottles every feed then he won't get the tube replaced. Carolyn is still being fed through a nasogastric tube but is progressing to feeds every 3 hours. Once she settles on 3 hourly feeds then next stage is to start her on bottles too but she is always sucking her fist so I think she'll catch on pretty quickly :) They are on a mix of formula and EBM. My milk production is still playing catch up but getting there slowly, and I'm trying both babies at the breast occasionally before their feeds (and both are latching on for a few minutes at least). Hopefully they will be able to combine breast and bottle okay.

Anyway, off to bed ready to get up at 2.30am to express again. Hope everyone else is well, and that baileys and her 3 babies are doing well too.

Hi, please can I join?

I am 17 weeks with DCDA twins and my due date is 28th Jan. I'm guessing they will be delivered at around 7th Jan though as I've had two previous c-sections.

It took me a while to get my head around baby no.3 becoming baby 3 AND 4 but I think I'm getting there now and have days where I feel quite
excited now! In between the days when I feel huge, tired and worried about everything that might go wrong.

Hello to everyone and big Congratulations to the ladies who gave recently had their babies - it's very exciting to read your stories.

Great to hear you're back home Kazar and not too sore after the c-section. Hope the babies can come home soon? Must feel strange leaving them in the hospital, but the docs and nurses know what they are doing so reassuring too, and it gives you a chance to rest properly and heal.

MW who at first appt (before I knew it was twins) was pushing the minimal drugs and MWLU route, in my 2nd appt last week - when I showed her the results of the private scan at which I found out it was twins - was very doubtful I would be giving birth in her unit. She said as I have an 'untried pelvis' (i.e. not given birth before) and it was twins, and some possible other high risk factors which I need to see consultant about, I will prob be strongly encouraged to have epidural and c-section. I'm a bit terrified of normal birth but I'd come round to the idea of giving it a go, so that's a bit sad. She did say it depends on how things go with my health and the development of the babies and the other high risk factors. Said I could argue for having a go naturally, but I agree there are too many unknowns at this stage. Two healthy babies is what I want so the way they come out is irrelevant if I get that.

Funny what you said about 'once the family actually believe you', Gardenpixies as we were all bantering and DH was having a pretend stand-off with DB and Mum was taking the mickey out of him and he just turned to her and said 'Manda's pregnant' (because no-one had commented on the fact I was drinking a pink of OJ + water rather than my customary cider, as planned!) and she just looked at me weirdly and carried on. No-one else had heard so it was a bit of a fail, so I took matters into my own hands and did a grand announcement, and there was general disbelief for a minute or two. Dad got it and did the hugs and handshakes, my mum just sat there, my brother kind of knew already as I'd said there was some 'news', but it took my mum ages - but what about your career? we thought you weren't interested, twins?! etc etc ? and after about an hour she announced she'd come round to the idea (!!) Honestly, they are bonkers (but lovely!) and now beyond excited? I kept trying to say it was early days etc but Dad was having none of it! Mum has decided she's going to be a Nan and has started a baby fund of 50p pieces(!).

Hello digestives and welcome (sorry we crossed posts). I'm new on here too. I'm 11+5 with twins-with-their-own-placentas (must learn the medical terminology for this!) I'm not huge yet but seem to have developed a bit of a pot belly these last few days that is there in the morning and at night. methinks this is the beginning of BIGNESS!

Hello again! I was on this thread months ago but dropped out over the summer. Congratulations on all the new babies and pregnancies.

I'm 28+5 today and for the last few days have been feeling massive. The temperature - 38 degrees! - is not helping. I am currently beached on the sofa with an electric fan on me. I had a scan at the weekend and the babies (non-ID boys) are doing well. They are 1kg and 1.2kg: I think that makes almost 5lb in total. Bizarrely I have put on no weight at all since getting pregnant: I was a bit overweight and have been on a strict Gestational Diabetes diet since 8 weeks, which has made me lose weight at precisely the same rate as the babies (and placenta, blood volume, water retention etc) have gained it. Tomorrow I am seeing my consultant: my main worry at the moment is that I don't think I'm booked into my local hospital (in France), so I need her to tell me what the process for doing that is. I'm sure it will be a big headache.

I'll try to check in more regularly from now on. Looking forward to chatting with you all!

Oh, for the list, I will be 38 weeks on 24th October which is considered term in France. I'll have a planned section then if not EMCS before.

Am posting via phone (mid-feed) as I'm starting to realise it will be months before I get to a computer! Very belated congrats to Baileys and Kazar. Five beautiful new babies and gorgeous names all round. Hope all continues to go well.

Sorry not to name check others. News here is mainly that we are very sleep deprived and breastfeeding twins is doable but is a bit of a full time job! Twins are growing fabulously though and I'm hoping that as they become a bit more alert in a few weeks we might get a bit of a routine going!

Love and hugs to all the bumps and babies xxx.

Hello digestives and welcome back thereis we all go through phases of not posting for a while!

mandas my two were both head down so was expecting to have a natural labour, but ended up with an EMCS due to bleeding. In the end, I didn't care how they came out as long as they were both healthy.

I think I may be like Teds and posted missing for the next while. We are getting to bring the twins home this afternoon :) I'm petrified and excited at the same time, glad to be getting them home and not having to travel to hospital but wondering how we'll cope with two tiny babies. I suddenly feel clueless. Seems strange that my 36 week scan was supposed to be yesterday yet we will have two babies at home tonight :)

baileys hope your 3 are doing well and get home soon too :)

Waves to everyone else

Hi again. I had my monthly appt with my consultant this morning who admitted me straight to hospital. I'm 1.2 cm dilated and 29 weeks tomorrow, so they are giving me steroids and anti-contraction meds. Will be here til the weekend at least. All routine, if boring. The food is terrible and the bed is not very comfy and the room is hot - but I have my own one (thank you French medical system) and DH has brought my stuff in including a thermos of tea and electric fan, bless him. He'll be in later with DD which will be nice - she will love the automatic bed. Anyway I suddenly have lots of time for this thread so hope to be saying hello to you all properly soon.

Kazar - good luck with the transition to home! I hope it goes well. I was much happier there than in hospital with DD: I'm sure it'll be a relief when you get there. Bonne chance!

thereis, gosh, that must have been scary initially. How were you feeling before it happened? I am 29+1 with non ID girls so our due dates are a day apart. They don't do routine internal examinations here, I happened to have one at 26 weeks due to lower abdominal pain. I hope you are not too bored and that they let you go home soon. Rest up :)

Hi digestives, I am having DCDA twins too.

teds, well done on the breastfeeding. I hope things are starting to settle with your little ones and you get into a routine easily.

kazar, good luck with bringing your babies home. I bet you can't wait!

mandas, it must have been very exciting telling your family. I loved telling mine, even though it was over the phone!

bailey, I hope your 3 little ones are doing well. Must be a shock to the system.

All good here, week 2 of my maternity leave and I am loving having all this time to myself! I am self employed so still have paperwork to finish off and tax to submit, I need to motivate myself to get it done. Still quite a bit to do for babies, cots to assemble, clothes and nappies to wash and all their other stuff to sort out. Still need to buy mattresses and other bits and pieces...must motivate myself.

Thereis, hope your hospital stay is brief but does the trick. Have no idea what happens if you're a little bit dilated ? can they stop the contractions for good for the moment? Clearly it's best if the babies stay in as long as poss so FX for you. I take it you are fluent in French? :-) Surprised that the food is so bad - but maybe that's an international rule about hospitals!

Garden good luck with your tax returns etc! Sounds like a few weeks of nesting ahead once you get the paperwork out of the way :-)

Kazar, from your experience would you say that it's better to have a planned CS than an emergency one (if I understand correctly that that's what EMCS is?) or that it's still worth thinking about natural labour until the point it may start to look unlikely? Wow, bringing your babies home must be a truly wonderful thing! Terrifying too I'm sure but you will cope!

Teds well done on the bfeeding both babies! That's the plan here but having never had even one baby to nurse before I'm keeping an open mind as to whether or not it will work / be feasible! I'd at least like to do it for a few months but longer if poss.

Looking forward to hearing how long it takes you (and others with twins) to get into a good feeding and sleeping routine. I'm gearing up to tell my boss about the pregnancy and discuss mat. leave. My vague plan (and I'm happy to be told it's utterly unrealistic!) is officially to take 6-9 months of mat. leave with my employer, so that at the end of my current contract (of which there will be around 18 months remaining when I start mat. leave, if babies come at around 36/37 weeks in Feb) I will have an extension of that amount of time at the end of the contract. In practice, however, I will want to be doing a few hours of work-related stuff (from home) as soon as we get into a routine and I start to feel human again with some sleep under my belt! So, I hope I can do 1-2 hrs per week after the first month (at weekends when DH is home) and that from 3 months I can do 6-10 hrs per week. To facilitate this DH will either go down to a 4-day week or we'd like to find some wonderful, local support in the form of a childminder who would be prepared to sit the babies for a couple of hours each day in the week. (Our families are nowhere close, unfortunately.) Luckily I can do most of my work from home (I'm an academic and lots of stuff on my plate for next year involves writing/proofing books, papers, articles.) There will be the occasional day when I will have to go into London for conferences (that I'm organising!) and meetings. I really don't know what's going to happen then! Worst, or perhaps best, case-scenario is that DH takes day off, hangs around nearby and I pop out to breastfeed! (Yes, I have very understanding ex-academic DH who is massively supportive!)

So, to those who have a desire to keep their hand in with active work projects and who have multiple babies ? is this kind of arrangement even remotely possible, practically, emotionally, psychologically, etc?!

Sorry for the essay! Didn't realise it was that long...!