Experiences pregnant with twins?

[LeaWings]

Hi everyone. I’m 11 weeks pregnant with twins (my first pregnancy after months of trying) and I’m so happy because I honestly had begun to give up but to find out I was expecting two was incredible (but also a shock to the system) and I’m worried. I have a busy work life, I travel a lot and I’m also beginning to show and suffering from bad morning sickness and tiredness. I also have a history with health problems (I had Hodgkin’s). Did you find twin pregnancy difficult and how was your experience?

Yours is a difficult thread because I want everyone to post saying how easy their pregnancies were and it was all ok, but I’m afraid the reality is twin pregnancies are hard and a bit riskier than Singleton ones.
What type of twins do you have? This makes a difference as to risk.

Well I had the least risky kind but tbh the pregnancy was hard and lots of things went wrong, we were all ok in the end even though they arrived a couple of months early.

One thing I regret is working so late on, Prem labour meant I literally worked until I gave birth. In hindsight I should have finished sooner.

It's a big strain on your body just make sure you look after yourself. I'd say the first 5 months were fine but I'm sure other people fly through their twin pregnancies.

I'd do it all again though

I would rather I have honest responses, as I assumed twins would come with their risks when I found out. I also know each pregnancy is different but people may be able to give me some reassurance. They’re fraternal twins.

Thehandsmaidshat I’m glad to hear your pregnancy was fine in the end. I will probably be working for a lot of my pregnancy unless things change, but I definitely won’t be travelling as much because I know it would be difficult and especially now. I’m already doing everything I can to take care of myself, but do you have any tips of what you did?

I think the most important thing is to listen to your body, rest when you can, eat as well as you can and really just put yourself and your babies as number 1 priority.

On a practical level I got prepared and bought all the kit pretty early on which I was glad about as they came early.

Also it's worth preparing yourself for the possibility of premature labour and babies possibly needing scbu for a while. People kept telling me as my twins were fraternal the risk were low and I'd carry to 37 weeks etc. I'm glad I didn't take that as fact and prepared myself emotionally for all possibilities.

Also enjoy it as much as you can as it goes so quickly!

Firstly, congratulations!! Twins are awesome 😉

Although we were higher risk, I had a relatively safe pregnancy, no massive scares, babies grew nicely etc.

It was bloody difficult though. I was past full term Singleton size at 28 weeks, gave up driving for longer than 10 minutes at 33 weeks, and pretty much stopped working then too (had very flexible work schedule!). 32 weeks onwards was when I just sort of gave up, sleep was impossible and my water retention was ridiculous. I ended up getting pre eclampsia and the day they said let’s get these babies out was literally the second best thing to happen to me (first was obviously my babies!). I made it to 36+5, measured 56 weeks pregnant and delivered by c section, babies weighed 6lbs 6 and 7lbs 3.

The best advice i can give is listen to your body, accept you’re not going to be able to do what you could do pre pregnancy, and make peace with it. I did none of the above, and pushed myself too far too often which left me exhausted, in pain, frustrated and tearful. It’s also a ok to hate being pregnant, which nobody told me (I spent a lot of time feeling like a freak), which caused some pre natal mh issues for me.

I think having little treats to look forward to during you pregnancy can help - I used to love reading what the babies are doing at each week development, that was my Saturday morning treat with a nice long bath. We also used to take a picture every week too, it’s crazy to look back now and see how I changed, and my bump grew. I also used to use the scans as a motivator, sad, but I used to get excited to see how much they’d grown! Towards the end when I’d booked my c section, I had s daily countdown written out on my phone and would delete the day so I’d be 38 days, 37 days to go etc.

I really don’t want/mean to scare you or be a negative nancy, that’s just my experience of it. I’d be pregnant at my heaviest worst day everyday for the rest of my life if it meant keeping my babies safe, and am already thinking about having more so it can’t have been that bad 🤣