Sick Babies

Unfortunately things didn't quite go to plan with the girls from 2 - 3 months of age. First they were diagnosed with silent reflux. I always thought reflux just meant your baby threw up a lot but that just isn't true! Their painful condition made their little lives (and ours!) very tough for about 3 weeks while we figured out what was wrong and the right dose of medicine. Trying to console babies that are in so much pain they won't eat or sleep is truly soul destroying :( :(. Once the medicine kicked in things improved dramatically but they were still very unsettled. They would cry for about 4 hours each per day. They wouldn't cry at the same time either so I listening to about 6 hours of crying every day.

Then we had our first trip to the hospital emergency centre. I suspected Phoebe had dehydration because she wasn't interested in food and started to vomit quite a bit. At the time the Dr couldn't see anything wrong with her and told me it must be "a phase" and sent me home. It turned out that she (and Sophia) were starting to get sick with RSV. We realised this a week later when Phoebe developed a wheezy cough which quickly progressed to full blown bronchialitis which required hospital admission. She needed oxygen therapy and continuous tube feeding. Sophia joined her in hospital 2 days later. Every day we would take turns in holding them upright on our chests to help them breathe. After 8 days in hospital they both went home.

Although it was horrible to see them so sick and miserable, the hospital was a nice holiday for me with everything provided and lovely night nurses willing to look after them while I got 7 hours sleep! This allowed me to get over a few illnesses of my own. The girls managed to give the paediatrician the virus and were very "challenging" for the hospital nurses! On one hand it made me feel better that trained professionals couldn't even keep them happy but on the other hand it didn't help me with coming up with a way to do it! The paediatrician suspected that they had an immature digestive system which caused them tummy problems that interfered with feeding and sleeping.

Bringing them Home

At 1 month old Phoebe and Sophia were in fantastic health and putting on heaps of weight (about 50g a day). They were 3.2kg and 2.9kg! They settled really well into home and were very easy to care for. Thanks to a lot of support, prayers, gifts and meals from family and friends their first week home was a wonderful and special time for us.

Our Special Care Experience

We loved special care. Probably because every time we went there we got to see our gorgeous girls! I loved the smell of the antibacterial lotion they make you wash your hands with because I associated it with seeing them. I also loved the smell of the baby shampoo in the nursery and bought a bottle at the pharmacy so I could smell that gorgeous baby scent when I wasn't with them. Phoebe and Sophia were in special care for 3 weeks. For the first week I was also in hospital and Simon was staying in my room. Simon would visit the girls every 3 hours to feed them through the nasal gastric tube and I mean EVERY 3 hours. He was so in love :). I couldn't go every 3 hours but tried to get there 2-4 times a day. At first we were only allowed to cuddle them every 6 hours but as they gained strength we were able to cuddle them every 3 hours. It sounds strange to restrict physical contact with a baby but it really wore them out. Going home at the end of the first week was hard. We had to leave them behind :(. At first we came to the hospital for two feeds a day, then three, then four and then I was in there all day doing 5 feeds during the day. We then stayed overnight at the hospital for 2 nights to show they were able to be fully bottle and breastfed 24/7. We took them home at 4 weeks old.

The above photo was taken at a rare moment when the nasal gastric tubes were being changed at the same time. Most photos of them as newborns have them with the tubes in and big bits of tape covering their beautiful cheeks.

Phoebe and Sophia's Birth Day

The girls were born healthy via cesarean on the 11th January 2010 measuring 2008 grams and 2318 grams. Immediately after they were born my OB inspected the umbilical cords and said "someone was looking after these girls". As shown in the picture below there were several knots in their cords. I believe God was definitely looking after us!

They had APGARS of 9 and were only in humidity cribs for 19 hours. They didn't need continuous O2 but they had breathing apnoea for a week. Apnoea is when they forget to breath and need to be given O2 briefly. They were fully tube fed for 3 days and then we started to slowly introduce breastfeeding.

The substitute OB that saw we the week before the birth rang my OB from Hawaii (he was on holidays!) to ask if my girls were alright. He was quite concerned about whether he had made the right decision to let me have them out at 34 weeks rather than 33 weeks. Turns out he was right but gosh - talk about "obstetrician's bluff!"

Straight after surgery I was able to hold Sophia for about 10 minutes. They would've let me hold her longer but I was feeling very dizzy and nauseous from the anesthetic and chose to give back Sophia for fear of dropping her! About 2 hours after birth I was wheeled into the special care nursery and got to stroke Phoebe and Sophia's heads for 5 minutes each. Simon took lots of videos and photos of the girls so that I could look at them while I was recovering in my room. I didn't get to hold Phoebe until 29 hours after birth.

Simon and I were absolutely overjoyed to have 2 healthy babies! Words cannot describe the relief we felt when they came out screaming. We couldn't stop smiling (except for when I was vomiting from the anesthetic!).

The Final Countdown

During the last 4 weeks of my pregnancy I had weekly scans and OB appointments. The last two scans showed that Sophia, the smaller girl was quite small and had not grown much in the 33rd week. Week 33 I had an appointment with a different OB as mine was on holidays. This other OB told me with confidence that I would make it to 34 weeks and both babies would be fine. I asked him over and over again at the last appointment whether Sophia was going to be ok because I was so worried about her but he said she would be fine.

I tried not to obsess too much about feeling the babies move but I couldn't help making sure I felt both of them kick each day. The problem with babies in the same amniotic sac is that it is very hard to tell which baby is kicking and whether it is just one or two kicking! I would sometimes wake in the middle of the night just wishing the babies would move. So I would get up, walk around and eat something just to feel them move. Once they got going I tried to relax again and go to sleep. However, it is hard going to sleep with two babies all excited inside you!

We visited the hospital for antenatal classes and asked all sorts of questions of the midwives from breastpumping equipment to how often I can see my babies to how long they are likely to be admitted for. All this information helped us to prepare us for what was to come...

Coping with a High Risk Pregnancy

I didn't know whether I was going to have 2, 1 or 0 babies in my future so it was hard to know whether to be happy, anxious, sad or....just feel nothing. A baby shower sounds like a trivial thing but I didn't know whether I should have one. Celebrating their impending birth when their chances or survival weren't great was a little odd.

I made a decision to try to be optimistic and ignore the horrible statistics. My babies were healthy according to the scans and I'm healthy so there's no use worrying! I hated people telling me to not get my hopes up and telling me not to buy baby furniture until after they were born. I wanted to pretend there were no risks - that's how I coped. My OB would tell me all the risks at every appointment leading up to viability which depressed me every time. Once I reached 26 weeks he became more optimistic and told me he was confident I would make it to magic 32 weeks. At 32 weeks the risk of long term problems reduces dramatically.

However, reality would set it, especially when we went for scans. I had 10 high resolution scans that took 1-2 hours each. I had a panic attack at every scan. The first one was the worst - I had to take 6 breaks in one hour. From then on I closed my eyes for the majority of the time and I distracted myself by eating and drinking. Even after the sonographer assured me she had found 2 heartbeats I would still be very anxious. Seeing them was extremely emotional and overwhelming. All of the scans came back with excellent results. The flow of blood from the placenta to the babies was always good which reassured us that any knots weren't restricting the flow of nutrients.

However, good scan results didn't guarantee that we were going to take home two babies. Simon and I had a few awful but necessary conversations about what we wanted to do if one or both didn't make it. We had a plan in place and we had even picked out special names. Not that we didn't want to use "Phoebe" and "Sophia" but we wanted special names with meanings that were appropriate for the situation.

What are Monoamniotic Twins?

Monochrionic Monoamniotic (Momo) twin facts:

• Approximately 1% of twins are Momo and they occur in about 1 in 60 000 pregnancies


• They are always identical and always the same sex. 75% are girls (no one knows why though)


• They are not caused by fertility treatments and are not hereditary. They occur when the zygote takes longer than usual to split, implant and start to develop. The longer it takes to implant the more of the placental structure twins will share and momo twins share everything! A few days more and the twins develop conjoined. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamniotic for a great pictorial explanation.


• They share the same placenta, same chrionic and same amniotic sac - i.e. they can touch each other and make knots in their umbilical chords. Every other type of twinning has some degree of separation and twins cannot touch each other.


• They are at risk of twin to twin transfusion (blood going from one to the other), cord entanglement (knots in their cords), cord compression (one squashing the other's cord with their weight) and uterine growth restriction (not growing) while in the womb. If one baby dies in the womb then the chances are the other will too due to sharing the same amniotic fluid.


• 34 weeks is as far as a Dr will let you go because beyond this the cord entanglement and compression risks outweigh the risks of prematurity. Which brings me to the next dot point...


• They are also at risk of everything that comes with being born 6 or more weeks premature including neurological problems, respiratory problems, cardiovascular complications, gastrointestinal problems, haematologic complications and infections.


• Natural birth is not an option because you are likely to cause cord prolapse.

"There's more than one!"

3rd August 2009

Simon and I were very excited about our first baby scan at 11 weeks, we couldn't wait to see our little one for the first time. Just before the scan started Simon told the OB that my sister has triplets so it would be interesting to see if we were having twins (or more!). I confidently told the OB that we were just having one baby thank you very much! As soon as the scan started Simon and I could see a baby and something else.... The OB announced "There's more than one!". There was a lot of nervous laughter and exclamations such as"no way!", "really?", "are you sure", etc. My legs started to shake as the shock set in. Almost straight away the OB told us he thought there was no dividing membrane and they looked like what are called monoamniotic twins. He explained that this type of twin is extremely high risk. Suddenly our low risk singleton pregnancy had turned into something very different.....

This is our very first video of the girls at 11 weeks gestation.