The Day My Twins Were Born

by Karl & Lucy Betschwar

"So, are you still going to go tonight?"  I enquired, half expecting a sarcastic negative response and half expecting a stoney silence.  "Of course!"  was the unexpected reply.

It was New Years Eve and my wife, Lucy, had just discovered that her plug had made a bid for freedom in the bath, thus heralding the eminent arrival of our expected twin boys.  Her nonchalant reply came as a bit of shock at first, though when I considered the ups and downs of the previous 2 years I figured she had every right to ignore the "safe option," slip into her party tent and waddle like it was 1999.  Even if she was bigger than she had ever been in all of her worst nightmares and could look forward to singing "Auld Lang Syne" sober she was determined to go out - anywhere, but a hospital!

The next day began as you would expect, with a trip to the hospital, to investigate the flight of the plug and to see what we could expect next.  The midwife on duty appeared more surprised than we were, when she discovered Lucy was in fact "in labour."  And was 4cms dilated. How ?  Yes, I know how, but how without the cursing, screaming and subsequent drug pleadings I had expected to accompany the "in labour" thing?  Apparently, Lucy had been in labour as of when the plug had scarpered and as it was happening at a very slow rate there was no pain.  This revelation opened up all new possibilities - natural birth without "unnatural" pain and drug relief.  There was of course one snag - to continue at this current slow rate, labour could run into days, not hours!!  There goes that option.

While all this was happening other problems were becoming evident - the hospital where we were suppose to go for the delivery, was not ready for us.  You see we were 5 1/2 weeks early and therefore were forced to look at other hospitals for space.  While the midwives made enquiries with other neighbouring hospitals, it was becoming clear that we were in for a long night.  The hospital we were at,  attempted to make us comfortable while they did the searching, by installing us in a storage room surrounded by what could only be described as medical exhibits awaiting "The Museum Of Redundant & Extremely Terrifying Surgical Paraphernalia" to finally open and house the contents.  This was our little place of waiting & hoping for four hours - Lucy was kept amused by not being fed and having to be tethered via her ever-hardening midriff, to the machine that goes "ping" and occasionally "beep."  As you can imagine this helped to while away those hours.

"We've found one!"  was the excited cry and there was great rejoicing!  A cure for the common cold?  An answer to the world's problems?  No, a hospital with two SCUBU beds.  And only 50 miles away!!  More rejoicing.

The ambulance finally pulled up outside the maternity department of our newly-discovered hospital after making a couple of, what I thought were, reconnaissance circuits of the entire hospital complex.  I later learned that the ambulance driver and assistant were in fact lost and were hoping that the "Maternity" sign would be more obvious.  I could concur - hospital grounds could be very bewildering places to the uninitiated.  Although, one would have expected a driver of an ambulance to possess more than a passing knowledge of hospitals in general.  I digress.

Lucy was whisked away up to the maternity ward, while I played "find a parking space" and then my second favourite game "find some coins of a higher denomination than a one or two pence piece."  Both guaranteed to make that little vein on the side of your head to double in size.  This done, my only other task was to convince the unconventionally large man on reception that I was "with" the obviously pregnant women who was recently wheeled past his desk. 

Unfortunately, I had forgotten that I was standing in the foyer of a large city Maternity Department and the sight of a pregnant women being wheeled past was not really going to catch his attention, unless she was perhaps, pole-dancing.  I managed to convince him of my identity by a mixture of wild frantic gesturing and sad, puppy eyes - all those hours of assertive training paid off.

I found Lucy flat out on a bed attached, again, to her friend, the Ping Machine.  Even though she was hungry, tired and completely fed up with doctors, nurses, midwives and of course, hospitals she was looking quite chipper.  Her labour had moved on - she was 5cms dilated.  But at least, no pain! 

Until now we had always been told that our two babes were head down - one engaged in the pelvis, the standing by.  As no-one had scanned recently we had no reason to believe anything different.  Except Lucy did think something had changed!! This suspicion stemmed from a weird experience she had endured a few days earlier which had caused her excruciating pain coupled with what looked like one of our boy's head moving north and changing from head down to feet down - literally turning head over heels!  Without the scan, though, this suspicion could not be confirmed. 

After 36 hours of virtual pain free labour the midwives decided that Lucy was not going to progress past 6cms - the decision to go for a C-section was made and we agreed.  So after 36 hours, 50 miles and 3 hospitals the boys were born within 2 minutes.

Our boys, Leon & Alek are now 2yrs and 1 month old and our thoughts are starting turn towards the possibility of more children - though perhaps not twins this time, eh?