Rachel | Twinsclub

My birth story... by Rachel Ellis

I found out when i was 21 that I had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, a syndrome that means I don't ovulate every month. We tried for a baby for a year and a half naturally but every month nothing happened. I went to my doctors and he put me on a medication called Clomiphene also called Clomid, it's a tablet that you take once a day for 5 days every month, and this helps you to ovulate.

After being on this for 6 months i finally became pregnant with my son.

When he was 15 months old, we decided we would like to have another baby, we again went on the Clomiphene, after 3 months i became pregnant, but at 8 weeks i started to bleed extremely heavily. A doctor came and rushed me to hospital in an ambulance where I was examined. The doctor said he couldn't see my cervix too well, so that I would need a scan to confirm if I was still pregnant or not. I had this scan nearly two days later, as the bleeding had begun to subside a little.

I was wheeled to the scan room and a lady scanned me internally. She was looking at the screen for a long time, then she finally said that she needed to call another doctor in. He came in and also took his time to scan me, all the time me and my husband trying to look at the screen to see if we could see anything that would give us a glimmer of hope that I was still pregnant.

Finally the doctor said "well it looks like you are having a multiple birth". He said he could see 4 sacs but could not tell how many babies were in my womb, as it was far too early stages. He  could see that i was definitely having twins and that the heartbeats were healthy. He told me to go back when I was 12 weeks pregnant for another scan, and said that the other two sacs might have disappeared by then. At 12 weeks i went back , the sonographer scanned me yet again, there is baby number one he said, heart beat good, there is baby number two, heart beat good and oh look there is baby number three, heart beat good. He said that he thought the fourth sac would be empty but to go back in 4 weeks just in case! Four weeks later we were back again and all three babies were doing well.

My local hospital had only ever delivered 3 sets of triplets and all three sets had been delivered by c- section.  They gave me a leaflet on multiple births and it was totally horrendous, all about 'if' the babies survive, they could be disabled, handicapped, premature, it was all totally totally negative. I wish I had kept it now, but it scared the life out of us.

The hospital wanted me to have a c-section and bed rest at around 28 weeks if not before if I wasn't coping well.   They also said that as the babies would come very very early then it would be quite possible that each baby would need to go to another hospital a fair distance away as my hospital didn't have 24 hour incubator care. I was told that maybe one would go to Nottingham, one to Sheffield and one to Leicester, and I may even have to travel in the ambulance whilst I was in labour.

My pregnancy progressed well, i was scanned every 4 weeks, until I was 28 weeks, then it was every 2 weeks. Every time i went to the hospital I was asked if I wanted bed rest, my answer was no every time, i was coping really well.

I had lost a fair amount of weight through the pregnancy, but the babies were growing well. I did have quite bad morning sickness but was put on an anti sickness drug to combat that. I also had a lot of itching all over my arms and legs, but I was tested for any problems and it was just pregnancy rash. All the usual pregnancy symptons were heightened three times over. The back ache, the tiredness, the feeling of always being uncomfortable.

At 38 weeks we had a local fair arrive in town, so we took our then 2 year old son around it. It was really hard work walking now, it made me really out of breath as triplet 3 was right under my rib cage, but I stopped often and made the most of it.

The next day i had an ante-natal appointment and my consultant told me that I was 4 cm dialated and that I needed to go straight to the labour ward. Everything then went into panic mode. I was given an epidural, ten doctors, nurses , SCBU staff, everyone seemed to want to come and watch. My consultant said that I may as well try for a natural delivery as i was in good health and so were the babies.  I had contractions for 3 hours and then my first son Jacob was born at 2.31pm on 2 May 1995 weighing 6lbs 8ozs. Ten minutes later at 2.41pm I delivered another son, Nathan, weighing in at 6lbs 12ozs. One minute later a bit of panic set in as they realised that triplet number three was breech. My consultant (stop reading now if squeamish!) put his hand inside me and grabbed my beautiful daughter Katies legs and pulled her out! She was born at 2.44pm and weighted 3lbs 8ozs.

All babies were realy well and healthy, although Katie did need special care for 13 days to be tube fed.

My recovery was good, althought the bleeding afterwards was three times as bad as with a singleton, and the blues a couple of days after delivery was hard going, crying for no reason whatsoever but that only lasted one day.

We wrote to quite a lot of companies to see if we could get any help, we had some vouchers from Pampers, and we got loads and loads of milk from SMA that was a small godsend. Then when it was time for weaning we were given lots of sample packs from Milupa.

During my pregnancy i had help from the home care ladies who helped with simple things like cleaning the bath as i couldnt reach there, and they came to help me for a few weeks after the babies were born, they were a great help to us.

It was hard work having four children under 2 and a half, as you would expect, but it still is now they are now healthy and happy 13 year olds as the hormones have kicked in!!