Sunday, January 22, 2012

Catching up on the 9 months gone!


Well the past two posts have been about trying to catch up on the Twin pregnancy here I am writing to catch up on how the pregnancy went overall as fast forward to present .... I am a very proud mum of a healthy girl/boy FRATERNAL twins.

Flashback to last year ..... We found out that we were having twins, but that was really all that we found out. Then the crazy 'Googling' started which made us realize that twins are either identical or FRATERNAL (hence the name of the blog -Frat short for fraternal) ours were fraternal which mean two eggs which were fertilized at the same time instead of identical which are one egg which splits after fertilization. Anyhow


My very uneventful pregnancy

@ 3 month---My pregnancy as such was quiet challenging as I kept having some on and off bleeding and when I say bleeding I mean 'BLEEDING' and not spotting, every two-three weeks. This would freak me out,first I thot this was due to it being before 12 weeks and was a miscarraige and after a very traumatic "EMERGENCY" experience we found out that the babies indeed were doing okay-this trend continued every 2-3 weeks right until 19 weeks.

@ 4 months ----- my sisters wedding was coming up, I was scared for the travel,but wouldn't want to miss it for the world.Anyhow we booked our tickets,it had been over 4 years that I had visited India and seen my mum and dad,I needless to day was very excited and started to count days/months/minutes and right upto the last second in the meanwhile my bleeding would keep coming everytime I would do something hectic.I wanted to get to the root cause of this and had a Perinatologist take a look,turned out my Placenta was low lying and hence the bleeding. Turned out the specialist advised against taking a trip to India. This really devastated me.I had not seen my family specifically my mum and dad for over 5 years now and my sisters wedding was one thing I wouldn't want to miss for the world! But then if it were three lives to think of mine and the two inside of me then that was something I should think of I was caught between a rock and a hard place so to say. Anyhow after much back and forth about what the right thing would be to do I broke the news to my aai  (mum) she obviously was so disappointed.

4 month preggo me

My sisters wedding was the hardest thing for me as I was not attending,and as per my dads description it was something that you wouldn't see in a long time. 

@5,6,7 months 
                                                                 Month 5


                                                               Month 6

Month 7

One of the motivations to keep going during my pregnancy was that my mum would be here (visiting from India) for the birth of my twins a month before the twins arrived. I was so excited as I would be seeing her after 5 years and we would be able to spend sometime alone before the twins arrived.

@8 months- My Aai (mum) would call me every second day if not everyday to ask my well being, today I realized that I had not called me for over 3-4 days, and it was okay or rather better for me cus I was battling a high blood pressure and did not want mum to worry. My relation with my mum is such that I would not be able to keep this away from her,and even if I did try and keep it away from her ,she is a very sharp mum she would know somethings up my sleeve anyways! So that day she did finally call and asked my well being I lied that I was doing okay and I asked her how she was -she was having some back problems for a while and was getting treatment for that.She told me that she had had a MRI scan done and turns out that she needed to do a 'Disk replacement' surgery RIGHT AWAY! Then I heard her sobbing,I was a little confused about this news and still process what the implications of this news meant.She was in a bad shape and they (her and my dad had kept this news away from me as they wanted to protect me from the worry) The implication would mean that my aai would not be able to make it to my twins birth.Plus she would be having a spinal cord major surgery.


  • This was particularly hard for me, I was swollen to the core. My hands and legs were so swollen that I could not even hold a fork in my hand or wear any footwear except flip flops.Also after the twins arrived I had no family here to turn to,my mother in law(whose also back in India) when asked had flatly refused to help me out with any excuse that her health may not permit.I had no idea how my husband and I would manage 3 kids -our older son and the newborn twins.



  • I had no idea how to bath a newborn,for my older son Aai would do it back in Dubai. Also you do get some help easily in Dubai. There are these women who specialize in infant and mum massage. They come to your home at a designated time to massage you and your newborn and then they would also bath the baby. New mum massage is something the west lacks I feel.It is scientifically proven that massage the new mum's uterus with some warm oil does help with the loose skin. 



  • I also did not know what to do when it comes to lactating mums special nutrition.Back in India and also for my older sons time. Lactating mums are given lactating agents-all natural for e.g-Fenugreek Curry helps in lactation.Special sweets containing Coconut,some special seeds,jaggery,dried fruits are given to the new mum so she lactates well and the baby gets all these nutrients
  • Another thing we needed to think of was what would we do with our older son when it was birthing time,we have some pretty awesome friends who all offered to take care of him when we would be in the hospital. Our son on the other hand was not very happy with this whole arrangement, and wanted to stay home.

                                                     8 months


@9 months- Week 36 I had my OB-GYN appointment . My hubby would come for every single one but this day he had to drop our son to school and so he dropped me first and then went to drop our son. In the doctors office the doctor checked my blood pressure and realized it was pretty high and advised that I go to the hospital right away and get it checked out there. I waited for my husband in the parking lot, when he came we went straight to the hospital. The OB-GYN  thought it was wise for me to get admitted in the hospital and she also said that they would observe me for the next 24 hours,if the blood pressure does not go down they would no choice but to induce me!!!!!!!

I was so scared the whole while,not for the whole labor and delivery but as I did not want the twins to come so soon,I knew,even though the staff said otherwise, that they were not ready. Inducing would mean asking them to come when they were not ready and that would bring about a lot of other complication with premature babies,induced labor,risk of having to do a C-Section etc.

The best advise I got from a nurse by the name 'Penny' she said although everyone is saying I could be induced she would think I can and have the right to refuse induction if I think it isn't the right thing my blood pressure then was 90/130 which was not super duper high. I decided I would take this opportunity to rest and would take her advise to refuse induction -if at all the next day. That day passed in anxiety the next morning there was another OB-GYN who came early in the morning at 7 am Dr Huckell she said that looking at my past 24 hours reading she does not think it is necessary for us to induce and get these two out! YAY! I was able to go home.

My twins were born exactly one week after this @37 weeks I would be writing about my labor and delivery in the next post.

Transition from 'Immigrant' status to 'Twin mum' status


I am creating this blog to write about my experience as a newly acquired 'TWIN MUM" status

A lil background about that here----

Up until last year we have been in the DISC category (Double Income Single Child).My son who was about 6 years then kept on asking us for another sibling,as it is very uncommon here in Canada to have a single child.Usually people have at least 2 kids,unlike back in India,Canada does not have to think of its population.

Anyhow when our son kept asking, he went to the point that he used to feel very sad that he had no sibling! Part of the reason for that was that we moved to Canada when he was 3 and then it took us some time to settle down! When he started asking for a sibling we thought we were in a position to have another child and so by God's grace we did have that news that I was pregnant again almost after 7 years of having my son.

I had mixed feelings about that ...scared if my body would be able to do justice and be kind enough to carry this new baby to term, excited to be a mother again, embarrassed as it had been so long and 'what will people think of us' (not that it matters but STILL) Anyhow in the midst of this my only sibling my sister's long awaited wedding was around the corner, how would I be able to go for that back in India ?!

Anyhow I decided that this pregnancy would be different than the previous one as back in Dubai you don't have a choice for Mid wife, and I yearned that one on one experience my childbirth experience was very clinical and medical which SUCKED! So I was lucky enough that a Midwife had a spot available for me,here in Canada it is hard to find a Midwife as they take only limited number of patient as they want to give personal attention to their clients -cool huh!

My first appointment with the Midwife at about 8 weeks pregnant was a routine,she interviewed me and I interviewed her,she tried to find the heartbeat of my baby and she couldn't.She said it was normal to not find any heartbeat at that gestational age.So we left it at that and then the next appointment was after 4 weeks,but before that was my 'Prenatal Screening' test for checking if the baby had 'Down Syndrome' at about 13 weeks gestation.

Up until the 13 weeks screening there was no ultra sound done,I was exceptionally nauseous the whole day and night and would puke once every morning ,BUT unlike my first pregnancy did not Puke all the time,so I was very happy it was 'Better' this time.

On the day of my ultra sound I was asked to drink a whole lot of water and go which I did with my dear husband,there was this technician,3 student doctors and a Specialist doing the scan.

I lay on the bed,with my husband sitting on the side.The technician put the thingy on my belly and the doctor starts to look at the screen and exclaims 'BOTH their heads look just fine' and then he continues to  'And this it the nose of Baby A' and looks at us-my face must have been white or pale or red I don't know but surely had a very suprised look on my face-then the doctor exclaimed 'Oh you didn't know you were having twins ' did you?'

ME thinking- What? This can't be happening!
We thought we had all our finance figured out and we were ready for another 'Child' not Twins!
I don't have twins in the family, nor does my hubby,this must be a mistake!
May be the Doctor is seeing the same head twice!
We didn't take any aid for reproduction like IVF etc then how come we are having TWINS?
No!No! this surely is a mistake...

Back to the room where the doctor was explaining-Spontaneous twinning happens 1 in every 100 women (Imagine what the odds of me being that 1 women out 100 was) Wow! I sure am special that God chose me for this uphill of a task of carrying these TWINS!

Well that's how I found out I was going to have twins at the 13 week Prenatal IPS screening!