2 miscarriages and 32 hours of labour later we received our gift of twins

by Hanan Ashegh
(London , England)

My husband and I had been married for 4 months when we had our first miscarriage and our second one followed a few months later. When the third pregnancy test read positive we didn't allow ourselves to celebrate until we had past the 12 week gestation mark. My twin pregnancy with my identical twin girls was a hard one to say the least but as most mothers would agree, the outcome has been the most rewarding gift that we have ever recieved and I am reminded of that every day. At 38 weeks gestation, and 3 false alarms of labour running back and forth to the hospital , the doctors decided to induce me and it took 32 hours of labour for my 2 little girls to come out into the world. Layan my first daughter was born at 11:28 pm on 11th JUne 2009, she was born with breathing difficulties for the first 8 minutes of her life then she finally cried, and my husband and I had never been so relieved to hear a baby cry. Leena, my second daughter, who was positioned transversely gave the doctors a bit of a challenge but was thankfully born 12 minutes after her sister. I remember the doctor asking me to push and me screaming back...' I'm not pushing until her sister starts breathing...'. My second daughter was born at 11:40 pm on 11th June 2009 and she was , to our relief, breathing just fine. I naively thought it was over, but we waited for the placenta to deliver naturally and after countless efforts from the doctor to do it manually I had to be sent back to the O.R for another 3 hours for them to remove the placenta in the operating room. I stayed in hospital for 5 days, and was really relieved to be back home. After 3 months of sleepless nights as all the parents of twins reading this must know well, they started to settle down and I got a glimpse of their first real gaze, looking up at mummy. My girls turned 1 year old 2 weeks ago and I feel like the luckiest mother in the world. They have developed their own little personalities and as much as I feel my life is totally out of control sometimes, I catch a glimpse of them playing together and looking up at me, and I know it's all absolutely worth it. Here is a photo of my little angels. Layan and Leena. Thank you for reading our story.