Twins A&B (Michael&Matthew) <3

by Kristina
(Berea, KY)

I gushed to my husband that I thought I may be pregnant. Being very excited I researched OB's and they made an appointment for me in five weeks as they like for you to be between 8-12 weeks for your first ultrasound. The night before the ultrasound I jokingly told my husband .."Well tomorrow we won't find out the sex of the baby but we will find out if there's one or two". He laughed and replied "There better be just one in there".
On the day of my first pre-natal appointment I was beaming with excitement. They called us into the ultrasound room first. They squished the cold gel onto my then flat belly. The ultrasound tech said "You know there's two right?". I immediately turned to my husband with the biggest Oh My laugh. He had both hands on his face. We both didn't know what to say. We had no twins on either side of our families & honestly I never knew anyone that had twins. We then proceeded (Once I caught my breath) to hear two tiny heartbeats. The single greatest thing I've ever heard. After the ultrasound we were sent back to the lobby to wait to go back to see the actual OB. We were so excited making only a million phone calls to our friends&families to tell them the BIG news. We then went back to the OB & she sat down as she was looking threw my paper work said "Well at least theres only one, right". We looked confused at her..she then said "OH wait I am so sorry I hadn't flipped the sheet yet". I laughed but then came the most serious question we had. Can I do this? Physically I wasn't even sure if I could carry two babies. She smiled in the most comforting way & replied " I have twins..and yes you can do this". We discussed how my pregnancy visits would go in the next few months. Which included seeing a High Risk OB around my 16th week to do routine ultrasounds to make sure everything was going right.
During my 16th week of pregnancy I had a scheduled High Risk OB visit. I went into the office a little nervous but excited still. It was this visit that I knew they would be able to tell the sexes. At the High Risk visit they did an ultrasound to measure everything from fluid to kidney size. As soon as the machine touched my belly..I said "What are they?" The ultrasound tech laughed and replied with a "Do you really want to know?" Obviously the answer was yes. They were BOYS & most likely identical. We were estatic. The doctor said that everything looked good but that my A baby was measuring smaller than my B baby. Not much smaller but it was something that they wanted to watch so I would need to come back in two weeks.
I then was in the High Risk office every two weeks & the regular OB office every 4 weeks. My twin pregnancy was pretty rough on me. I had all day morning sickness symptoms until I was 26 weeks pregnant. Sickness so bad that I lived in the bathroom floor. I carried well though & worked all the way up to 28 weeks. At 28 weeks I had my High Risk OB appointment which had became VERY routine for me so much in fact that I didn't even get nervous anymore. The ultrasound tech started my ultrasound normally she did all the measurements she did every visit. My doctor had been called to an emergency CSection & he usually comes to talk about the ultrasound. I told the tech that I wasn't going to wait for the doctor this time because I had some shopping I wanted to get done. I remember the worried look on her face as she stepped out of the room saying well let me just call him real quick & he might come down. Still the thought anything was wrong never crossed my mind. She came back into the room and told me the doctor was on his way. The doctor told me that He was going to keep me in the hospital because my A baby wasn't growing & getting enough blood. That I was going to get steriod shots & that he was very optimistic with babies born at 28 weeks. I was scared to death at the idea of having such preemie twin babies. I spent the night in Labor&Delivery getting two rounds of steriods which caused me to start having contractions. The next morning the doctor told me that it was safe to move me to Antepartum unit for continous monitoring. I was there for six weeks getting ultrasounds everyday and continous fetal heart monitors. At 34 weeks to the day (February 14th to be exact) I had a scheduled CSection & I was having my babies. By this time I had already had three rounds of steriods and been in labor twice so I was ready.

I remember laying on the table waiting for them to cry. Baby A was First at 3lb 2oz Michael was born and in the next minute Baby B was born at 5 lbs 1oz Matthew was born. They weren't as tiny as I had prepared myself for them to be. Michael came out eating & breathing on his own. Matthew had trouble breathing because his lungs were still wet. He also had problems eating so an NG tube was placed. I had to wait 12 hours before I could go down to see my babies in the NICU. When I finally did I never left. Michael was in the NICU for two weeks & Matthew was there for one week. We are home now & they are four months old.I am so blessed to have identical twin boys. Twins are a lot of fun!