Trigger warning: If you are currently pregnant with twins and you’re fearful about bed rest, be careful about reading this post. And exercise your freedom of choice to skip it if it begins to increase your fear factor. My story is just that – my story. It’s not every twin mom’s story. And I do hope to introduce you to a few more of my friends along the way who had different twin pregnancy stories which would reassure you. 

I think it would work best in timeline form:

• June 29, 2010 – moving day! We had found our first home to buy once we knew we were expecting twins and would need to move out of our small 1.5 bedroom apartment in the city. After about a month of minor renovations and major repainting, our new home was ready for us. The movers came that bright, sunny Tuesday morning. I ran out to 7-Eleven to buy gatorade for them; dropped it off; and then left for my routine biweekly OB checkup at 25 weeks.
• I was being closely monitored for the possibility of early preterm labor which meant that every appointment I had a routine ultrasound and saw my babies – such #relief! But not this appointment. As soon as the ultrasound tech saw what was happening: that the signs of preterm labor were there, a long anxiety-provoking medical pause occurred, followed by a grim pronouncement. The words sunk in like lead: “Your body looks like it’s trying to deliver these babies. You will be on strict bed rest for the rest of your pregnancy.” 
• I began sobbing. My first question was, “Does this mean I can’t go to my brother’s wedding [in South Carolina 10 days afterward]?” The answer provoked more tears and panic rushed in like a dam breaking.
• My husband turned over oversight of our move to the incredible deacons at our church and accompanied me as I was admitted to the maternal-fetal medicine ward of the hospital. The worst part was signing the consent to treat forms for my only 1.5 pound twin babies that I did not want to be born yet. They asked us if we had installed car seats yet, and our deer-in-the-headlights response conveyed the shock of two generally well-prepared people. We were thinking, Car seats? We don’t even have a change of clothes! Or a moved-in home to which to return!
• The next 24-48 hours of hospitalization are largely a blur with moments of clarity: the reassuring manner of the MFM doctor who assured me that I was not in full-blown preterm labor but only early preterm labor which they’d been able to halt through medical interventions; the generous friends who brought over dinner to us that evening and other meals so that I did not have to eat hospital food; begging the nurses and medical residents/doctors to discharge me so that I could actually get some rest like they said I needed; the claustrophobia of the barren white hospital room; multiple ultrasounds reassuring me that both babies were fine and good despite their mama’s panic.
• July 1, 2010: Discharged with strict instructions for bed rest and the hope that “if you make it to 28 weeks, we will all be amazed and your babies will have a much better chance of viability.” This terrified me. And drove me to desperate, bold prayers to the God who hears. We prayed and asked our family and friends to pray that our girls would make it to 34 weeks, a medical improbability according to my doctors.

image from en.wikipedia.com

Spoiler alert: They were born 2 days after I reached the 35-week mark! (I am breezing over the 10 weeks of strict bed rest – one trip up and down the stairs/day, no getting out of the recliner or bed except for bathroom visits and a brief shower, the only outing being my weekly doctor’s visits. For more read here where I blogged
through the experience and received so much support from so many.)

If you want to continue to follow along, subscribe to my blog or like my Facebook page “Hidden Glory” to get updates. For the month of October, I’m participating in “Write31Days” and my series is “31 Days of Parenting Twins.”