by Francis Harris

Created on: July 05, 2010

We were a week overdue. But we were all very comfortable and happy just where we were. Mum with her watermelon sized belly and two little girls inside with their heads facing downwards - just like they were meant to be - ready to pop out. Only they weren't popping out. Having being told twins usually come early, being a week overdue was not expected.

Finally the doctors could wait no longer. They were far more anxious than anyone - both teams of them wanted the babies out. So trusting their guidance that babies don't just come out when they are ready, we agreed to go into hospital after church on Sunday evening. The plan was to try and induce the birth, which would then proceed naturally since everything else was fine.

It was 4am in the morning when the hospital bed flooded with water. Mum woke up wondering what was happening. There was no pain just lots of wet. Dad was roused from an adjacent bed and we imagined that things were underway. A nurse was called. Clothes were changed for a hospital gown and we were moved to another room.

By about 5am there was a faint glow of light in the distant sky. Mum was comfortably hooked up to the first machine of the day. A probe was stuck into the head of "twin 1" to monitor their progress, while "twin 2" had to put up with far less attention. She had a smaller probe stuck to the outside of mum's belly, monitoring her progress from the outside through the skin of mum's stomach.

A few hours later everyone was doing fine.  A slight ache was developing on the right side of mum. Babies were alive and well. Dad was fiddling with the machines when no one was looking and monitoring the data being recorded. He started to compare them. "Twin 2" was winning by whatever random criteria he was using. Who knows what was going on inside there.

By about 8am they thought that mum should have an epidural. Should things get nasty later - or they needed to operate - it would be better for mum not to have dull aching pain. Before they injected the spine mum signed the form that said there was a small chance she would be parallelized and may never walk again. After the procedure mum was hooked up to the second machine of the day.

Hours passed and there was little progression. The twins had a nap. Dad got some lunch. And mum took an unexpected phonecall from a friend she hadn't seen for some years. Mum explained that she wasn't on the ward yet but was hooked up to some machines waiting and hoping there was some progression in the birth.

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