I had had dreams that I was expecting twins but whilst I felt there were 2 I could only see 1.

I was so so nervous before our 12 week scan, I had a bad tummy and was finding it hard to breathe deeply.

When we were told there is the heartbeat I was relieved for a second, then I could see there was something wrong.

The screen was turned away from us, we were quickly told "its a twin pregnancy but there´s something wrong".

She then explained it looked like conjoined twins. I remember being taken through to see a midwife and she said "sometimes mother nature gets it wrong" I found this comment insulting.

We were told we would have to see a specialist, the appointment came through quickly and the specialists (obviously more used to dealing with these sorts of situations) were amazing, the consultant and Dr gave us hard facts whilst the midwife sat near us with a box tissues and an understanding expression.

The consultant confirmed conjoined twins and that they only had one heart, they were extremely unlikely to survive pregnancy. Of course I asked all the what ifs, the thing that stayed with me was " your body is an excellent life support and I´m not sure it´s one we could replicate ".

The nurse that saw us through the termination was again excellent as were all the staff and I did feel cared for but it was a terrible day.

The worst part was having to walk through the scan waiting room where I had been a week earlier, but this with my babies dead in a box. I felt guilty that one of those expectant couples would see the box and think , "God that could be us" or that they´d think I was cruel. People rarely talk about pregnancy loss but termination for medical reasons is talked of even less.

Having to make the decision to end your children's life, to protect them is awful. I always feel I have to justify it, tell people the extremely low chances of survival beyond birth, tell them I had to protect my 2 year old , tell them I had to protect my body and my already fragile mental health.

But to be honest I just knew, as did my husband, we knew they would not survive, we knew that we had to take this suffering and pain for them. I still don´t believe mother nature made a mistake, we have had to endure a lot but my babies lives , however short, however unusual, were not a mistake. I held them in my womb with great love and we hold them in our hearts with the same love, that´s why it hurts so much.

 

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