I’m just going to get right back into the story from where I left off. If you missed part 1, you can go back and read it here: She’s A Fighter – Part 1

So… as I finished up my last blog, I had mentioned we found out we had a complication but we had made the choice that we were not giving up on our little girl because we knew she was a fighter.

Two weeks later, we went back for another ultrasound and the news was not terrible, but it wasn’t great either. Our little girl still wasn’t growing at the same rate as her brother, and her flows had worsened but she was fighting, as we knew she would. We were told, all our scans from then on, would need to be at Nepean hospital, where further monitoring could take place when required. We were also told fortnightly scans would not be enough, and we would need them weekly. Ben and I tried not to worry, we reminded ourselves that we were a family of fighters, took a deep breath and kept going.

Every time we had a scan after this, we knew there was a small chance that we’d be hearing the news that one baby didn’t make it. Those few minutes waiting for them to find a heart beat and then a second heartbeat were always difficult and you had a moment of joy when they found them both. But, it wasn’t enough to find the heart beat, it was then about listening to the blood flow, checking the brain and ensuring that our little girl was still receiving all she needed.

So there we were, a week later, at Nepean hospital. Once again, my belly out (which was quite small for someone carrying twins), waiting to see how our babies were going. The day before, I had spent the day at my boss’s house training my replacement, and organising more training. Little did we know, I wouldn’t be back at work for months. After our scan, Ben and I were taken into a room with the doctor and she said, “I’d like to admit you today”. Things weren’t looking great. Our little girls placenta was not getting better and had continued to worsen. It was expected that I would be having the babies within the week, and they wanted to start daily monitoring to make sure we didn’t wait too long.

I just asked Ben if he remembers what went through his head at this moment, and he said “I can’t remember”. To be honest, I can’t say I can recall a whole lot either. That’s just how it was. Things suddenly came up, we didn’t know what to think, we didn’t know how to react, it was all happening so quickly. We weren’t prepared. We weren’t ready. We had no idea what we were doing. All I had was my phone and wallet. I wasn’t expecting to be admitted. I had no hospital bag ready. I was only 26 weeks into my pregnancy. It was too soon!

We stayed in that little room while things were organised. We met the midwives for high-risk pregnancies, and we spoke to doctors that explained what to expect when having a baby born before 28 weeks gestation. It was all a little too much to take in and I’m sure I just sat nodding my head, with so many questions running through my mind, but also so little at the same time.

When I reached my room, and the doctors were gone, the tears came. I was scared. Ben was scared. There was so much uncertainty about so many things. When would we have the babies? How long would they remain in hospital? Would they have life-long complications? Would we even leave the hospital with two babies? Would we even leave with one? There was no certainty about anything. The only thing I had to hold onto was that I was surrounded by doctors, nurses and midwives, and they knew what they were doing. They were going to do everything they could to get the best outcome for our family.

Initially when I was admitted, they had organised two ultrasounds per week and daily ECG’s, which would be increased as our little girls placenta flows worsened. In those first few days, the babies received steroids to help their lungs develop faster and to give them more of a fighting chance if they were to be born early. And I spent time, getting comfortable, making my home within the antenatal ward having no idea how long I would be there.

The one person I haven’t really mentioned previously is Lincoln, our then, 2 year old boy. Up until this point, everything that was going on, he wouldn’t have understood, it didn’t really affect him significantly. But now, it did. Suddenly, mummy wasn’t coming to pick him up from daycare, she wasn’t there when he woke up in the middle of the night, she wasn’t there for a snuggle before bed… mummy wasn’t home. Life was not turned upside for myself and Ben, but also for Lincoln.

And now… onto some good news. I didn’t have the babies that week, I didn’t even have them the following week. I said our little girl was a fighter… and I was right. She fought and she fought her best! With the complication I was experiencing, most of the time, once it begins to worsen, it keeps going down, but this was not the case with me. One scan it would be worse, then the next it would improve, then it would be worse again, then it would be good for a couple of scans. There was no predicting, what my body or this little girl was going to do. So, I was in hospital for 6 weeks and our twins were born at 32 weeks gestation. Still 8 weeks early, but at 32 weeks, their chance of survival was much higher and there were less risks of life-long complications.

So what happened in that 6 weeks. Well, I watched a lot of Netflix, did a whole lot of cross stitch, made friends with the midwives, and did a lot of just waiting and wondering. Ben was at home, playing the role of not only dad, but also mum, to Lincoln. Lincoln came to see me at the hospital most days. We had a bunch of things for him there so he could have some fun. We would play a fishing game, I got on the floor and rolled a ball back and forth, we did some colouring-in but, at the end of the day, he had to go home and mummy had to stay.

The first few weeks at hospital were hard, but the longer I was there, the harder it got. Not only for me, but for everyone. Lincoln would come in and ask when I’m coming home and you could see the exhaustion on Bens face from the running around and the lack of sleep as he worried about how I was doing and how our babies were doing. We just had to keep telling ourselves that I was in the best place possible, and no matter how difficult it was, we were doing what was best for our babies.

The whole time, I think the hardest thing was the uncertainty. There were millions of questions, but very few had answers. Nobody could tell us what was going to happen, nobody could tell us when it was going to happen, nobody could tell us how it would happen. Nobody could let us know for sure what was in store for us, so Ben and I focused on what we could get answers to. Names.

We spent hours scrolling through websites with names, looking for the perfect names for our twins. It was quite easy to choose our little boys name, we were already pretty confident, and we chose the name, Alexander Ben Malachi Jones. (Two years later, and I believe we chose well.) It wasn’t as easy to choose for our little girl. We wanted something meaningful that was a symbol of our journey and of her journey so far. I was looking for names that meant fighter or warrior, but nothing fit. And then suddenly, I turned to Ben and said, “What about Hope?” We were in love with that name right away. After all, Hope is what we were holding onto this whole time. Without it, what was the point? We chose two middle names. The first, Elizabeth, after a close friend who has stood by us every step of the way. The second, Louise, meaning warrior because that’s exactly what Hope was.

There really is so much I could say about my stay in hospital, about the amazing midwives, my doctor, and the mix of crazy room mates that I had before finding my long-term room buddy but there’s just not enough time for me to write about ALL of those experiences. So I’ll just say say a little. The midwives really looked after me, they treated me like family, and I couldn’t have asked or a better bunch of women to help keep me sane through those times. I’ve mentioned in my previous post that my doctor was amazing, and she really was. If I was going to have more kids, I’d want to go back to her for sure. As for room mates, I had a few over the first few weeks. Some good, some not so good. I was glad to have a long-term room mate who like me was dealing with a whole lot of uncertainty and a whole lot of questions that couldn’t be answered. We got along really well and honestly, it just made being in hospital that little bit better. Oh… and my belly and I were filmed for a recruitment ad for midwives. We’re famous!

Back to the serious business, as I said earlier, we made it to 32 weeks. We did have a crazy last 36 hours which included making plans for a caesarean, cancelling them, then making them again. We negotiated scans with the doctor so that every one of us felt comfortable with the choice that was made about when we would be delivering, and in the end, we had little Alexander at 1.9 kg and Hope at 1.2kg on the 5th August, 2019 at 11:02 and 11:04am. However, Hope’s fight had really only just begun.