February 13th, 2014 – My water broke while I was in the staff room at work. I was casually “pinning” some Valentine’s Day activities to do with my kindergarteners the next day and – well, there was a gush. I maintained this unusual sense of calm as I explained to my boss what was happening and my coworkers started frantically running around me collecting my things. This sense of calm lasted me several hours – until my husband arrived at the hospital, my rock, and I could stop being strong, and cry. I was 28 weeks along. I didn’t know what this meant at the time – the only numbers I had really given any thought to were 37 and 40. 40 being the number of weeks I carried my two singletons, and 37 being the number of weeks I had expected to carry these twin boys. 28 seemed very far away from the 37 I had been expecting.
My doctor came and spoke to me – I had just seen her a few days earlier as I had had a routine ultrasound. She looked at me and said, “you’re not supposed to be here”. My pregnancy had been textbook. Although I was ultimately considered high-risk because I was carrying multiples, I was the lowest risk of all the high-risk. My babies were nestled in the safety of their own sac and had access to their own placenta. That was huge. Both were beautifully positioned with their heads down and, along with the fact that I had delivered my two singletons naturally, the doctor was favourable to a natural delivery for these twins. My biggest issue up until this point had been the waddle I had developed and the pressure that came along with having two heads lodged in my pelvis. I had just struggled with putting my notice in for my maternity leave as I was nowhere near ready to say goodbye to my kindergarteners.
Now – things were different. They diagnosed me with pPROM – which is a fancy short form for “preterm Premature Rupture of Membranes“. They did figure out that only one baby had ruptured (our Henry), meaning the other baby was perfectly content in his safety net of fluid. The doctor explained to me that they could ultimately let me go on like this until I reached 32 weeks gestation, or until my body went into labour on its own (which – could have been days, weeks or hours… they didn’t know). I had to face the reality that no matter what, I was going to have two premature babies.
serendipity.six 