I Was Pregnant With Twins And Didn’t Know Until I Pushed Out The First

This is the story of my SURPRISE twins. Not like “SURPRISE! You’re having twins.” It was like “SURPRISE YOU JUST HAD TWINS”. I was pregnant with twins and didn’t know.

Here’s the story.

I was gonna have a home birth (still had a natural water birth) and wasn’t planning on doing ultrasounds. I always measured “correctly” for one baby. Always only found one heartbeat with the Doppler.

I had terrible terrible morning sickness followed by a month of unbelievable migraines that the chiro couldn’t even help. I can’t believe my skin didn’t explode from swelling that last month.

Towards the end, my midwife thought I might be breech and recommend an ultrasound. Turns out it was a compound presentation (Superman position not nuchal). So I went to the chiro then immediately went in to get another ultrasound.

My midwife warned me she wouldn’t let labor happen naturally with a compound presentation so I was eager for baby to move so I could have another homebirth. The second ultrasound (of all four quadrants and done by a sonographer) revealed baby moved and we were good to go.

So, I woke up on July 12th with ruptured water. My midwife originally gave me 16 hours to go into active labor before she would drop my home birth. It got close to 16 and I still didn’t want to go in so she talked to another midwife (Kate) that I had met at the hospital while getting my ultrasound, she agreed to wait for 24hrs.

Since active labor hadn’t come at 24hrs and she was dropping me anyway, I decided I’d wait a bit longer and went in around 1pm on the 13th. This would be about 30hrs in.

Meanwhile, my sister Lindsay didn’t think she had enough time to drive the 13hrs and make it for the birth. So the night before her dad offered his miles for her tickets! I really needed her, she felt she needed to be here and we both cried when we thought she might not make it before the birth.

So, I got to the hospital and I’m opening the car door and she texts me that she’s at my house (20 min from the hospital)! All at the exact same moment, I had my first contraction.

So we go in and check-in. The first nurse-midwife I see is this girl Marnie who was at the hospital I went to for stitches after my homebirth with my son Two years before. She was AMAZING! It was at a completely different hospital 40 minutes away and there she was. She was the only thing that made the other hospital bearable.

So she takes me up, and I find out they have a giant birthing tub! They hook me up to the baby monitor (only one heartbeat!) By this time my sister is here. The Midwife Kate had taken the night before off to get sleep after talking to my midwife and finding out I would be most likely coming in the next morning.

She was also amazing! When I had my ultrasound, she was the one who convinced my midwife to let labor happen with a compound presentation. Kate had her baby born at home with a compound presentation so I told my midwife I want HER if I had a hospital birth.

My AMAZING friend Ashley rushed over to bring me some birthing essentials, affirmation cards and saved the day with that clary sage.

My contractions didn’t take long to get strong. By 2:20 pm I was having the hard contractions. Got in the tub, I wasn’t supposed to birth in the tub but by the time I felt like I needed to push #1 was already crowning and there was no getting out. So I had my first with two pushes, I remember my first words were “IT’S SO TINY!!”. (Didn’t know the sex yet!).

Then I had another huge contraction, one nurse said ” Oh it’s probably the placenta already coming” Another said “oh it’s a water bag! I’ve never seen that before” and in my head, I’m screaming “it’s ANOTHER ring of fire!!!“. My second came less than two minutes after my first with another two pushes and she was born ENCAUL. I was just in shock, the staff was shocked and I wish I had someone taking pictures of my husband because I’m blind and couldn’t see his expression.

Ada Maze & Billie June
July 13th
38w4d 2:47&2:49pm
BOTH 6lb11oz 20in

They had the same blood type and each had exactly three hairs that were about three inches longer than the rest of their hair (STILL have them too).

They restarted the machine three times to weigh them because they couldn’t believe they were exactly the same weight and height!

It was beautiful, I’m not even upset about not having a home birth again. Everything couldn’t have been more perfectly serendipitous.

They both passed their APGAR with a 10/10 which they said they hardly ever give any babies let alone twins! We were free to go after 24 hours, no NICU time. I happily took an extra day because my insurance covered it and I wanted the lactation support and room service.

I think I got a visit from every staff member during my stay, I don’t think people believed it actually happened and had to see for themselves.

I did have a dream while I was pregnant with them that I gave birth to two really tiny baby girls and one extremely big boy. Now I have two baby girls and a three-year-old son. Too crazy!