So you’re expecting twins. Congratulations!Are you still in shock? I sure was. The thought of bringing two babies into
world at one time scared heck out of me, especially since I was already father of two boys (ages five and three). I remembered how much work first year was with both of them, with all of diapers, bottles, sleepless nights, etc… I wondered how in world we were going to do it with two babies? I immediately started stressing out about all of things that we were going to go through once babies were born. Little did I know at time that most stressful part of having twins was already upon us…the pregnancy.
I did not know at time that a twin pregnancy is not at all like a single pregnancy. With our first two pregnancies, it was relatively low impact for me (I know, all of women reading this are rolling their eyes, especially my wife). But to my wife’s credit, it’s true. I figured I had about eight months to play as much golf as I could before birth of twins, and that’s when I would really have to become involved. After all, my work was already done for time being, right? Boy, was I wrong!
There are many things that happened during pregnancy that surprised me, or that no one told me about. I’d like to tell you about some of those things here, so maybe you’ll be a little more prepared for what happens during a twin pregnancy than I was.
First, pre-term labor is fairly common in a twin pregnancy. I didn’t even know what pre-term labor was until it happened to my wife. This was definitely most stressful thing about pregnancy, and it’s something that I don’t remember anyone warning me about. Maybe my wife mentioned it to me, but you know how it is, there was probably a ball game or something. My wife went to a routine check-up at about 25th week of pregnancy. After being gone for an abnormally long time, she phoned me from hospital and told me that they were keeping her overnight because she was having contractions. What a shock! I couldn’t understand how that could be so early in pregnancy. The babies were less than 3 lbs. each at time, so we were both extremely worried. They wound up giving her medication to stop labor and kept her in hospital for a couple of days. This was first of four trips to hospital to stop labor. The good news was that medication that they gave her successfully stopped contractions each time, and she was able to carry twins past 36 weeks.
Second, prepare for bed rest. My wife wound up going on bed rest for about last four weeks of pregnancy. This is a very common occurrence for a twin pregnancy, so you need to prepare yourselves for it. We were fairly lucky because my wife was a stay at home mother, so we did not have to worry about her taking time off from her job. We were also very fortunate that my mother-in-law was able to come and stay with us during that time to help with our two boys and to help out around house. I’m not sure what we would have done without her. My advice is to recruit family and friends if you can to help out. But however you do it, take bed rest very seriously. Make sure you’re wife stays off of her feet. There’s a good reason why many mothers of twins are put on bed rest by their doctor, and that’s so she doesn’t go into labor too early. You want your wife to carry those babies as long as she can for health of your twins. Oh, and needless to say, golf was just not an option while my wife was on bed rest.
