Roshan kept a close eye on my weight during the pregnancy. For a while he could see that the babies were gaining weight but my overall weight remained the same, which meant that I was losing weight. Either way, I was huge. People would come up to me when I was still months from the due date and say, ‘You’re about ready to pop!’ At one stage, Madeline was able to sit on my expanding belly like it was a comfy baby bench just for her; she called my tummy ‘the shelf’.
I kept working throughout the pregnancy and was scheduled to speak at an event on 21 January. The official forty-week due date was 14 February, but multiples almost always come earlier so we were aiming for the beginning of February. When I’d booked the event months before, I was already so big that I thought the babies would probably be born in December. I hadn’t mentally prepared myself for a long hot summer with two babies on board. I was waddling about at home in Mario’s shorts and a T-shirt. Corporate maternity clothes that were large enough were hard to find, but I managed to find a large tent dress. The organisers were a little worried that their star speaker would cancel at the last minute so they were relieved when the day of the presentation came and I still wasn’t in labour. Pleased that I was coming but worried I might pop sometime soon, they sent for a driver to bring me to the event. I was very pleased that I wouldn’t have to transport myself the fifty kilometres to the venue. The poor driver took one look at me and started googling hospitals en route. He was convinced I was going to go into labour in his car!
The presentation went off without a hitch, but a few days later I was struck down with excruciating pain. It was agony: like a skewer twisting deep inside my pelvis. I rang Roshan at nine p.m. and he said to call the hospital. They advised me to come in straightaway. Mario was away in Perth, so our nanny, who had only started work with us four weeks earlier, stayed at our house watching Madeline while Mum and Ken met me at the hospital. Thinking it was all systems go, I was calling Mario to get him to get on the next available flight home; there was no way I wanted to do this without him. After close foetal monitoring, though, it was clear I was not in labour but the doctors suggested I remain in hospital overnight. The pains went away. To be on the safe side, the hospital wanted to keep me admitted until the scheduled caesarean date, 2 February, which was twelve days away! Not a chance. The next morning I was feeling fine so I went ahead and checked myself out.
Although we weren’t able to confirm the source of the pain, it’s likely that the scar from my first caesarean had started to perforate because the babies were so big and I was slowly tearing inside. Yuck.
Three days later, on Australia Day, I was visiting the neighbours late in the afternoon. Suddenly, the skewering pains gripped me again and I collapsed. When I got to the hospital there were still no answers, but the doctors were now adamant that I stay in until the February due date.
I wasn’t happy and neither was Mario. Tests and scans had already shown that the babies were well within a healthy birth weight and development range. ‘Fully cooked’ is the expression we used. We discussed it and thought, ‘Why wait any longer?’ The pain was telling us that something wasn’t right. This is when Mario fired up and turned proactive. When Roshan arrived at the hospital, Mario took him aside and firmly stated our case. Roshan agreed and said he’d do his best to round up the team.
Months before, I’d asked Roshan on a whim if there was any chance the babies could be born on Australia Day. I liked the idea of the kids always having a holiday on their birthday. He smiled and shook his head. No doctor would ever deliberately arrange a birth team for a public holiday. It was far too difficult and, besides, doctors like public holidays too!
Two hours later we had Roshan, Ravi, a specialist birth photographer, a paediatrician and an anaesthetist all prepped and ready for action.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that the birth of Grace and Thomas was a truly momentous occasion. My A-team was assembled and waiting for the theatre to come free when Ravi proposed that we make this his and Roshan’s first assisted twins birth. This meant that even though the delivery would be via C-section, I would actively participate by lifting the babies out. It sounded great and I readily agreed.
The spinal block injection took effect and I lay there on the table with a screen in front of me shielding the cutting and cauterising down below. Both Ravi and Roshan kept up a running description though, describing how there was nothing between the babies and the outside world other than a layer of muscle and skin, not even a thin layer of fat. It was pretty graphic, but these guys knew I appreciated the detail and I would be able to handle the gory stuff! The screen went down as the first baby’s head appeared. I leaned forward, put my hands around his tiny shoulders and pulled my son out from inside of me.
Incredible.
He was big and perfect. I looked at him and said to Mario, ‘He’s beautiful.’ Thomas was a big boy; at 3.5 kilograms he was the size of an average single newborn. I lifted him onto my chest and suddenly felt bathed in warmth. It was such a weird sensation. I asked the nurse what this clear liquid was, and she said that the baby had ‘scented’ his mother. What a cute way to say that Thomas had peed on me!
The baby had broken his birth sac as he came out and unbeknownst to me, the paediatrician had gone white as a sheet as he emerged. In an instant she saw that his umbilical cord had a knot in it (called a true knot) and he was lucky to be alive. A true knot usually forms before sixteen weeks gestation, when the cord loops and threads through itself while the foetus is still small enough to wriggle about. The oxygenated, nutrient-rich blood that the foetus requires continues to circulate through the cord right up until a few days before the birth. Then, as the baby descends for the impending birth, the knot pulls tight and the cord is blocked. A worrying number of babies with a true knot will end up stillborn, but because Thomas was born early and via caesarean, he had not yet started to descend and the knot didn’t get a chance to tighten.
Minutes later, Grace came out. She was a small but healthy 2.6 kilograms, and her ‘caul’ was completely intact. There she was outside of my body still squirming around inside the birth sac. It’s a very rare thing and an extraordinary sight to behold.
When they peeled the caul off, the first thing they saw was that she had a ‘collar’. Grace’s umbilical chord was wrapped twice around her little neck but, unlike in some cases, it hadn’t tightened enough to strangle her.
The fact that both my babies were so cramped inside would have helped them. Neither of them could move enough to pull the true knot tight or tug on the collar and they both survived. The harsh reality is that magical evening could easily have turned out differently. There are no guarantees until your baby is safely outside and even though the foetal monitor was indicating two healthy heartbeats, anything could have happened in those final minutes that might have resulted in unspeakable tragedy.
It is said that babies born in their caul are specially blessed. Grace certainly was. And so was her brother.
Photographer Kate Tyzack took some amazing shots that day and afterwards she wrote a beautiful description of the occasion, lavishly praising the assisted delivery process and the magnificent team who made it happen. As an added bonus, the twins had just scraped in to the 26-ers Club; Thomas was born at 11.41 p.m. and Grace at 11.42 p.m.
Best Australia Day ever.
Mother Assists in Twin Birth Caesarean Section
by Kate Tyzack
I have been a midwife for nineteen years and a birth photographer for eight years and I have never witnessed anything as beautiful as the story I’m about to share.
The birth of any child is magical, emotional, unforgettable. Yet a few weeks ago I was privileged to be involved in the most BREATHTAKING, beautiful and yet gentle birth ever. What made this particular birth even more amazing was that it was a caesarean section (C-section). C-sections are not well known for being serene. C-sections are not known for being pleasant. In fact, C-sections often leave the mother feeling completely excluded.
A C-section where both the mother and father were active participants.
A C-section that was in every way inclusive, caring and tender.
Phenomenally, the mother was able to assist in the birthing of her own babies. She was able to reach down and literally bring her babies into their new world.
As the first twin arrived (a gorgeous baby boy, a surprise to everyone), the father was free to cut the cord connecting his son to his mother. This is normally not possible at a C-section.
The second twin (another surprise, a beautiful baby girl) was then delivered into this world. She made a particularly grand entrance, being born in the caul. The membranes did not rupture and there she was moving about in the sac full of water, on the outside of her mum, for all of us to see. Considered to be auspicious, babies born in the caul are incredibly rare … and what a wonderful sight it was.
The memory of the fabulous obstetric team (Monash Obstetrics, Doctor Roshan and Doctor Ravi) peeling the membranes off the tiny baby girl and seeing her take her first breath, then the mum reaching down to pick up her baby and bring to her chest with her brother will stay with me forever. Yes, both twins were able to stay right there on their mum’s chest, skin to skin.
The birth of these beautiful twins was special. And it was important. C-sections aren’t renowned for being gentle. Mothers often get left out of the decision-making process. Mothers – and fathers – feel powerless.
The mother in this birth was an active participant. Her obstetricians were phenomenal. So inclusive. So caring. So tender. Every person in the room was amazed by the way in which these babies entered the world.
This respectful and divine delivery made me realise something: you always have a choice when it comes to the birth of your child. And even when outside circumstances dictate certain terms of your birth, just remember: you can be involved. You can be a part of the magic.
The day after the babies were born I got out of bed to use the toilet. Still feeling the effects of my caesarean, I shuffled very gently to the bathroom. I had been lying down for several hours since the birth so it was nice to be upright even though it was quite painful. When I finally got to the bathroom I saw myself in the mirror and was shocked. I looked at my tummy and couldn’t believe how huge I still looked. Lying down my stomach looked flat, but when I stood up I looked seven months pregnant with twins. What? Why? By the end of the pregnancy I was so tired of being huge; I just wanted to return to my normal size. Looking at myself in the mirror that morning, I knew that the recovery from this pregnancy was not going to happen quickly, nor without hard work and help.
Later that afternoon I was in the newborn nursery grabbing some supplies to take back to my room, I had a very excited new dad approach me. He started the conversation by asking, ‘So when is your baby due? It looks like you’re close.’ I was mortified. I quickly fired back and said, ‘I had twins twelve hours ago!’
I spoke to the nurses about my very large jelly belly. When I lay down, the separation in my stomach was so wide I could get my hand in between the stomach muscles, almost touching my internal organs with my fingers. I needed help! The nurses at the hospital suggested some pregnancy recovery shorts. They are high-waisted lycra shorts with built-in supportive panels in and around the belly. I had Mario rush out and grab me a couple of pairs. Those shorts changed the way I felt immediately. They pulled everything in so the stomach muscles could start to knit back together again. It felt very supportive and best of all it flattened my postpartum tummy.
I couldn’t wait to get the babies home, but unfortunately, I had some post-birth complications. Straight after the caesarean I had been feeling very unwell and unbalanced. My vision was blurry and I was suffering terrible headaches. The doctors couldn’t work out what the problem was.
I was so eager to start our new lives together that I had us all ready and packed to go on the fifth day; however, they still hadn’t worked out what was causing the dizziness so we had to stay in. I kept my bags packed in anticipation of leaving and ended up living in pyjamas the whole time I was there. At least there was no pressure to be sociable with visitors. I had decided not to have any visitors this time – it was all too hard – and I’m really glad I kept that time in hospital as quiet time.
The most difficult thing for me about being in hospital was the lack of privacy. After Madeline’s birth, I remember having a big sob in the shower on the third day. They told me to expect an emotional ‘surge’ around then so it was no big deal.
With the twins, my post-birth blues were more on show. By the third day I was working a system for feeding and changing them and I was just starting to feel on top of it. There was a new agency nurse on duty that day, and this woman I’d never met before breezed into my room and announced that I was ‘doing it all wrong’. She started to demonstrate a completely different way of organising the babies and I’m sorry to say I lost it. My emotions bubbled up and I told her with a shaky voice that I just didn’t need this right now and she needed to stop. She said she wasn’t meaning to upset me, but I must learn the correct way to do things. I said I didn’t want to know and I didn’t want her here. I told her to go and never come back!
Later that day I was talking to Mario on the phone about Grace’s middle name. We were tossing around a few ideas and all of a sudden I burst into tears. Between sobs I told him that her middle name absolutely had to be the same as my middle name (Anne) because it was really important that she had something of me. ‘Something that’s mine alone and that will remind her always that I’m her mother!’
It was so dramatic: a trivial matter blown right out of proportion. I can laugh about it now but at the time I was a blubbering mess!
Several days after the twins’ birth, the doctors worked out what was causing my dizziness. It turns out that the spinal block injection that was administered before the birth had caused my spinal chord to spring a leak, which was throwing everything out of balance. The solution was a spinal ‘patch’, which involved inserting one end of a tube into my arm and the other end into my spine. The pressure from the tube would force the blood to form a clot and block the leak. The surgery went well and I improved immediately.
Altogether, I was in hospital for ten days. On the one hand I couldn’t wait to leave, and on the other I was constantly aware that once I got home most of the twins’ care was going to be down to me. At the hospital I would be feeding the twins, Grace would fall off the boob and a passing nurse would scoop her up and finish off her feed with a bottle. That round-the-clock attention would evaporate when we were home and Mario was back to work. I had my nanny coming during the days to help me, but a lot of time was going to be me alone with these two babies and a toddler.
It was a daunting prospect but, just like my mum, I was going to have to find a way.
Wellness therapies
When you’re desperate to get pregnant, you’ll try anything within reason. I know what that desperation feels like. There are some crazy fertility myths out there and when your whole world revolves around having a baby you start to feel like anything is worth a shot. My all-time favourite fertility myths were that I should avoid eating peas and start wearing orange knickers. I also heard that swallowing spoonfuls of cough medicine after sex might aid conception – definitely a dodgy tip!
There are many wellness therapies, though, that you can add to your IVF toolbox to complement and enhance your IVF journey.
Counselling
Although Western doctors would generally be my first port of call for a physical ailment, I believe medical outcomes can be aided and enhanced when you pay attention to your mental and emotional wellbeing. My first experience with counselling or therapy was with a sports psychologist called Barbara. In 1989, when I started my career, seeing a shrink was not the done thing. P
eople thought that if you needed a psychologist, it meant that there was something clinically ‘wrong’ with you.
You don’t need to have serious mental health issues to benefit from therapy. It is a fantastic aid in dealing with the stresses of competition. These days many sports have progressed far beyond a niche interest into forms of entertainment. There’s simply no denying that high-level sport is big business. Not only are you dealing with the challenges of your sport, but also the perils of media exposure and intense personal scrutiny. It can really mess with your head! Because of this, sports psychology has become par for the course.
In the latter half of my career, I was regularly checking in with Barbara. She was fantastic for putting things in perspective, especially when times were tough. Later, I used many of her mental techniques during my struggles with IVF, which I found really helpful.
Frozen Hope Page 15