Happy New Year 2010

We went along to our appointment a couple of days before New Years Eve. We met the consultant Marcelina Coker and we had a great appointment with her.  She understood where I was coming from with wanting to deliver the babies naturally and she was fully supportive of my decision.  Twin one was still head down and twin two who had been somersaulting throughout the pregnancy was breech at this scan however she said that babies can still turn or could be turned once the first one is born.

Marcelina wanted to deliver them herself so decided I should come in to be induced on 14th January. I sat in the consulting room and close to tears explained that our older daughter would be 7 on the 15th January and I didn't want to be in hospital on her birthday. My other main concern was that my pregnancy would continue for two more weeks! As her main day on the delivery ward is a Thursday she agreed for us to come in on 7th January to be induced early enough so she would still be on shift to deliver the girls.  We were with Marcelina for an hour in total. We came out feeling very excited although it felt a little strange to decide on their birthday. We went out for lunch and devised a plan of action for the due date. We updated the four grandparents and made arrangements for who would look after our oldest daughter and son. 

Not wanting to share the arrival date with friends we told everyone that we were to go another two weeks until I was 38 weeks pregnant. 

New Years Eve came and we spent the evening with our closest friends at our neighbours house. We were all supposed to have been holidaying in a cottage in Wales but with the news of my double pregnancy this had been cancelled in September. Instead we had take away and watched BBC1 at midnight. I say "we" had take-away, but by this stage in my preganancy I was unable to eat any more. I sat rather uncomfortably for as long as I could at the dining room table and then sloped off to relax on the sofa and eat some chocolate. I did make it past midnight but by 1am was home and fast asleep looking forward to a last weekend as a family of four.

New Years Day was cold and snowy and I spent the whole day in my pyjamas just preparing food for Shabbat.  I had heard that there is a Jewish custom to knead bread and make the tradional Shabbat Challah to ensure a smooth labour so I kneaded and baked some beautiful bread that day.

4am Saturday 2nd January
I woke up and wondered if the pains I felt could be labour. It's amazing how easily one forgets. I couldn't remember if it felt like labour or if I just had some more backache. Perhaps I had leant badly kneading all that bread. At 4.30am I woke dear husband up to find out his opinion. He said that he was going back to sleep for an hour and then to let him know how I was getting on. Well he never made it back to sleep as I kept pacing the bedroom. Finally at 5.30am I called the hospital to speak to a midwife. On hearing that I may be in labour and that I was pregnant with twins she told me to arrange my childcare and come to the hospital.

5.30am
I called my parents. My Mum answered. "This is the phonecall you've been waiting for" I told her. My Mum and Dad came round and by that stage I wasn't sure if I was in labour but we thought it best to go before the other two children woke up. Flurries of snow were falling as we got in the car to drive up to Watford. My Mum's parting words were "If you want to get  Marcelina Coker to come and deliver them, it may be worth calling her and paying privately".