Have Mercy Twins - Golden Days by helseyc

Today was one of those "Golden Days" - you know where everything just seems to work out, almost too perfectly!

Darling husband is still away. I awoke to the girls singing in their cots. Erin has now discovered the musical bear that hangs at the foot of her cot and can pull on the cord that makes the bear in the honey pot move up and down whilst it plays "Are You Sleeping". This toy was my niece Lauren's. She is the first grandchild in our family...Lauren is now 21! The toy brings delight to my almost 9 month olds.

I took Erin and Sunny upstairs for breakfast. I made a coffee and ate myself all before Claudia awoke, which is very unusual.

I managed to get them all fed and dressed and we were in the car and out the door by 8am, we were off to the gym.

I'm doing the 12 week challenge at my gym and have 3 weeks to go. It has been a challenge indeed. I have committed myself to get back into training and therefore am exercising 6 days a week, mostly at the gym. With Vic away, I have noticed just how much we rely and depend on each other to achieve the day to day simple tasks that now seem to require an army of family help to achieve. Not so easy to skip out when the girls are in bed to go to the gym as hubby is not home to watch them!
Anyway today I have used the creche at the gym. The wonderful staff there adore the girls and are very supportive which is lovely! I had a great training session. The girls had a fabulous morning playing and I had the little ones back in the car in time for their morning nap. They were sleeping as I stopped for ANOTHER coffee and a fruit bun for Claudia and had a good half hour sleep as we pulled up to Claudia's swimming lesson.

I cannot believe how organised I was today. I had the girls' lunch packed, Claudia's swimming and a coffee for me. Before kids I called myself "one trip Cunningham" but now with children, I have to get over that one! I parked at swimming. The double pram does not fit down the narrow pathway or through the door into swimming, so I let Claudia out, then carry both girls (while I'm still able to do so...) and the nappy bag and follow another lady and her daughter down the narrow path. I call out to her to please hold the gate and in we go. I set the girls up on the floor, then run back out to the car to get the pram and mat for them to play on. Then get Claudia dressed ready for her class. As I'm watching her swim I've propped the girls up in their prams and have given them their bottles. Other mothers around me sit, relax and watch their child swimming. I am sipping coffee, picking up dropped bottles and waving to Claudia when she looks up at me and giving cuddles to bubs where necessary. I am standing the whole time I realise later.
What a great swimming lesson. I do two trip back the car and then as we are all strapped in and ready to go I get this great idea as I look on the floor of my car, that I could fit in time to have the car washed/cleaned before the girls lunchtime sleeps! Yes I can do it! And I do!

Vic usually washes the car and I vacuum it out, but today...I think not!
I go to a car wash cafe and unload the entire car...it seriously looked like I was going on holidays! We are scouts obviously as we are ALWAYS prepared....spare clothes, nappies, toys, play mat, potty, shade tent, towels, first aid kit, shopping bags and gym gear are all pulled out of the boot!
I set Claudia up at a table, order another coffee (I know I'm addicted - they're only 1/2 strength!) give her a fruit bun and water, give their girls their solids and we wait for the car to be ready. I have a 45 min window before the girls need to be home for their nap. After they eat, the little ones are sick of the pram, luckily I have the play mat and out they come for a play. Claudia finds a Dora book and is in cartoon character heaven and I get a magazine but don't read it, as I'm trying to keep the girls on the play mat. After sometime I change their nappies and bim bam the car is ready. It's so lovely and clean. We put everything back in the car and are home just before midday!

The 3 girls are sleeping as I type. I've bought in a load of washing and hung out one I put on before we left at 8am this morning. It is a golden day and they do happen amongst the crappy ones, but when they do happen I feel very blessed. Must go eat lunch, cause you never know what's going to happen when the cherubs wake up. Either the golden day continues or it is gone ... only to return when you least suspect!

Hope you're having a Golden Day!

My Beautiful Girls by Justine aka 3PonyPrincesses

My Beautiful Girls
I married the love of my life on 13th September 2003 at age 28 and he was 36, knowing full well we may not ever be able to have children. I only have one ovary and one tube and what plumbing I do still have is very scarred ... so was told IVF would only ever be our option to bring bubs into this world. One year after marrying we tried our first round of IVF with no success, then a FET ( frozen embryo transer ) of which also failed. We were blessed with success on our 2nd full stim cycle and on April fools day 2005, our first beautiful daughter came into this world weighing 8pounds 7 ounces.

Wow what an adventure that was! We were booked into a private hospital to have her in Brisbane, went into pre-term spontaneous labour at 38 weeks at midnight April fools day ( rudely awoken in bed with my waters breaking ) only to call the private hospital and be told, " honey you can't come here tonight we have no beds!" GREAT lady, what did you expect me to do have this baby at home here on the toilet!?!?!?!? I was told to call the public hospital and call my obs and he would meet me there. Fine, great we thought, you gotta do what you gotta do, BUT had we ever practiced how to get to the Royal Women's hospital ? No, not never !!!! We had only ever practiced to get to the Wesley private hospital from Nudgee beach, where we were staying with my aunty at the time, as we live in a small country town 3hrs away from Brissy. OMG what an adventure! In the car hubby and I hop, well I crawl in with like 5 towels stuffed between my legs.... right how hard can this be I say to hubby, bare in mind my contractions at this time were like 2 minutes apart and soooo painful..... we get into the area finally and can see the hospital, but do you think for the life of us we can GET to it!!!??? Finally after going round in circles for ages ( which is most likely really like 5mins it's just always worse when you are in labour ) we come across some council workers, it's like 1am in the morning by this time, and they explain to us how to get there, me still sitting backwards on the passenger seat hugging it firmly ( boy o boy what a sight those council workers had to witness ), screaming with each contraction. We get there  and the( Royal Women's) volunteer man ( yup i said MAN ) comes out with a wheelchair to help me up to maternity. Wow how bl@@dy embarrassing was that? Here I am with nothing but towels between my legs, leaking like a bl@@dy sieve, screaming in pain with each contraction and my shorts around my hips, and now being handed over to a complete stranger! Wow what a sight I must have been! Hubby had to leave me with this bloke and go park the car, poor chap. I must have been the pregnant woman from hell. I kept making him stop between the a&e entrance and the maternity ward, which was a ways away. Every time a contraction came I made him stop real still ( more than 10 times ) .... its was a bl@@dy hard trip that one! Then we got there, went in the labour room and within an hour out comes our beautiful girl Jade-Elle Piper, just perfect in every way..... I rest! Holy heck, what a night!

Here we are cruising along in life, paid off our house and property, really enjoying things, contemplating another round of IVF for one more bub, when I get very sick and cannot stop chucking for the life of me ( i never had any morning sickness with my first pregnancy so this was not considered ). I take myself to the doctor thinking I must be very very sick with god knows what, and he does a random pregnancy test. Yup you guessed it, I am pregnant! What? How? No way, complete denial, I venture into the - no i cant be do another test blah blah blah, blood work comes back to confirm it. Then I start heavy bleeding at about 8 weeks, thinking I am miscarrying. They give me a dildo scan and find two sacs and only one heart beat, sad, we had twins but one failed to progress BUT one baby was in there doing just fine with a nice strong heartbeat... great.... sad and happy at the same time if you know what I mean.  Then at the routine 12 week scan, the sonographer says, "lovely, two nice strong heartbeats!" I'm like, what did you just say? Show me that screen? Hubby is there and we are both dumbfounded but it's true both our twins are alive, growing and healthy... we have stuck gold.... after being told I could never ever get pregnant naturally, here we are 12 weeks pregnant with twins..... holy heck! Our local hospital doesn't do tertiary scans ( 20 weeks) so we had to travel to Brissy for that one, and on the way in the car hubby and I joked to each other thinking-great, maybe it's really triplets this time???! lol

On 5th Dec 2006 our beautiful identical twin girls Ruby and Molly come into this world just perfect and breathing all by themselves with no health issues, and roomed with me immediately. Felt funny going into hospital not even being in labour ( they were a planned c section ). I stayed for like 6 days, really great time and plenty of help, was able to breastfeed them both as I did my first daughter. I also bottle fed them my expressed breast milk...... life was busy back at home with 3 kids under one but it's certainly do-able, and life really does get easier as they get older.

Today - our eldest started prep this year and just turned 5 and our twins have just turned 3 in December. I was truly blessed to have a generous amount of help from great family and friends.

We call all our 3 daughters true miracles and feel so truly blessed to wake up to them each and every day.

Cherish life I say :-)

Justine aka 3PonyPrincesses

Have Mercy Twins...fast forward! by helseyc

Ok, you've heard the start of the story so let's skip to current time...today infact.

Approximately 8.5 months ago I had the girls. Feels like I've never been without them. They fit into our family like my comfy pair of one stars that I bought 10 years ago and still fit my feet so well. They're like all the holiday celebrations rolled into one, they're sunshine on my shoulders and they make me happy...most of the time.

Today is Anzac Day...Lest We Forget!

The day started like any other, well not really cause Vic is overseas at the moment, but apart from that it started like any other. The 3 girls all up around 6ish. Gave E & S their bottles and got Miss C her weetbix and milk. I then glance at the clock on the oven, 7:05 am. "OK," I crazily think, "we can still make Anzac Day service at 7.30am." So set about whizzing around like Samantha from 'Bewitched'. I organise the little ones breakfast and pack it in the nappy bag. I change all the girls, get myself dressed and get Erin down the two flights of stairs to the car first. Then it's Sunny's turn. As I'm hiking her down the stairs I call to Claudia to follow me. She does so and as I place Sunny in the car I ask her to please put her shoes on. All of our shoes are at the very bottom of our stairs so are the last item to go on! Claudia has one foot in and is very pleased she has done it up. "Clever girl" I say, then tell her I'll quickly do the second shoe as we're running out of time to get to the service.

That was all it took.

She's lost it.

Screamed like a banshee "I do it!" I appease the fire breathing creature that is my 2.5yr old and as I gather her up I tell her, "Ok you can put it on in the car!" As I hurry to push her through the front passenger seat to get her seated in the middle of the back row between her sisters seats, her back is arched, she has continued wailing but now it is that high pitched scream that only dogs can hear. She has now set her already upset teething sisters on a roll - my chorus of cherubs! I crawl into the passenger side of the car, with my butt hanging out and try to mould her rigid body into a sitting position so I can strap her in and we can be on our way! I do it and break a sweat in the attempt.

So she's in, then I race around the car and I am in. The garage door is raised, the air con on high to cool all our temps down and I'm reversing as I pass the lone shoe back to my princess to put on. That shoe comes flying past at eye level to hit the front console. "Claudia!" I exclaim, and go to say don't take the other one off...too late, there it is now resting with its twin shoe!

Right! Now I'm just cranky thinking, "Great, it's one of those days is it!?" I drive to our destination and we're there by 7.28am - not bad I think under the circumstances. I can get all 3 girls out and in the pram and across the road in no time.

Then as I jump out of the car to get the pram out, I realise with great disappointment that I have forgotten to put my own shoes on in all the ruckus! I am fully dressed thank goodness and have the most stunning purple socks on but not my comfy one stars that I bought 10 years ago!

It is now that I burst into tears and think about the effort I made to get us all to the Anzac Day service on time. My mind quickly changed however, to those soldiers past and present who would not have cared if I was shoeless or not.

I will certainly remember this particular Anzac Day for a long time...lest we forget...our shoes.

Have Mercy Twins! by Helen (helseyc)

My story is not unique…I’m sure many out there have done it tougher than this…twins and a toddler, but this is my story and it is special to me. I hope it brings you some joy to read the trials and tribulations as we experienced it first hand.

The real story began when I met and fell in love with my husband Victor in 2001. We married in 2006. These years were filled with normal highs and lows, fabulous trips around this beautiful country and overseas, lots of nights out and dinners with friends and family and simple pleasures like going to the movies. Our first born arrived in October 2007, Claudia, and did she change our world in oh so many ways! How wonderful this little being was. We delighted in her slightest movements and wondered at her beauty.


Then day to day life took over. We were blessed with a good baby, slept well, fed well. Night time feeds seemed to take over our nights out now and many other invitiations out were met with “Can we bring Claudia?” or “Which family member is going to baby sit this time?”


We coped though, complained a bit about the changes to our life, but celebrated more this gift we had conceived.

We still went out for breakfasts, lunches and dinners. We still went to the movies whilst Claudia was at baba’s (grandmother). We still went on our trips (not overseas but interstate).

Then in Dec 2008 we found we were pregnant again and were super excited.

I was super sick though and so tired, but knew that being pregnant and having a little one would cause this.
I was to go with the midwifery programme, where all of your care throughout pregnancy and birth is with the midwives. But to be able to be a part of this programme you need to be checked that you are a “straight forward” case. Therefore have an easy pregnancy and birth. There is one check up with an obstetrician around 12 weeks to guarantee this status. I got Vic to look after Claudia and drop me off at the hospital. I would call him when I was done. This was going to be a tick and flick type of appointment and I’d be out in a jiffy. I went in, don’t even remember the doctors name, she asked me a few questions about my previous pregnancy and birth and current pregnancy. We got so close to the end and she was saying, “well it looks like we won’t be seeing you again (big smile),  just hop up on the table and we'll listen to the baby’s heart beat!”

We couldn’t find a heart beat with a doppler, to which she said the baby was probably lying low. So she suggested she get the scanning equipment out. Whilst she was putting the gel on my tummy I don’t know what made me ask this question but I did, “What are the chances of a woman my age (36) having twins when there is no family history of twin on either side?” She replied in an almost brush off tone…”oh very low!"

She found my baby. I was over come again with the same feelings of when I first saw Claudia on the scan screen. Just beautiful. I heard the baby’s heart beat and was prattling on to the doctor about what a glorious sound it is when she stops me and says, “Wait a sec…” to which I replied “Bullshit!” Hmmm, I wish I had thought of a more beautiful way to express what I was thinking!! She said nothing more but pointed to the screen to reveal, a second baby! I repeated my expletive this time laughing somewhat hysterically! I was looking at the screen and at her face to confirm if I had got it right and she was pointing out the sacs and Twin A and Twin B as they were to be coined from that day until birth. I then burst out crying, I have to admit here, not with joy more with overwhelm, disbelief and panic!!!! Somedays with one are tough, I thought! Have mercy - Twins.

Now the following are the first 3 things that popped into my head when told I was carrying twins. I am not proud of the way in which my brain worked on that day so prepare yourself.

My first thought was…uh oh, this time I’ll get stretch marks!

My second thought was…oh great we need a new pram!

And finally… are you sure there’s just 2?? Long story about a friend of mine who found out she had twins at her first scan, then at her second scan they found the 3rd! (This friend became my “threshold” bench mark and still does to this day, when I am feeling out of sorts or overwhelmed!!!)
Then I asked if they were both ok? Yep I know this should have been the first question, but that was just the way my brain was working I tell you!

I left that room dumbstruck…surrounded by pregnant women and partners who obviously thought something was wrong. I went to reception to make another appointment as now I had to go through the hospital with an obstetrician, the midwives would class me as a “high risk” pregnancy. I’ll never forget the lovely lady at the reception who asked if I was ok and I told her the news. She was the first person I told and she was so excited for me. I was going on about telling my husband and Claudia and was speaking nonsense for sure. I rang Vic to come get me. He knew something was up and asked if I was ok. I said, "Yeah yeah, tell you when you get here."– I wanted to witness his reaction. I couldn’t contain myself and rang my two sisters. They were so surprised. Then Vic drove up with Claudia in the back and it was a jump in and keep driving situation. He asked how I was and if everything was ok. I said “honey we’re having twins!” He was in disbelief, I had to show him where the obs had written down DC/DA twins on my chart! Then he enthused, “it feels like we’ve won the lottery!” I think I loved him more that day for saying that!

We were in shock on our drive to get some lunch. My head went quickly into organisational overdrive about logistics, what we’d need and how we'd cope.

Our journey was just beginning!