Pregnant with 2 babies... but not twins
Twins but not...
Wednesday 29th August 2007
Like an over-excited puppy was the only way to describe him. My boyfriend, George Herrity, 33, was definitely finding my 12-week scan a nerve-racking procedure.
'Will you stop it? You're making everyone nervous,' I teased.
'Sorry, love,' he grinned.
Don't get me wrong, I was excited too. I loved being a mum to Jordon, 9, and Dec, 8, from a previous relationship, and was happy to be expecting another baby. But this had all come as such a surprise as I'd been on the pill.
My GP had explained the Pill can be affected by antibiotics. A couple of weeks earlier, I'd been run-down with a bug and had been prescribed antibiotics. So that explained it! And now, here we were at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, Paisley, for my first scan.
Suddenly, the sonographer's face dropped.
'I'll be back in a minute,' she said.
My heart was pounding until eventually she reappeared with a consultant.
'You're expecting two babies…' he explained.
Two babies? My mouth flapped open like a goldfish.
'Brilliant!' George cheered.
'But…,' the consultant went on, 'one's much bigger than the other.'
'Twins?' I asked puzzled.
'We'll see,' the consultant said.
George bounded out of the hospital on cloud nine, but now I was the one scratching my head. If there were two babies inside me, it must be twins. Mustn't it? So why had the consultant just said: 'We'll see'?
Two weeks later, I was still trying to get my head round it when it was time to go back to hospital.
'I've been looking at the scans,' the consultant said. 'You do have two babies in there but they're not twins. They were actually conceived separately.'
'I've never heard of anything like it,' George said.
'I've not come across it before either,' the consultant admitted. 'Apparently, there's a one in four million chance of this happening. And I could only find records of 25 women who've been though this in the whole world.'
I was so shocked, I didn't know what to say as the doctor explained how one baby had been conceived three weeks after the other.
'How?' I asked.
'It's a rare quirk of nature,' the consultant said. 'It's called superfetation and means that your body carries on releasing more eggs for fertilisation after you've already got pregnant.
Normally, after you've fallen pregnant, the body sends out hormones which stop you releasing more eggs, but in your case, this didn't happen.'
How bizarre! Every week, George drove me to the hospital for a scan, and within a couple of months, my tummy was so big, I could hardly move. Then, when I was 32 weeks' pregnant with the elder baby, and 29 weeks' with the younger one, there was some bad news.
'One of the babies is in the breech position, feet down,' the doctor said. 'The other's lying across the womb. We're going to have to do a Caesarean.'
I was booked in for the operation one week later, on 16 April.
I don't mind admitting that when the day came, I was terrified. Wearing a surgeon's mask, George held my hand as I was wheeled into theatre.
'Not long now,' he said, as the surgeon worked away behind the green fabric screen.
A strange, squirming sensation rippled through my stomach, like someone washing up inside me. Then the midwife held the first baby in the air.
'It's a girl,' she smiled, putting the tiny little girl in my arms.
Our daughter weighed 4lb 13oz.
'She's beautiful,' I said, choking back the tears.
'She was conceived second,' the midwife said. 'So she's the younger baby.
'But because she was born first, I suppose that makes her the elder one, too!'
Talk about confusing!
I was still trying to get my head round it when the second baby came out. It was another girl, weighing 6lb 11oz.
'She was conceived first,' the midwife said. 'But is now the youngest.'
Because of their weird conception, we decided it was only right to that we give them unusual names.
'How about Ame, for the first born,' George said. 'And Lia for the second. Together
they make Amelia.'
Four months on, we're still struggling to get our heads round how it happened but one thing's for sure, we couldn't be happier!
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