Joanna's Twin Girls   — Joanna Green, AL, USA

At week 35 I woke on Thursday morning to a mucus plug looking thing in the loo then throughout the day I seemed to have a loss of a watery discharge. At 6pm I rang the hospital to discuss as thought it might have been my waters. They asked me to come in. They checked to see if my waters had gone but the test was inconclusive. They monitored the girls and gave them a steroid injection to bring their lungs on and asked me to stay in overnight for observation plus I would need another injection in the morning. At 8:30am I had my 2nd injection and a midwife monitored the girls' heart beats again. During this monitoring one of the twins heart beats dropped and one of the consultants said, “Go straight to delivery.” At this point it was all systems go and the midwife called my husband. I was then monitored for about 30 minutes, but during this time we did not get a full uninterrupted heart reading for either baby, maybe a couple of minutes at a time. Personally I do not feel that was sufficient. After monitoring me again 4 hours later they were happy to send me home. I was surprised that they did not want to double check if my waters had gone as I had had group B strep in the past. The following day which was Saturday I got a phone call from Lucy, the midwife who had been looking after me, notifying me that they had found Group B Strep on my swab. She said it wasn’t anything to worry about, but if my waters went I should come straight in to hospital. Obviously I went in to a panic as it hadn’t been confirmed whether my waters had gone or not. I finished the conversation and went home in tears and tried to pull myself together before ringing the hospital back to ask if I could come back in and have the test done again to see if my waters had gone as the first test was inconclusive and I needed my mind put at rest. At the hospital I was asked to lie on my back for 2 hours to see if I had any pooling of my waters. After two hours a doc and two midwives came in to do the swab and they seemed satisfied that my waters hadn’t gone and sent me home. The hospital then made me an appointment to see the community midwife on Wednesday. Again I knew this would be a waste of my time. At this appointment she listened to the girls' heartbeats. At first she was not happy with twin 1’s but went back to hers after checking the other twin and then seemed satisfied. She took my blood pressure but urine sample, etc. was not checked. After leaving the hospital on this occasion I said I wouldn’t be back in until it was the real thing as I felt that people were thinking I was being a neurotic mother. The following Friday I woke in the night feeling flu like and uncomfortable but no more uncomfortable than I had for the last 8 months. After discussing my symptoms with my husband we agreed that it was ok for him to go to work and I would just rest at home with our son. I regularly checked my temperature, but was satisfied that I didn’t actually have a fever. At around 12 pm I started to get a backache, but still no more than I had over the last couple of months. At 1 pm I started to watch the clock as I thought maybe the backache was getting a slight rhythm. I was surprised when I realized it was getting slightly stronger every 2 minutes. I called a friend to sit with me and organized for my son to be collected. On my friend's arrival she decided to get me straight to hospital. We rang and informed them we were on our way and that I was a twin pregnancy with two breech babies and that I would be needing a c-section. On arrival at the hospital, there was nobody waiting for us. My friend had to ring the buzzer five times and wait outside a considerable time before a student midwife showed us to the transition room. She asked for the notes and asked some standard questions before she went to get a midwife who then arrived, asked the same questions, checked the notes, and then we were moved to the delivery suite at approximately 1:40pm. Once in the delivery suite I was undressed and one student midwife set about finding the babies' heartbeats, but admitted she was unsure on how to do it as she had never worked with twins before. My friend assisted with one monitor, holding it in place for her. I helped by letting her know where the girls were. The main midwife then left to call the registrar; another midwife came in and helped the student. A man who we presume was the anesthetist was called who started injecting me. He must have taken 15-20 minutes to arrive and all the time I was asking for pain relief. He came in and read the notes. There was no sense of urgency from him. He said "Well, you might have a c-section, but we’ll see." My friend and I were adamant that I had to have a C-section as both girls were breech. We made this very clear to everyone every step of the way. A midwife then said group B strep was the least of their worries. We both reinforced that I needed to be going into theatre as soon as possible so that I wouldn’t have to give birth naturally. He did an internal and advised I was already 8 cm dilated. At this point I was asking the student midwives if they had gotten the babies’ heartbeats as they seem to have given up. A qualified midwife advised that they had gotten both babies' heartbeats intermittently. The consultant then said if I feel the need to push I mustn’t. I should pant through the contractions. There was then a delay whilst apparently theatre was being set up. Eventually they took me to theatre where I was told that I was going to have to deliver the first baby breech. At 2:48 pm our first daughter was delivered. The consultant held her over me and I said, "She looks rather floppy. There’s something wrong." The cord was cut and she was taken off to be worked on. Then another chap (I presume an anesthetist) asked me if I wanted a spinal block or a general anesthetic for the delivery of the second baby. I was surprised to be given the option as I could tell it was an emergency situation but it was as if the anesthetist had only just come into the room and hadn’t been briefed on the situation. Whilst I was having this conversation with the anesthetist the consultant tried to turn the second baby which was excruciating. I decided on a spinal block but then the consultant and this chap had a discussion and they decided I had to have a general. My husband was asked to leave and our second daughter was stillborn at 3:08 pm. The post mortem revealed that twin one, Georgia, died of pneumonia caused by GBS and twin two died as a result of twin one dying and restricting the placenta. The hospital has tried to get the pathologist to change her mind but her second report came back with her being very noncommital.