The first post is always the hardest. (Part 1)

I never wanted to have children. Don't get me wrong, I love kids but I never saw myself as a mother - or for that matter a wife. That is, until I met my husband. C & I met in the October and by December we both knew that our lives were to be forever intertwined. We got engaged soon after and then lived together along with our 2 cats.

Shortly before we got married (December 2005) we decided that we would stop being 'careful' under the belief that we would take some time before we conceived. This was our first misconception (hehehe excuse the pun) because by my calculations it occurred sometime in the first week. Needless to say, fitting into my wedding dress 6 weeks later was almost impossible.

At 13 weeks we insisted on an early scan (in the UK the first scan is usually only at 18 weeks), I'm not sure why we insisted but we did. To our surprise and shock we discovered that we were in fact, carrying twins! This was our first surprise but it definitely wasn't to be our last drama.

We were immediately scheduled in for a second, more detailed scan and this was when the real fun began. The sonographer had to ascertain what type of twins they were for, we were to discover there is more to it* than just identical or not identical. The scan failed to provide them with the conclusive evidence they were looking for as they were unable to find a membrane between the twins. They were however able to confirm that they were identical and that for the moment they were healthy.

At around 18 weeks and after several desperate scans, we were finally booked in to see the Specialist Consultant, affectionately referred to as Dr Mac (or McDreamy as the nurses liked to call him). It took him a while but he eventually found a membrane and we got to breath our first collective sigh of relief.

As the weeks passed I got bigger and more desperate as the 'morning sickness' that had haunted me from the start persisted and worsened. Despite my best intentions, pregnancy really didn't agree with me and I'm fairly certain that it didn't agree with the poor people around me either.

From 24 weeks onwards I started being scanned every 2 weeks as is normal for a twin pregnancy. I took solace in watching my 2 beautiful boys grow and tried my best to ignore how truly awful I felt.

At 28 weeks I dutifully reported for my regular scan. To my untrained eye nothing seemed amiss even though we always asked all sorts or questions to try and understand the complexities. The sonographer commented that there was a lot of fluid, but that it appeared to be in both sacs so she wasn't worried. I remember thinking that it was a strange thing to say.

The following day I received a call from the senior sonographer (Gill). She calming told me that Dr Mac had reviewed my case and had asked if I could come in for another scan. I mentioned that we were due to attend my husbands' brothers wedding the following day (May 4th) and asked if it was something that I could do after I got back. Gill called back say that Dr Mac wanted to see me before we drove across country to the wedding so we agreed to pop in the following morning.

To say that I was big was an understatement. At 28 weeks my waist measured at 44inches and I was desperately uncomfortable. I wasn't to realise it at the time, but a chance discussion in the corridor was overheard by Gill who casually mentioned it to Dr Mac. Had this not happened, things may have been much, much worse!

* for a full description of the types of twins see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin