Health, Personal

So You’re Having Twins…Now What?

laraschmieding

1: Take Care of Yourself
*Before diving in here…it’s important to state I’m speaking from my experience but every body, baby, and pregnancy is different. Please follow the guidance of your doctor, doula, mid-wife, or other medical professional.

Care Team
It’s vital to have a care team that makes you feel comfortable. I have been going to my OB/GYN for years so we already had a good relationship and I trusted that she would provide the proper care and deliver my babies safely. When we discovered the added complexity that I had two babies, she immediately referred me to a MFM (Maternal Fetal Medicine) specialist for sonograms. This was a perfect example of my OB doing what was best for me by getting another doctor involved.

My MFM doctor was also a trusted member of my care team. I was in his office every month, then every other week, then every week towards the end of my pregnancy.

Nutrition
My OB/GYN had recommended that I start taking prenatal vitamins when we were trying to conceive. These pills are packed with essential vitamins for a growing embryo. In addition to this, my MFM doctor had me taking a daily baby aspirin and extra folic acid. Studies conducted have shown that baby aspirin can reduce the risk of pre-eclampsia which is more common in a multiples pregnancy (source). The added folic acid provided enough to support two growing babies. Regular prenatal vitamins only contain enough folic acid to support one.

My doctors also recommended I try to gain 24 lbs by the time I hit 24 weeks. They advised that gaining weight early in a multiples pregnancy has been shown to increase the likelihood that the babies would not be born prematurely (source). So I ate…and ate…and ate. After my first trimester when the nausea subsided, gaining weight was easy since I just ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I wanted to stay healthy so avoided a lot of junk food but I added more peanut butter, avocado, and cheese to things. It’s important to eat well because gestational diabetes is more common in a twin pregnancy (source).

Rest
I was not ready for how exhausted I would be while pregnant. I needed to take a nap every single day and was still going to be very early in the evening. My care team advised that I sleep when I was tired. I was taking a 1-2 hour nap daily and lying around a lot. Towards the end of my pregnancy when I was very large, this pregnancy pillow really made a difference in helping me sleep at night. Friends of mine have also said a good body pillow does the trick.

Water
You have to drink so much water! Blood volume increases by 40% during a singleton pregnancy (source). You need water in your body to make sure you build up that blood supply and make enough amniotic fluid. I was extremely thirsty all the time so I had no problem drinking the recommended 64 oz per day. I actually drank more than that regularly. In order to ensure I was hitting that target, I bought this water bottle.

2: Gear
Babylist Registry
Because some of the items for twins aren’t available at big box stores, Babylist was a great registry option for me. It allows you to pull in products from all different stores into one easy to manage place. Highly recommend!

Target and BuyBuyBaby Registries
Registering at Target and BuyBuyBaby was worth it for those friends and family that prefer to shop in a physical store. Also…you get free samples for registering at these places.

Top Twin Baby Items
I broke this out into a separate post.

Secondhand Shopping
Two of everything gets expensive quickly. I highly recommend buying as much as you can secondhand. Babies grow out of clothes, swings, bouncers, toys, etc. so quickly that a lot of the “used” items will still look and perform as if they were brand new.

I was constantly checking Facebook Marketplace, Mercari, and Poshmark for items. Facebook Marketplace is great for finding things in your general area for pick up or drop off. We bought bassinets, high chairs, swings, bouncers, nursing pillows, clothes, and baby gates all secondhand for a fraction of what you pay in a store.

You can also Google terms like “secondhand baby store” and see if there is one in your area. Kid to Kid in South Austin has been a great place for selling clothes the twins have outgrown and purchasing the next size up.

3: Create a Birth Plan
Doula
Hiring a doula is a personal choice. For me, I wanted a doula for a couple of reasons 1: The rules around visitors and guests kept changing due to COVID-19. At the time of delivery, I was only allowed to have one person with me while I labored and delivered except if using a doula or midwife. 2: My husband and I had no idea what to expect. Hiring a doula to walk us through everything that was happening in the moment was extremely helpful.

Overall, I’m glad we hired a doula. Brenda was a wonderful resource to us before, during, and after delivery. She kept me comfortable and calm. She asked good questions that I would not have known to ask and explained everything to me and my husband in a way we could understand.

What’s in a birth plan?
Our doula told us the “birth plan” is really more of a wishlist. It is very unusual for a birth plan to go 100% as written in your document. This helped set our expectations that we can have preferences but to be aware that things can change. Brenda came to our house about 6 weeks prior to our due date to discuss the birth plan. The first thing she told us was We put into a one-page document our goals and preferences for procedures during labor and postpartum. For example, we listed the preference to hold off on an epidural until I reached 5-6cm of dilation.

4: Generally Helpful Resources
I’m a researcher and like to do my own due diligence. Here are the resources I found the most helpful.

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Published by laraschmieding