Lactation Nation

Once the babes were out I was given drugs to tell my body to let the feasting begin. Within hours, the emergency cord was pulled and my chest started to inflate. As Nancy & Lola were in intensive care and so very small, the last thing they could do is suckle at a nipple the size of a wagon wheel. So I was introduced to 'Daisy', a vague attempt to humanize this monstrosity of a machine which looked like a greasy old carberetta from a 1976 Ford Cortina. The expressing machine, as it was formally known, made more noise than John Deer's first tractor and used as much diesel. The first time I tried it, Nurse Au Lait spent 15 minutes massaging my tit into a cone shape and shoving into a funnel.'All very nice' I said, 'but shouldn't we try expressing?'
After a slow start, I started to produce more milk, expressing up to 7 times a day and rushing (not quite) pints of Davies cream to the neonatal unit. My milk was proving more popular than the Laughing Cow's.

A week later, the girls were transferred back to Kings in London and I was sent home with a portable 'Daisy'. My jugs overfloweth and I was up all hours of the day and night plugging my great big leaky boosies into a machine.
Each day at the hospital lactating mothers with babies in care would sit in a small cupboard with our breasts attached to machines. Drilling for milk every 3 hours so our babies could grow. Words were rarely spoken and never an eye caught. It was a strange environment, I've never seen so many nipples in all my life, but I miss the solidarity.

Now the babes are home they get it straight from the source, but for how much longer I don't know. No-one tells you about how big these fun bags get when you have to feed two babies. Branson has just called asking if he could slap a Virgin sticker on them and fly them around the world!

Emergency Slash & Grab

31 weeks up the stick and I'm waddling around like Rik Waller with his pants down.
I'm sat in the waiting room at Kings' Harris Birthright centre, swearing like a navvy as I wait for yet another routine scan. I'm the size of the Millenium Dome and about as popular. I am in excrutiating pain and so swollen I feel like I am about to explode and cover these doe-eyed, newly-fertilized ladies with bloody scraps of manky old placenta and cervix.

Dr Darling (my name for her not hers!)calls me into the scanning room and I roll myself onto the table with a "f*&k and b*llocks", she doesn't even bat an eyelid, she's seen me 5 or 6 times already and knows exactly how ladylike I am. It turns out that the reason why I am so ginormous is that my babies have developed acute twin to twin transfusion syndrome and they have to come out immediately.
Oh the drama! The next hour is a blur of phone calls to a flapping husband, son's nursery, panicking parents and stunned best friend before being escorted to the labour ward. Shit! I am now starting to panic, I desperately need a bikini wax and I can't remember if I have put any pants on.

Good news bad news time, the good news is we caught it in time, twin to twin transfusion syndrome can be fatal if undetected or too late, the bad news is, there are no beds for the babes in the neonatal unit so I will have to be transferred to another hospital. It took over 6 hours of calling hospitals around the country to find two beds for the babies, Dundee had them and unless they found any closer I would have to be airlifted there. Bloody exciting stuff, but a real pain for family, friends and the beast to visit. Luckily, Portsmouth comes up with the goods and at 2am we're screeching down the A3 to the coast for my slash and grab (some call it a caesarean). I have been nil by mouth since 1.30pm this afternoon, 15 hours later and I have never been more tempted to drink my own wee. I have started to hallucinate about cans of coke and pints of stella.

Finally, at 8am my time has come. More drama, twin 2's heartbeat has slowed down dangerously so me, Mr D and a team of 8 ran through the corridors to the theatre, stripping as I went. They shoved an epidural in my back and the pain melts away, next thing we hear is the splash of amniotic fluid hitting the floor when they slash my lower stomach and all I can do is blabber on apologetically about the state of the foliage, (honestly, if I was them I would have refused to do it) and at 8.50 and 8.52 my beautiful twin girls are born. A brief 'hello' and they are whisked off to to SCBU for some incubating and ventilating. Nancy and Lola are here, 4lb 1oz and 3lbs 1 oz, safe and sound. It is all over and the relief I feel takes over me and before I can even demand a glass of something alcoholic, I promptly fall asleep.

Fed Up! By busty mother of soon-to-be three!

I am in agony. 31 weeks ‘up the stick’ with twins and virtually about to burst. My stomach is as hard as a Blackpool peppermint flavoured rock stomach and it feels like the girls are the size of three year olds.

I am fed up.
I cannot eat the disgusting amount of cake that I desire due to the fact my stomach has been squeezed out of its normal habitat and is now the size of a fag packet.

I am fed up.
I need a good bottle of wine, and NO, a small glass once a week does not help. I get horrific heartburn and what is the point of a glass, when I need a bottle!

I am fed up.
I cannot take sleeping tablets to help me have at least 8 hours uninterrupted sleep to make me feel slightly normal. Instead I toss and turn like a rotisserie chicken and when I finally get some sleep it is time to get up and start the hellish life I lead once more (ok a bit dramatic, but I need SLEEP!)

I am fed up.
Fed up because none of my clothes fit, my belly hangs out beneath my t-shirt (large maternity I’ll have you know) like a fat, bandy labrador’s belly and my combats are so low all I need is a pair of twinkly eyes tattooed on to my belly and I’ll look like Tom Selleck from the waist down.

I am fed up.
Of hearing how ‘everyone loves being pregnant’ instead of me. Don’t get me wrong, I do love the end result, its just the 9 months of hell I go through before hand that pisses me off. And smug mothers do not help!!!

I am fed up.
Because I hate being fat. I honestly do not know how the bigger boned people among us do it? Luckily for me I am ‘normally’ pretty slim, with lots of energy (well, more than now anyhow!) and bending down to put my shoes on is a pleasure rather than an impossible feat, ‘scuse the pun! But now I can barely move, I can’t get comfortable at all, and I haven’t seen my fanny for months. How can you live with not seeing your fanny? I need to know its there, happy, friendly and most importantly looking neat. I dread to think what state the topiary is in, I’ll probably have to get the council in with wire cutters at this rate.

I am fed up.
Sex…..Or lack of it… again an impossible feat…say no more…