Briar and Willow

Going to do about a weeks worth of updating blip - we've been very busy....

This is Willow Mae Tracey (white hat) and Briar Anne Tracey. They weigh 2.6 and 2.4kg respectively. Briar is 11 minutes 'older'- she arrived at 17.13; Willow at 17.24. Unfortunately Willow struggled with her breathing and was quickly taken away to the nursery before I got to hold her, she was unexpectedly the larger of the pair, despite being smaller on every single scan.

I had a very quick labour, they wouldn't start of my induction overnight because I was experiencing early labour contractions. In the morning, they put me on the monitor to see if they were still regular - I think I maybe messed up the graph by coughing between tightenings, but they decided it was okay to proceed. Euan and I went down for a coffee and on the way back I started to feel rather sore. Within an hour I was checked as being 3 cm dilated and sent up to labour ward - I was pleased at being near the gas and air. They were going to wait till surgery was free (just in case) before breaking my waters - so I sent Euan away for some lunch. Then it all got a bit weird though, my contractions came very close together and my body seemed to handle the pain by sort of drifting off into a bit of an out of body world during them. I managed to send Euan a garbled text message in moments of lucid ness to explain that I needed a responsible adult. Briars waters broke all by themselves and Contractions kept ramping up, I was only getting about 30seconds rest between them, and each time I came back I had to clarify with Euan that I wasn't dreaming, tell him that I had been and check what was happening medically. In the end, this conversation got shortened to 'pie?... Layers of reality?'. I remember asking if the screaming I could here was me- I think this is probably where the expression 'a whole other world of pain' comes from. I certainly wasn't present for a lot of my labour. I really wanted an epidural, particularly since I'd been warned twin 2 might need 'turning' - but first they were trying to slow my contractions enough to give me one and then the anestatist was at an emergency. I spent some time screaming that I didn't want a natural birth and Euan had to keep re explaining to me where my epidural was whenever I popped back into the real world. Then I stopped screaming about that and told them I needed to push - and it's a good thing they listened because Briar popped out into the world after 9 seconds of pushing and only about 3.5 hours in the delivery room. Willow followed shortly after ( whilst I was still trying to clarify that I hadn't dreamed the baby) facing up the wrong way, looking at the world instead of the bed. Willow got taken away, and after all the placenta and weighing bit (got a proper look at placenta this time) briar came to me for her first feed. It was instantly obvious she was going to be a great feeder.

We got our own private room on the ward with briar and weren't particularly worried about willow - but then whilst Euan was at tesco getting celebratory pate I got a phone call saying I had to go to scuba because willow wasn't breathing well and an X-ray had shown one lung hadn't developed. Phoned Euan to come back. It was decided willow needed to be transferred immediately to Aberdeen to correct what was probably a diaphragmatic hernia where her liver had come up into the space where her lung should be. No one remembered to take a canola out of my wrist during all this so I was struggling to hold briar to feed. We caught a tiny bit of sleep before the transfer team arrived to load willow into an incubator - Inverness airport was opened to fly her out. By 2am, one of my babies that I hadn't held yet left for a different city. briar added to all the stress by being sick, which made us panic in a way we wouldn't usually ( was just her clearing mucus). Did some desperate organising trying to work out how we would transport briar ( a tiny prem baby) 3 hours across to Aberdeen and how we could get ivy and granny grant across to my sister near Aberdeen. It was a horrible night.