Pregnant with Twins

Finding out you’re pregnant with twins can be a very exciting moment. You can’t help but feel just a little extra special from other moms to be. What an exciting moment!

Then reality starts to kick in. Doctor visits become a little less joyous and a little more scary as nurses and doctors start giving you the details of your now "high risk pregnancy," especially if you’re over 35 and pregnant with twins. You can’t help wonder how in the world you’re going to care for two babies at once; and now a day doesn’t go by that you don’t think about the words, "preterm labor." The bottom line is: you’ve got pregnancy anxiety!

Although it’s important for our medical caregivers to give us the details and what complications may arise, I believe it’s stressed a little too much at every appointment. When I was pregnant with my now 7-month-old twins, I cringed at the thought of a doctor’s visit; especially since they would tell me I was 39 at every single visit! (Thanks for reminding me)

I opted against having amniocentesis, only because it wouldn’t have made a difference whether my children would be "normal" or not, I would love and care for them anyway. Plus the fact that, A, the amnio itself causes more of a risk factor; and, B, if there had been a problem, why would I want to know that during pregnancy when I need to be focusing on the health of the babies and my own health?

First I would like to say to you lovely ladies pregnant with twins, it’s an incredible joy! When I brought my baby girls home from the hospital, they were a dream come true, they never cried. If they wanted a bottle, the would actually make the sound of "hey." My nine-year-old son and husband and I couldn’t believe our ears. I also thought breastfeeding would be much more difficult than it was, but it wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. It’s been a complete joy taking care of and watching these little angels grow.

On the other side of the coin, I’ve heard some nightmare stories from other mothers with twins. I believe the one thing I did different that most women probably don’t do or are not aware of is pregnancy meditation.

Before getting pregnant, I was a strong advocate and practitioner of daily meditation, even if it was only for 10 to 15 minutes a day. When I got pregnant, I continued to do relaxation meditation daily with music therapy. And once I became about 18 weeks pregnant, I started using prenatal speakers along with my meditation so that my babies, too, could benefit from the extraordinary calming effects of meditation.

Along with proper pregnancy exercise and nutrition, pregnancy meditation is one of the best things you can do for creating calm and healthy babies. Just 15 minutes a day can reduce stress and pregnancy anxiety. It has been clinically proven that meditation reduces the stress hormone, Cortizol, and increases the calming hormone, Melatonin, helping to minimize complications in pregnancy.

So if you’re pregnant with twins, you are doing such good for yourself and your babies to take the time each day to practice this ancient, and now modern, art of meditation. If you’ve never meditated before and would like to get help with meditation, there are wonderful guided meditation cds out there to help you achieve the most out of your meditation experience.

I wish you and your babies all the best through pregnancy and beyond.

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