Saturday October 1st the babies arrived!

At 31 weeks my twin belly was as big as a single baby pregnancy at 42 weeks (and a pregnancy is normally only 40 weeks...).

On the ultrasound growth check on August 31 the babies had the weights 1409 and 1417 grams respectively, which is slightly above the average weight for a single baby pregnancy at that week. I was also told baby 2 was a boy and baby 1's gender was impossible to see, but baby 1 had previously been a boy so that was what we supposed it still was.

On a new ultrasound growth check on September 28 it was discovered that baby 1 had not grown as expected, but was only calculated to be 1646 g due to reduced flow from the placenta. Baby 2 had a more normal weight though of 2015 g. I was scheduled for yet another check two days later and it showed the flow had then decreased even further. This lead to an immediate transfer to Danderyds' Hospital and the scheduling of a cesearion section for the next day.

I was given two injections of cortison to speed up the development of the babies lungs, since I was only in pregnancy week 33. I did not sleep much that night and the next morning I woke up with contractions, so it seamed as my body was aware all was not okay with the babies and it was time for them to meet the world.

Saturday October 1 at 14.30 I was rolled down to surgery and at 15.19 our daughter Ella was born and 15.20 our son Gabriel arrived.

I was surrounded by doctors and nurses (approx 12-15 people in total) so we were very well taken care of. I was awake the whole time and both babies cried out when being delivered and it was a relief hearing that since it showed they had both strengh and will. Gabriel was given some oxygen right after birth and they were both put on a heated bed. Apart from that they were both healthy and well and did not need to be put in any incubator. They were both small as dolls though, but very cute and after the health checks they were brought to me so I could meet them for the very first time. It was kind of strange, having had them inside me for such a long time and then finally and suddenly meeting them. It was however wonderful!

The babies were then transferred to the neonatal department 21 and as soon as I was stiched up I was rolled away to the awakening department until the epidural was completely gone. I was then rolled up to the neonatal department to meet my beautiful babies again. Unfortunately I could not stay the night there since there was no midwife, but spent the night in another department and was transferred to the neonatal department the next day.

As you can notice we did not have two boys and the conclusion is that the babies switched places with each other giving that the one that was twin number one in early pregnancy was not twin number one in the end - fooling us completely, but what a nice surprise it was!!

The first few days in hospital I was kept isolated since I had been to pregnancy check-ups in an hospital in China and they wanted to wait for the results on a multi resistent bacteria test before letting me loose. This was not really a bad thing though...more like complete room service in an hotel. ;-)

Since the delivery was planned in such a hurry Anders did unfortuntaly not manage to get home from China for it (read his story below), but I had the company of my sister the whole time instead.

From October 2-13 we spent the time in the neonatal department. Ella first had difficulties keeping the temperature, so she was kept on the heating bed, but finally she got a more steady temperature and the bed could be turned off. She also had a loose hip joint, so she is now in a von Rosen-skena for 12 weeks.

We have now gotten home leave with home care, so we live at home and a nurse comes twice a week to check the babies and advice us on feeding etc. The babies do breastfeed, but do not manage to get enough from it yet, so they have a tube into the stomac where we insert the extra milk they need. We feed them every 3 hours and each feeding takes around one hour and in between that we try to squeeze in some sleep for us, food, shower, laundry and other things that one need to do.

Due to the prematurity of the babies we have been recommended not to fly back with the babies until they are a few months old at least, so I will be staying in Sweden until after Christmas.

Stuck in China!

I got the call from Yvonne on Friday evening while having Teppanyaki with some friends. Panic!!!!! I was not planning to go to Sweden for another two weeks so unfortunately my passport was at the police station to have my recidence visa renewed, so how do you get hold of your passport the night before a three day national holiday?! I talked to the Swedish consulate who promised to get me a new passport on Saturday morning, that way I would be able to catch the noon flight to Copenhagen. Unfortunately it turns out that you cannot leave China without a valid visa in your passport!!!!! (Usually I assume it is the other way around - you cannot enter without a valid visa!)

The consulate people got in touch with the immigration police but as it turned out they where moving their office and due to this they claimed that they could not find my original passport or issue a new visa since their computer system was not up and running yet. I was recommended to go there on Sunday to see if the computer system was in order. So now I would miss the birth :O(

On sunday morning I packed my bags and went to the immigration police but again it was impossible to get a visa. "No computer, come back on Tuesday after the holiday".

So to make sure that there would be no problems on Tuesday I called the police on Monday afternoon and they told me that the computers would probably not be up and running until next Saturday!!!!!! This was just to much for me! I spent in total two hours on the phone talking to different people (through an interpretor) slowly escalating my arguments from "please help me" to "I am a foreign citizen and you are holding me prisoner" and finally "Please let me talk to the Chief of police". That last one surprisingly worked and I got the home phone number to the Chief of the immigration police. He does not speak any english so I had to get a collegue (Julia) to help me in the communication. When talking to this Chief it was all of a sudden no problem any more. All I had to do was to fax the reciept of my passport to the immigration police so that they could find my original passport and then everything should be done by Tuesday morning, and it was!!!! As it turns out they did not need the computer to issue my visa after all it seems this was only an excuse! So now finally I could get home to my wife and the most wonderful kids in the world! These past three day was some of the most frustrating and difficult in my whole life.

In the end I learnt a valuable lesson about China. Do not waste time talking to low ranking people, they will not dare to make decisions (if I do not make a decision I cannot get blamed if something goes wrong). Go directly to the big boss!