Keep calm and carry on? Or panic and freak out?

Yesterday I left a slick, shiny gym in London with a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction.  I felt calm walking slowly from the gym through the tall glass buildings.  The wind whipped around me, traffic and people rushing past in the half light of the dusk.  Surrounded by bustling people, it somehow felt like my own special moment.

Yesterday I finished the final component of a personal trainer diploma.   When I began the course, I managed the first week before finding out that I was pregnant.  Whether I would be able to finish before my body gave out on me was questionable, especially after we discovered I was harbouring twins in my swiftly disappearing six-pack.  The last module just happened to be 'Adapting Exercise for Ante- and Post-Natal Clients', something I wanted to specialise in as a personal trainer.  I was the only pregnant student there and provided a useful example to the others in the gym demonstrations.

me sporting my six-pack

The man sitting next to me was a father of twins, now one-year-old.  He provided a happy and optimistic account, saying how they were fun and happy to give mum time to do other things while they played together.  But then we got onto birth experiences.

'They were delivered at 30 weeks,' he told me.

30 weeks!?  But I am at 32 weeks and no where near ready to be carted off to the hospital!  I knew this was common with twins, but blissfully ignoring the fact that I was at that point where these things happen.  I resolved to pack a hospital bag this week and finally write that birth plan.

So yesterday wasn't all self-satisfied smugness.  And it even got a little worse.  Thom and I were invited to a twin-specific ante-natal class that evening at the hospital.  My warm glow after leaving the gym was wearing thin by the time we left the house and the comfy sofa into the cold, dark night to get there for 7pm.  It was completely wiped out by the antiseptic smell wafting over us as we passed through the automatic sliding doors.

Yuk, hospitals, I thought, the idea of my fellow student's wife giving birth at 30 weeks fresh in my mind and the enforced hospital stay that early arrival would necessitate.  Just to tip me over into total panic stations, the class included a video of parents of twins talking about birth experiences, including the weeks into pregnancy they were at delivery.  32 weeks.  36 weeks.  My heart pounded as I counted the where we would be by then.

Our class continued with a trip to the Special Care Baby Unit, a little ward with friendly nurses and little tiny babies in clear plastic boxes.  Not the warm cuddly image I had in mind for my own.  The nurse pointed through the glass at a tired looking woman smiling into one of plastic boxes.

'Here is one of our ladies who gave birth today!'  Turns out she was meant to be on the twins ante-natal class with us that evening, but her babies had other plans.  And so there she was, like a walking wake-up call, that this is possibly happening very soon.

I woke this morning full of resolve.  Pulling a handy list off the internet of what should be in a hospital bag, I strode into town with a purpose, armed with my debit card and a healthy dose of anxiety.  Probably not a bad thing for me because now I can sit here and write to you with the calm knowledge that a suitcase now stands packed and ready should the little wrigglers make a surprise appearance.