I was one of those crazy ones that has always wanted twins. I remember sitting at a friends baby shower one day feeling insanely jealous because she was having twins. How lucky is she! No way I would ever be so lucky, what are the chances of that right?

Fast forward a few years to the ultrasound room where we were having our dating scan. Twins wasn’t even on my mind at that point. I just wanted a baby! And then we saw our cute little jelly bean shaped baby, his heart thumping away. I felt so happy! “Let me just check on everything else now” the sonographer told me. It was then that I thought I saw a second little bean. He moved back and said “oh there’s another one! You’re having twins!” I looked at my husband, he had a very shocked look on his face. I was so excited! I couldn’t believe our luck!

It was around 8 weeks when we had our first scare and I started bleeding. Of course when you start bleeding while you’re pregnant you instantly worry you are losing your baby. But after a quick scan we saw they were both growing well with strong heartbeats.

I had spotting again at 11 weeks so went back for another scan. I wasn’t worried this time though as I just had this feeling everything was okay, and it was. Both babies had strong heart beats. The lady who scanned me asked me if I had an appointment with Maternal Fetal Medicine yet. I said I had an appointment just the week after. “Oh that’s good”, she said. A few times she said “yep so you’ve got an appointment with MFM” which at the time I didn’t think anything of, but now I know she was deciding if she should tell me or not…

Right before my scan with Maternal Fetal Medicine I had a huge bleed, it was awful. I was sure I was loosing my babies this time. At the scan the next day I was so nervous. But once again there they were, two strong heartbeats and both growing well. It was just a subchronic heamatoma, wouldn’t harm the babies at all. So you can imagine my relief. The sonographer then asked us to wait in the waiting room for the doctor to come and speak to us. This was standard practice she assured us.

While we waited happily in the waiting room I remember being so excited! I was thinking of all the ways we were going to tell our friends and family we were having twins! Started imagining what our lives would be like raising twins. I felt so incredibly happy.

When we got called into the doctors office we had no idea what was coming. She walked in and said “one of your babies is behaving beautifully!”. “Wait, did she say one of my babies, what about the other?”, I thought to myself. My heart began to pound in my chest.

This is when we learned one of those terms you never want to learn. “Your baby (Twin B) has an encephalocele”, she told us. She showed us a picture of him and explained that his skull didn’t form properly which cause a cyst full of fluid to form on top of his head and his brain. His cyst was quite large too, it was almost the same size as his head. She showed us a picture of the top of both their skulls, we could very clearly see one baby’s brain, but the other you couldn’t see at all from all the fluid.

She explained to us that because the cyst over his head was so large his brain was likely to grow out of his skull and into the cyst. Babies who have this type of encephalocele don’t have a very good chance of being born alive and would most likely not survive. If he did manage to make it full term she couldn’t guarantee how long he would live for but said he would most likely have serious mental and physical disabilities but we wouldn’t know what until he was born.

She then gave us our options. Our first option was to continue on with the pregnancy with very close monitoring. But because of the type of twins they were this would put Twin A in danger too. The boys shared a placenta, so if one twin were to suddenly pass away the other twin may also not survive. Our 2nd option was to surgically terminate Twin B which could also cause a miscarriage of Twin A. Our 3rd option was to terminate both twins. We even had the option of terminating then and there if we couldn’t handle any of it. She then walked out of the room to give us time to think.

My husband cried. I sat there numb and silent. I didn’t feel anything. I couldn’t think. The life I had imagined was now gone. Why is life so unfair?

She sent us away with lots of information. We were to go back in 3 weeks for another scan and to talk about whatever it was we decided to do.

This wasn’t fair. Why would the universe give me twins to simply just rip them away from me like that? I was so confused.

The next few weeks were so slow. My husband and I didn’t really talk much about it. I think I built walls up so I couldn’t feel the pain of what we were going through. I didn’t let myself get attached to my babies. I went to work everyday trying to hide my rapidly growing twin bump. I didn’t want to share my news. I didn’t want to talk about it. Eventually though there was no hiding my bump. So I had to tell people I was pregnant, but the last scan didn’t go too well so we don’t know what’s happening yet. I didn’t dare say it was twins.

I didn’t get to tell any of my friends or family in any exciting ways that I was having twins. It was “I’m pregnant with twins but…” there was no excitement of being able to surprise people. No Facebook post to share my exciting news. There was just nothing. That all got taken away from me.

Finally our next appointment came. I had no idea what we were going to tell the doctor. I figured I would wait until the scan and figure it out from there. I’d prepared myself to see his brain growing into his skull. Part of me wondered if it would be easier to make a decision if his brain had grown into his skull, if he were sicker would it be easier to decide what to do? I don’t know.

The doctor scanned over my already large belly to find Twin B, she sat there silently scanning his brain, staring intently at the screen. I looked up at the screen where we could see his skull. I again prepared myself to see his brain growing out of his skull. But when I looked I could see his brain, sitting perfectly inside his skull. I definitely wasn’t an expert but I couldn’t see the cyst anymore.

“I’m just not seeing what I could see last time” she said. “That’s good right?” I thought. “I’ll be back in a minute” she said.

In came another doctor with her who also scanned his head, then another doctor and another doctor. It wasn’t long before the room was full of doctors, all of them staring intently at my baby. But no one could find the encephalocele that was so clearly there just weeks before.

“If this was the first time I scanned you I wouldn’t be concerned for your baby at all. His skull is properly formed, there’s no fluid and no cyst.” She couldn’t explain what had happened or where it went, she said they had never seen an encephlacele simply just disappear before.

So the plan was to closely monitor the pregnancy. They were also concerned that Twin B had down syndrome but that was the least of my worries. I needed to have an amniocentesis in a few weeks time and then around weeks 18-20 I would have an MRI so they could get a really clear imagine of Twin B’s brain.

We left feeling slightly more hopeful. I still didn’t let myself get attached though. I didn’t think this was real. How could we be so lucky that everything just happened to work out? I convinced myself that the encephlacele must still be there, just hiding somehow.

The weeks continued to drag by in slow motion. Eventually I had my amniocentesis which thankfully came back all clear. Both twins were healthy! Still, I didn’t let myself feel happy.

Then came the mri. I was so nervous. I laid in there listening to all the sounds the mri made, crossing my fingers everything would be okay.

It felt like an eternity until our appointment to get the results of the mri. Our dr came in and I held my breath as she started talking. “Both your babies are perfectly healthy” she said. I couldn’t believe our luck. Both our twins were fine. They still couldn’t really explain what had happened, they were certain he did have an encephlacele at that first scan. But now by some miracle it had disappeared.

It felt amazing to be able to tell people both our babies are healthy. I finally could tell everyone at work the reason why my belly was so ginormous was because there were in fact two babies growing inside of me! I got to do my Facebook post! Yet I still didn’t let myself get too happy or excited, I was too worried that if I let myself be happy about it something would go wrong again and I wouldn’t get my twins. I was worried buying two matching onesies would jinx it. I thought if I let myself feel too happy that the universe would try and take my babies again.

The rest of the pregnancy went by fairly smoothly. Both babies were growing well and were healthy. Once they were here and I could physically see them I’d be happy.

Finally the day came for our elective csection. We decided this was the safest way just incase Twin Bs skull wasn’t okay. They delivered him first, I still expected to see a huge cyst on top of his head when they pulled him out. Then out he came, screaming his lungs off, it was the most beautiful noise I had ever heard. And there it was, his head, his perfectly normal head. I’ve never felt so much relief before. He was fine! His brother joined us not long after, he too was kicking and screaming, it was the most amazing sound. They placed them both on my chest, it was such an amazing feeling. I had never been so happy before. I could finally hold my two healthy babies!

We called Twin A Alexander, but we mostly call him Alex. Twin B we called Harry. Harry was always a name we had both loved, but we thought it fit him perfectly because Harry from Harry Potter is known as the boy who lived. Well my Harry is my boy who lived. He survived against all odds.

It hurts much more now to think about it, than it did back then. Back then I built up walls to stop myself feeling the pain. But now I know him and his brother, and I know who they are and have fallen so deeply in love with them both. It’s really painful to think about how close we were to losing them both. I feel like the luckiest person alive to have my beautiful twins. Not a day goes by where I don’t look at them and think “omg! I have twins!”

Fast forward a couple of years and he is now a perfectly normal and happy 2 year old boy! He is my Harry, my real boy who lived.

As JK Rowling said in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows-

“All was well”.