As champagne corks popped, welcoming in the 2013 new year, Sarah Ristic cried for her lost babies. Already a mother of twins, Ristic was looking forward to a second set to complete her family.
But she lost the twin embryos 10 weeks into her pregnancy, as she listened to the New Year’s Eve fireworks outside the hospital.
“They were two little people, with two little futures that were never realised,” the Mernda woman says. “There is a silence about miscarriages. There’s shame and almost a feeling that the mother has done something wrong, when she hasn’t.”
Up to one in five pregnancies ends in a miscarriage. Most women suffer in silence, she says.
Most miscarriages happen in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy when women are yet to share their news.
Ristic was so overjoyed that she had told her family at Christmas, only to lose the babies on December 31.
She says women need support and she was lucky to have a network of friends through the Diamond Valley Multiple Births Association, of which she is president.
Ristic already had non-identical twins, Sebastian and Charlotte, now two, when she fell pregnant with the second set last year. She and husband Ben, an IT worker, were excited.
“We always wanted four children. That would complete our family,” Ristic says. “[But] it wasn’t meant to be, something was wrong.”
She suffered major bleeding and an ultrasound showed only one heartbeat. The twins shared a placenta, so the other would not survive.
“Nobody tells you about the pain [with a miscarriage]; it was worse than contractions,” Ristic says.
And no one told her of the emotional pain afterwards that would see her curled up on the couch, crying uncontrollably.
But the multiple-birth association women were there for her.
“Too many women are alone; too many say nothing,” Ristic says. “I had women who picked me up when I was down and took me for a coffee.”
Today she looks at her first-born children with love. They were a happy accident, she says.
“We wanted to get ahead and were trying to be terribly sensible before we started a family but the universe had other plans,” she says.
Ristic suffered cramps and went to a doctor and discovered she was pregnant.
An ultrasound revealed twins.
It was a “dream” pregnancy with no morning sickness but when Ristic started getting “baby brain” and couldn’t focus on teaching English as a second language, she quit her day job.
She left her second job at a supermarket after a female customer jumped the counter and tried to attack her. “I was carrying two lives and couldn’t risk it,” she says.
Ristic says having twins is a joy despite the hard work.
The multiple-births association provides practical help, including delivering home-cooked meals at a time when Ristic had not left the house for a week.
The association provides playgroups and mums-and-bubs days as well as support and sharing.
“We’re trying again [to fall pregnant], and yes, we want twins.”
The Diamond Valley Multiple Births Association is holding an Easter egg hunt with other family activities at the Briar Hill community hall, 126 Mountain View Road, Briar Hill, at 11am on Sunday, March 24. Details: email info@dvmba.amba.org.au.
