Twins – there’s no going back!

I wrote the below in October 2013 thinking that I might become a regular blogger. Nine months later I am revisiting the idea.

About three weeks ago I found out I was pregnant with twins. After a recent failed IVF attempt, my husband and I turned up to the ultrasound with our 17 month old daughter anxious and tetchy. Sensing our tension, little J was not on her best behaviour, commencing her whinging just as the cold gel hit my tummy.  My husband Ed was busy going through my bag searching for something to entertain her when the sonographer, Paige, calmly said, “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” 

We both looked up at the screen as she pointed to two little blobs, “That’s one and that’s two”.  My eyes immediately welled up and a smile broke out. Twins!  I had been absolutely paranoid despite the positive pregnancy test that there wasn’t going to be a healthy beating heart.   Now there was two.  Unbelievable. 

Paige (who I’d never met before and will probably never meet again but I guess I’ll never forget) was amazing. She told us she had to do a whole lot of boring measurements and while she was doing that we should just talk to each other and absorb the information. By this point Ed had broken out the food for J and she was pretty busy eating her pikelets.  Ed seemed to be taking a little longer than me to absorb the information. “Two babies!” he exclaimed.

Meanwhile I had skipped forward six months. “How am I going to keep two babies inside of me for nine months?” I’d had a perfectly healthy pregnancy with J but she was born at 37 weeks and just 2.8kg. I’m 163cm and weigh 48kg. The sheer physical challenge was/is daunting.