But then again, I am a firm believer, that if you feel like parenting is going to drain you and be horrible, it will be.
I will admit, that first night with this knowledge was surreal. It was just the same afternoon, I was chatting with a friend of mine, and telling her how I am getting big fast this time around. I was only 9 weeks and needed to start wearing maternity clothes. I chalked it up to the fact that I was still carrying weight from my first pregnancy. I took a mirror selfie and sent it to her, and she "jokingly" swore I was having twins. HA HA yeah whatever, OK.
Fast forward to that evening....
My husband and I took our daughter with us for the first ultrasound. (Now that I think about, most ultrasounds are done at 12 weeks and my doc "offered" me to get mine done early - now I know why, 8 yrs later) We were all in the room, Madison was up on Daddy's shoulders so she couldn't get into anything, and the tech begins. "Ok, everything looks good. Let's just move around to this side and......Looonnnnngggggg pause......Hmm, OK. I'm going to go talk to the doctor real quick and when I come back we are going to do an internal ultrasound."
We ask in concern if everything is OK. She says "yes, we just want to get a better look because...do you see this? Looks like 2 lima beans instead of 1??? Looks like its twins, but we need to be sure. I'll be back."
At this point I begin to get nervous in fear of what my husband is thinking and I start to nervously laugh and curse in surprise. "Ohhh shit, what the fuck, how the hell" . He replies with....are you really surprised??? Yes and no.
I have been told my whole life -- twins skip a generation, which means its my generation to have them. Also, all my siblings were way older then me and pretty much done child rearing. I knew from the age of 15 that I was doomed to be the one to have twins. But its still a shock when you see it.
Nurse comes back in and we get set up. Sure enough -- Baby A and Baby B clear as day. 2 sacs clear as day. When asked if twins run in the family, I explain how yes they are AND....my husband is a twin. This is when we found out, the husbands genes really have nothing to do with it. Its rare for a twin to have twins, so in this case, its all MY fault.
I check out and make my next appointment, while hubby takes our daughter into the lobby. I come out, not sure what to say or how to react, and he hands me the phone. He apparently called one of my closest friends and told her. I grab the phone and stopped walking - because for reason I couldn't walk and talk at the same time. He continues on outside with Madison. I put the phone to my ear and hear "Is he freaking joking? Are you really having twins?" At that point, I lost it. I broke down crying so hard, I couldn't even make any noises, I could barely breathe. I hear her on the other end of the call asking if I am there & calling my name. So I started snapping into the phone so she new I was still there. She realized why I wasn't talking and calmed me down enough that I coudl say "WTF am I gonna do????" She asked what my real thoughts were at that time and I went on to explain that I really had no idea. I was scared about money. Freaking out because we live in a 2 BR apartment. Are our cars big enough? Can we afford all that formula and diapers? How is my 3 yr old going to take this? But also along with that was, excitement, pride, anxious. I basically had every emotion possible running through my veins. But I knew that we were the kid of people, who take what is given us and we go with it. We were just like "Well, we are going to have twins." I don't think that past that initial shock, I really freaked out anymore.
NO, I did not have a c-section. I am very proud to say that. Most people automatically assume I did, so when they find out I didn't that brings a lot more questions. Yes I was nervous. I thought for sure I would end up with a c-section. But i didn't have to. Heck, at 38 weeks with twins, when I first got there, they sent me home because I was laughing and talking through the contractions. REALLY??? I carried those babies to 38 weeks and they were ready, and you want to send me home??? Mind you, I was only home for a few hours.
All in all, I have said I would deliver twins again, over a singleton, any day. For some odd reason, my recovery was so much better with the twins too. It was odd.
They were my Christmas babies - brought them home on Christmas Eve 2006.
Yes life was a little odd that first week. I mean we did just go from one child to 3. And the first few days, I think I was running on 6 hrs sleep total. But I kept thinking...I can cry and whine and complain all I want, its not going to change the fact that they still need to be fed and changed every couple hours. A lot of pep talking myself that it won't be like this forever, things will normal out eventually. Its not going to be like this forever, you can get through this first year.
It also helps to have a spouse that loves babies as much as I do and would basically jump into full parent mode the second he walked through that door at night. We switched off duties all the time. He would come home and take over while I went out grocery shopping or ran the errands that needed to get done. The nights he did not have work the next day, I got a full nights sleep while he took over middle of the night baby duties.
The hardest part was trying to get 3 children all dressed in a timely manner while I am in freak out mode ( i still struggle with this 7 yrs later), when I went back to work. AND, we had a pretty bad winter that year, we lived in an apartment complex, so there was a lot of strategic planning on how to get 3 kids to the car, while walking on ice in below freezing temps. But we did it. We made it through that first year.
In their early years, it was hard to figure out who was getting what teeth in. Keeping track of a baby book went out the window. Keeping track of who ate when..forget it. If I didn't know, I tried. If they ate, they ate, if they weren't hungry, they didn't eat. I was also lucky enough that they were never really sick at the same time. They still don't get sick at the same time.
Now, people think we have triplets, so once we correct them that we have twins and an older daughter, they don't seem as shocked about the twin factor, just as how much they all look alike. And on top of it, they all have the same red hair which "you can't buy in a box".
So in answer to all the questions -- Yes I was scared, but that's natural. I didn't harp on it though. I had twins for some unknown reason, so I just go with it. I only get them confused from behind, as they are NOT identical. I don't think of myself as a twin mom as much as I do a mom of 3 girls. Having 3 girls I think is more of a task, then having twins.
