There Are Two Things In Life For Which We Are Never Truly Prepared: Twins

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Clarity and Moxie at 7 weeks

“What do you mean, TWO MORE?”

That was my exact reaction to the ultrasound technician when asked us how we’d feel about having two more babies, in addition to our first daughter. The thought of having twins made me want run for the hills never crossed my mind. The tech was nice enough to send me on my way to the bathroom to empty my obnoxiously full bladder. I remember walking down the hallway thinking “What the hell just happened?!” On our way out, the staff expressed their congratulations, to which I just muttered, “Ha. Yeah. Thanks.” Then I cried. I cried for a good twenty minutes. I cried when I told my parents that we weren’t just expecting one baby. We are not talking tears of joy here. These were tears of absolute fear of what was to come in October. How are we going to handle two full-time careers, two babies, and a five year old?! How will we afford to feed and clothe everyone? How will we afford DAYCARE?! At one point, I even thought to myself, a lot of pregnancies start off as twins and we are only seven weeks in. There’s always a chance of losing one, and that might be for the better.

Around week twelve, after a night of some – ahem – one on one time with my husband, I noticed some spotting as I went to the bathroom. A quick call to my OB’s office led me to believe that I could be possibly suffering a miscarriage of one or even both babies. Once again, there were tears. After only a few weeks of knowing that I was pregnant with twins, I became confident in my ability to handle fact that life was going to get a whole lot harder in a few months. I wanted to meet both of these babies. This is how it is supposed to be! No way was this happening to us. Thankfully, we were able to see them the next morning at an emergency ultrasound. Two strong little heartbeats inside two little tiny black blobs.

Here comes the mushy part. All of the fears that I felt at the beginning are now completely overshadowed by the feeling that comes over me when the twins smile at us, when I see them looking at Monkey (my big girl), and yes, even when they have smelly butts. Now I can’t even imagine what it would have been like to have had only one more. Oh wait, yes I can. Do I wish I had that? Absolutely not. Besides, playing Guitar Hero is more fun at night once everyone has gone to sleep.

Related posts:

  1. Juggling Life with Twins
  2. A Toddler, and Twins, and a Newborn – oh MY!
  3. Family Planning with Twins
  4. Love Multiplied
  5. Figuring It Out In Real Life

9 thoughts on “There Are Two Things In Life For Which We Are Never Truly Prepared: Twins”

  1. I felt the same way – cried through the whole ultrasound. The tech was totally insensitive. She said, “It’s not like you’re 16 and unmarried.” No, I wasn’t, but I was 20 weeks along, and the thought of 2 hadn’t crossed my mind.

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  2. I had two very early ultrasounds. The first raised the possibility of twins (or triplets?), the second confirmed it. We actually laughed our butts off both times (the two choices were probably laugh or cry, so we barely tipped over into the laugh category). The first ultrasound was inconclusive, and the ultrasound tech was far from confidence-inspiring. Couldn’t measure the sacs, tried an abdominal ultrasound first (at 5-6 weeks?!), and seemed just plain confused when M and I started laughing when she said “I think that’s another one.” The second one, about 10 days later, was much better. Not only was it two confirmed heartbeats, but the tech seemed unfazed by our laughing. Because really, what’s more absurd than that?

    We were actually oddly prepared for the news. We had been joking for months about how “funny” (!) it would be if, for our first pregnancy, we just had boy/girl twins and got it over with in one shot. (It was M’s idea, thank you.) Be careful what you wish for…

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  3. Thank you for this post. I wish I had known back in the beginning just how normal the roller coaster of first emotions would be. I laughed, cried, threw up, giggled, threw up and cried some more. At that was just the first 90 minutes! I am tearing up now reading your post and remembering the first few hours/days/weeks of getting the news. I feel badly for some of the thoughts I had then. But you have to feel emtions, deal with them and move on. The process ended with acceptance and happy anticipation of what was to come. I would NOT change a thing.

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  4. I was thrilled to find out that we were having twins, but then again, we were doing fertility treatments, and everything humanly possible to start our family. However, had I already had the experience of having one baby, I think I would have freaked out. I am so glad that I went into the first few months, oblivious as to the horrors of sleep deprivation!

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  5. Now i know i am not the only one. I am currently at 20 weeks expecting identical twin boys……was i terrified or was i terrified…i have a 4 year old son….I CRIED AND CRIED in the ultrasound room…not knowing how i am to deal with 3 kids!! and my husband thought i was crying out of joy…but little did he know back then…………

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  6. From the moment I got a positive pregnancy test I starting having dreams about twins. I have no twins in my family, and thought that it was just anxiety about another baby. We already had (at the time) 3&1 year old boys. My dreams were always about the delivery and I always had a boy and girl-very vivid. I was a little over 8 weeks when I had my first prenatal check up and the doc did a vaginal ultra sound. I was looking at the screen and as I realized I was looking at two beans instead of one, the doc said “I usually like to ease into this but I see two here”. I was like two what? And he confirmed that I was in fact looking at my twins on the screen. At this point I asked if he had talked to my husband and were they playing a joke on me (my husband knowing about my dreams and how much they freaked me out). He told this was no joke and I was having twins. Through the rest of the check up I was in a daze and kept asking if this was for real. I don’t remember anything he said and didn’t ask any questions. I had to actually call him when I got home after if finally sunk in. My girls are now 5 months and I still look at them and think how surreal it is that I have twins.

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  8. Thank you for writing this. Yes, the emotions can be such a roller coaster. We had the radiologist himself come in to talk to us, and he warned us about the roller coaster. I thought he was silly, because surely within 10 minutes of leaving the building we would both be just hunky-dory with the idea of having twins–we were already parents, too, so it would have been extra-special illegal to be in any way resentful of Baby B’s existence. It took months, and an extremely pre-term labor scare, before we reached a point of contentment and then excitement about two. And now I know that I can own those negative feelings because they were normal and I don’t feel like that anymore and have nothing to be ashamed of.

    So that was my serious comment. My fun comment is…. when the u/s tech asked the bombshell question, “So do twins run in your family?”, I swear there could have been a husband-shaped figure cut out of the door due to the speed at which m husband practically ran out of there. LOL! But really, all I remember is my husband pushing back on his rolling chair all the way to the other side of the room, while I laughed until I cried. And I think that’s how we spent the next three days….

    Ahh, memories.

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  9. We didnt find out until our 20 week ultrasound. You go in expecting to find out the gender, let alone that your having twins. Our ultrasound tech also had a very dry sense of humor so when he pulled up the screen all he said was “there are the 2 heads” We all thought he was making some kind of joke that he does to everyone! Not the case…. I was with my husband, my best friend, and my mother in law who had never been to an ultrasound! It was the one of my favorite memories!

    I too was in a daze and just out of it! I do remember my friend telling him to shut up over and over again cause she didnt believe him! haha, But then the fun part hits of finding out TWO genders! He found our boy first and then took forever to find the seconds gender. Once he found out little Abigail i swear the whole room screamed! I kept thinking how am i this lucky that i have a 4 year old and now b/g twins????

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