12-week scan — the twin surprise GUEST BLOGGER
Please welcome my new guest blogger Kate, she will be blogging throughout her pregnancy.
“Are there twins in the family?”, “… no”, “well there are now!”. These were the first words of the sonographer at our 12-week scan. I turned to my husband with tears in my eyes and said, “what are we going to do?”. Bearing in mind we already have two sons- a 6-year-old and 3-year-old and trying for a third wasn’t a decision we took lightly. My husband wanted a dog and I wanted to try for a third. We knew money would be a bit tighter this time around anyway and we didn’t expect any baby gear costs because we still had everything from when the boys were babies.
I immediately had so many thoughts and fears whooshing round my head. “How are we going to afford to raise twins? We’re going to need a new car. How will we cope in our 3-bed house- we certainly can’t afford to move to a bigger house? We’re going to have to get a new buggy, and double everything we already had”. It was just overwhelming! I also never in my wildest dreams wanted four children and was worried what our boys would say—what if they hated us for giving them siblings they didn’t want. I spent the rest of the scan just starring at the screen quietly sobbing and thinking this can’t be happening.
Twin bump
My bump was quite big quite early in the pregnancy, but I put this down to it being my third pregnancy or being further along than I realised because my periods were all out of kilter the few months prior to conceiving. I joked with my husband once “what if it’s twins?!”, not ever actually expecting it to happen!
With no twins in either of our families, it was never something we’d even considered as a risk. Prior to the scan, I was so worried in case they’d find something wrong with the baby or worse, no heartbeat, that I hadn’t thought to worry that there might be more than one in there!
Despite being pregnant before (which were fortunately very straightforward pregnancies and deliveries with midwife-led care), the twin pregnancy journey was becoming a whole new experience with regular 4 weekly scans (after my 20-week scan) and consultant-led care
The Surprise
The twin surprise put me in utter shock, and I was so emotional for the next few weeks with what seemed like a mountain of logistics in front of us to wade through and work out. Helpfully though the boys were super excited to hear about the twins and our eldest wasn’t the least bit worried or concerned about them potentially arriving near his birthday.
For several weeks I felt that this was punishment for being selfish about wanting another child. I felt awful about feeling so ungrateful for the twins knowing there are so many women who would love the opportunity to just have one little life growing inside them, let alone two. I then began to realise though, that twins is no punishment, but rather a blessing. There is a purpose for these two lives and a reason for them. And I am to embrace that, embrace them and embrace the whole twin journey and trust that we wouldn’t have been given the opportunity of being parents of twins, parents of four children, without the provision for it. Who knows, they could even be the ones to find the cure for cancer one day.
So, we will always be left wondering what life would be like had we have decided on a dog instead!
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