Are You Being Serious?

by Teresa
(London, United Kingdom)

I was 21 when I met my future husband and after a brief courtship we moved in together and after about a year he proposed to me. Little did I know that before we had even had our three year anniversary we would have three children.

I fell pregnant with my daughter Belle 2 months before we got married, and I was over the moon. We had been trying for almost a year, so when we decided to try for baby number 2, we thought it would take just as long, so imagine my surprise when after only a month of trying I was pregnant.

When I was about 2 months gone, Paul decided to surprise me with a trip to Greece for my birthday. My morning sickness was relatively easy, apart from the constant feeling of tiredness and nausea, I was on good form. I kept joking with Paul that because I was feeling twice as ill this time round I was pregnant with twins (we knew this was a possibility as my father is a twin).

After our return from Greece we went to the Hospital for our first scan, I was so excited to see my little bean sprout on the monitor, as I lay there, the sonographer was looking very closely at the screen, that I started to get a little worried, but not to much so. She then started to ask questions about twins, i.e did I have twins in the family, how would I feel about a multiple pregnancy etc...I didn't even realize where she was going with this, I was just looking at my little baby on the screen, when she looked at me and said "because there is definitely two babies, perhaps three in there".

I sat bolt upright and asked if she was joking, she looked seriously at me and said "we are not allowed to joke about things like that". I was in shock, I am not often left speechless, but that morning I couldn't even say OH MY GOD...

After having several other people come and check the scan I was sent up to multiple birth specialist who had to confirm that I was expecting identical twins, which meant special monitoring and scans every two weeks.

About 25 weeks into the pregnancy I started to suffer terribly with itching, and after talking to my M.B specialist and doing some blood tests they discovered that I had obstetric colastasis, which increases the risk of still birth in the babies, and had to go for blood tests every week.

Fortunately for me the medication they gave me worked wonders and my liver started functioning properly again, however, my specialists said that I would need to have a c-section at 32 weeks (I was 31 weeks at the time), I quickly told him that there was no way I was ready to have them yet, so he told me that I could wait till I was 34 weeks, but waiting any longer would put more risk on the babies, so I agreed and went home to start preparing for the arrival of my two boys.

After I arrived at the hospital for my c-section, which went really well, they said the boys were not breathing too well on their own and had water on their lungs (which is apparently quite common in c-section deliveries), so they would have to go to NICU. I was terrified that something would happen to my babies, so I refused to go and see them that day. When Paul came back to the hospital the next day to see us, he was so excited to see his boys (the first grandsons on his side of the family) he could not understand my hesitation, but after I went up there with him holding my hand telling me everything would be fine, I took one look at my angels and fell in love.

They were 4lb each and felt so tiny and fragile. They were in NICU for 11 days and made it home just before Christmas.

Unfortunately Jacob developed a Step B infection in his face on Christmas day and was rushed to hospital in the early hours of Boxing Day, again I was terrified, so much so that I could hardly bring myself to go and visit him in the hospital, sending Paul to stay with Jake instead, saying that I had to stay home with Joe and Belle. Luckily after a week on IV antibiotics he was home again.

I look at them now and can not believe that they were ever so small and fragile, today they are 18 months old and are hardy robust monsters, who pull each others hair and hit each other, but still find the time to cuddle. They have developed perfectly different personalities, which helps to tell them apart as they are truly identical.

Someone once asked me if I would do it again, at the time my answer was 'no way, never again,' but I have since changed my mind, and in a heartbeat. In fact I could not imagine ever doing it differently, having one baby at a time just does not seem normal to me anymore.