The End

Where did four and a half years go?

Not to mention 53 days (Or 1,272 hours.  Or 76,320 minutes)

Today was the end.

Or the beginning...

Identity Crisis

A got sent to her room recently.  She was testing boundaries with great dedication and persistence.   After a while B went upstars to talk to her.

What's bothering you? he said.
Mummy got me wrong.

I don't think I did, although I do occasionally, grasping desperately for a name in a crisis.  In many ways, she's lucky I didn't call her M.  Is being thought a boy worse than being thought your twin?

Yesterday S came into the kitchen in tears.  Her birthday cards (now over six weeks out of date) were in the craft box and she didn't want them to be cut up.   Especially this one. It's from Annabelle.  Annabelle's her best friend.  She wants to go to Annabelle's party next year (Annabelle's party was last week, so we have some time to wait).  The tears flow faster.

But Annabelle won't know who I am then.

I can't empathise.  I'm me.  I've always been me, and aside from the occasional "which one are you?" frustration of every mother as she searches for the right name, I've never been anyone else.

But A and S aren't.  They are different, so different, but they're also the same.  Did you know that the type of identical twin depends on how soon after conception the fertilised egg splits?  If it's within four days you get totally separate twins with two placentas.  If it's more than 12 days after you get conjoined twins:  two people joined in one body. 

My girls must have split between days four and eight.  It's odd knowing that.  Odd too that no-one knows why or how they split; why or how they became two people when I am one, when most of the people they meet are one.

And they are beginning to understand this, to understand that people don't always know who they are, and it is beginning to distress and fascinate in equal parts.  It's partly my fault, of course.  L asked how twins happened, and I gave her the potted version: sometimes two babies grow inside the Mummy's tummy, and sometimes, for reasons no-one knows, one baby starts to grow, but it breaks (and I regretted that word as soon as it came out of my mouth) into two babies and so you get two babies who look the same but are actually two separate people.

Have I made them think they are broken?

I don't think so. I think, I hope, that this is a stage.  They are just four and these early years are (aren't they?) all about identity: discovering who you are.  How much harder must that be when you have a mirror image (complete with matching scar on her forehead) who is both you and not you. 

I can't explain this very well, because I don't understand it.  I don't have a twin.  I don't even have any close friends who are twins, although my father has a non-identical brother.  I don't know how to help them become themselves, separate but still linked. To grow into individuals with their own lives, while retaining the amazing bond that unites them.

Because although they were both so distressed at being confused, they adore each other.  They are separated at school, in different classes, and seem happy to be so, but there are hugs and squeals of delight when they are reunited at lunchtime.  They make a beeline for each other at gym and music, I am told.   They share a room and enjoy closing the door, shutting the world out and just being themselves.    We have our share of bickering - we have two four year olds, a five year old and a toddler in the house, bickering is our standard operating procedure - but more often than not, if it is just A and S, they get on, playing together, chatting together, just being.

Individuality's a process, I suppose, and the fear of losing their separate identities they are beginning to display is just the flip side of the fact that they still haven't, where each other is concerned, got the idea of personal space at all.   Fingers go in noses, tongues in ears: Look at this Mummy!

In a way I am the same: I want them to be separate - my nightmare for them is that they are still living together, dressing the same, probably with cats, at the age of forty - but I also love the special link they share.  I want to encourage their individuality, but I shy away from the idea of separate bedrooms.  Not yet, not now.   Plenty of time for that.

The study of twins is called gemellology; much cleverer people than I spend their lives thinking about twins and the relationships between them.  How best to nurture the individual while protecting the bond.  That's all I want too: I'm just rather less scientifically hoping that we'll get there in the end.

And hoping too that this time next year Annabelle will still know who S is.

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In one of those brilliant coincidences, the subject for the Gallery this week is Bond.  As per usual I've been more wordy than I've been pictorial, but there are pictures, so I hope the Gallery's great and good will forgive me.  Click through to see other Bonds (although sadly not of the Daniel Craig variety).

On embryos and difficult choices

Here's a thought:

You want a baby.  You really want a baby. You've been trying for years. You've had all the invasive tests, answered all the personal questions, bought all the ovulation kits, thermometers and folic acid.  But it's not happening.  In fact the doctors tell you it probably won't happen, not on its own.

The NHS offers you one chance at IVF.  They will pay.  You know you can't afford to go it alone so this is your one chance.  Or you've had your NHS chance and it didn't work, and you have scrimped and saved, and this is your one private chance.  Or you've had four or five goes and the doctors have told you that this is the last attempt.

And in a petri dish (not a test tube) sperm meets egg, and embryos are formed.  And there are lots of lovely healthy ones.  Six, or eight, or ten.  Each one a potential child.

So how many do you put back in?

Obviously you don't want to be octomom, and they wouldn't let you in this country anyway.  But you really, really, want a baby, and you know that the more embryos you put back, the more chance you have of having that baby.

But more embryos also means more likelihood of mulitple births, and you also know that any multiple pregnancy is higher risk. You know that it might mean birth defects, or prematurity, sometimes extreme prematurity, or behavioural difficulties, or, even if everything else is alright, two (or three, or four) tiny babies screaming at you at hourly intervals through the night, or two (or three, or four) teenagers slamming doors and throwing crockery across the room.

A childhood friend and his wife recently went through IVF. They had two embryos put back. One split.  They had triplets at 24 weeks.  Two are still alive, but struggling.  We are optimistic, but there are many hurdles to overcome, and the likelihood is that one, or both, may have ongoing health issues.

So how many do you put back in?

I don't know.  I've never had to make that call, and am very grateful, on many levels, for that fact.

But NICE, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is contemplating reducing the number of embryos that can be transferred in order to reduce the number of multiple births, to protect the health of both mothers and babies.  They have published a consultation document, and are asking stakeholders to comment.  TAMBA, the Twins and Multiple Births Association, has, in turn, asked its members, of which I am one, for their thoughts.

I adore my twins. I wouldn't be without them.  But they were healthy, and my pregnancy was healthy, and I had no element of choice about conceiving them anyway.

But if I had, how many would I have put back in?  I don't know. And I don't envy the people who have to decide.

The minute that never happened

Does birth order matter?  Are you the oldest? The youngest? Or somewhere in the middle?

And what about the age gap?  Is it a year that separates you from your siblings? Or ten?

How much do those two facts make us who we are?  How much do they inform our personalities, our status within the family, our lives?

Is L who L is (and am I who I am when I parent her) because she's the eldest?  Because she was nineteen months old when she stopped being an only child?

Am I who I am when I parent her (and when I don't) because I'm the eldest too?  Because I was two and a quarter when I stopped being an only child?

And if that order and that gap matter, what about when the gap is only a minute?  Does it matter who's the elder then?

What about these two?  Who's the younger here?

One of these pictures was taken at 10.10 am on Thursday 11 December 2008; the other at 10.11.

They may, or may not, be in the right order.

I know who's who.  I know who's older.  I know who's the "big (and little) sister".  They, as far as I am aware, don't.

Should they?

My father is nearly 71.  He is ten minutes older than his brother.  As a fraction of their age, that difference is *reaches for calculator and one remaining brain cell* 0.000019 (I think).

Does it matter?  Oh yes.  You hear them, on the telephone across the Irish Sea, bickering like my three year olds.  And the clinching argument? 

I'm the oldest.

Here's a fact.  My girls were born by c-section.   In theory, therefore, the surgeon could have just grabbed the nearest one.  Birth order set by convenience.  But she didn't.  They don't. They go, deliberately and by choice, for "Twin A".  The lead twin.  The one whose head, unchanging (I am told) from your earliest scans, is nearer the cervix.  The one who would have come first however they were born.

You can say it doesn't matter.  But if that's true, why do they go to that trouble? It's not as though we've got a title to inherit...
 
So should we tell A and S?  It's not a big secret.  It can't be. It's on their birth certificate, as it is legally required to be. (In England.  In Scotland time of birth is on the birth certificate for everyone.).

They will find out, anyway.  Either when they see their birth certificates or because someone (probably L, and no, I don't know how she knows, will tell them).  And at first, I wasn't that bothered.  I felt it was just a fact, and not one to get het up about.  But as they have got older and as they continue to jostle for position, to find a level with each other and in the family, I find I don't want to give them a fixed hierarchy, an immutable fact that makes one, whichever one, "better" or "worse".

I find, now, that if adults ask, which, occasionally, they do, I bristle.  Why does it matter? I want to say,   although what I actually say is mumble or Oh! Look! A thing!   But I find myself increasingly reluctant to answer, which I would have done, and did, quite happily when they were tiny.

My brother and sister-in-law, who also have twins, claim they can't remember who was born first.  Now clearly that's nonsense (it's on their birth certificates too, after all), but I wonder whether it's not actually quite a good line to take.

Age gap?  I will say. What age gap?  You were born at the same time.  You're twins.  That's what twins are.

And when the biological confusion that will create all gets too much I will tell them that in France they (apparently) say that the second twin to be born is the elder.  After all, he or she must have gone in first...



 

"Pregnancy reduction" - pro-choice vs. pro-twin?

Mid-June 2008.  9 a.m.  I am pregnant for the second time.  We have a scan later that morning.

"I don't care what they tell us about this baby. Just as long as it's ok. And as long as it's not twins."

Same day. 11 a.m.  Still pregnant.

"Are there twins in your family?...Because I think I can see two... "

Last night. 10 p.m.  An article in the Guardian Magazine on Saturday has me leaping out of bed and scurrying along the corridor to sit in the dark in S and A's room...

I'd never heard of Pregnancy Reduction until last night.  This is the deal: you are pregnant with twins.  And you don't, for whatever reason, want twins.  So one baby, selected, usually, by the doctors on the basis of accessibility and viability is...well, is what?  I can't pick the right word.  Is terminated.  Is aborted.  Is "extinguished".  Is reduced.

It was late when I read this article. I was tired.  I wanted to snuggle down and go to sleep.  But instead I got up, padded along the corridor and sat with my twins for a minute or so.  Just to remind myself that they were there.

Why?  What is it about this article, about this possibility, that got, and gets, me so het up?

I didn't want twins.  I really didn't.   So I can understand, in part, the fear that drives this decision. But as soon as that sonographer told me I was having twins, I wanted them both, fiercely and protectively. So I can also say that had I even known that this was a possibility, I would never have considered it. 

But why not?  I am pro-choice.  I have, fortunately, never had an unwanted pregnancy, so I can't possibly say what I would do in that situation, but I am, in principle, fiercely in favour of another woman's right to choose.  If I am accepting and supportive, as I have been of friends who have had to make that choice, why and how is this different?  Why is it acceptable to me to "reduce" one baby to none, but not two to one?

Why, if I read an article about abortion, do I not insist on going to sit with L, or M, or indeed A or S, to reassure them that they were wanted?

This is, I realise, utterly illogical.  But I am not alone.   One of the early pioneers of the procedure (all these words are so nuanced aren't they? I hesitate in using each one) no longer performs it, after all his staff, from the sonographer to the receptionists, confirmed that they were not comfortable with what he was doing.

Why?  My twins are special, of course they are.  But if you asked me whether their specialness was bound up in the fact that they are twins, I would fiercely deny it, and point, instead, to S's charm, and A's determination, or A's demands for cuddles, and S's hesitations before she speaks.  I am certain that twins, any twins, are individuals before they are a pair. 

So if I have no moral objection to terminating a singleton pregnancy that would have produced a child that would have been just as special in its own way, why does the idea of destroying half of a pair feel so wrong?
   

Two days, two girls, two potties.

It's started.  We are officially potty training.  In an ideal world I'd have left it until the Summer, A&S will be two and a half by then, and it'll be warmer (i.e. not actually snowing, which it currently is) and so they can run around with no knickers on and wee in the garden.  But I'll also have a newborn, and I realise that there are limits to what I think I can manage, and simultaneous potty training, breast feeding and sleeping in three hour shifts seems to be taking masochism a little too far.

So.  The theory is that we start now, and they're done by the end of May.  Or something.

I had this great idea:  we'd start with just S.  She seems more ready than A - we've been plonking them on the potties before the bath for a while now, and S has definitely worked out what she's supposed to be doing.  A is more excited by the fact that she gets to wash her hands afterwards (which does have its upside, but isn't actually getting anything moving down below).  So on Wednesday, on my morning with just S, I took off the nappy and on with the brand new pants. 

It took seven minutes for her to have an accident.

It took a further twenty four minutes for her to have a really nasty, throw the pants away, use a whole packet of wipes accident.

We had three further accidents and one success before A and L came home.  

A took one look at S's new pants and insisted on having some too.  So much for doing them separately.

Here's how the first two days went:

Accidents:  S: 8   A: 1

Successes:  S: 5  A: 2

Daytime hours spent in nappies due to naps and midwife appointments: About six

Smarties eaten:  S: 8  A: 5  L: 3 Mummy: 0

Squares of cooking chocolate eaten:  Mummy: 6 (and a bit. Maybe)

Bottles of wine opened before lunchtime: None. I'm pregnant...

Actually, I stopped counting on Thursday evening after the first two days and since then (famous last words), S hasn't had an accident at all.  A, who seems to have an absolutely cast iron bladder that, if they weren't genetically identical, I'd say she must have inherited from her father, hasn't had many, but not many successes either. I'm not sure what she's doing with it, but am choosing to tell myself she must be sneaking off to the loo when I'm not looking...

... I live in hope.  Wish us luck.  It took six months for L really to crack this.  I suspect it's unlikely doing two at the same time is going to be any quicker.

Why are more women "choosing" caesarian sections?

Yet another piece in another national newspaper today about "birth choices" and why women are, or aren't, giving birth in accordance with whatever the latest guru/bit of research/NHS funding report says.

And, actually, this time this one didn't really irritate too much. Mostly because Joanna Kavenna, a mother of two herself, acknowledges that each woman's "choice" is personal to her, and based on her history, both medical and emotional, the circumstances she finds herself in, the size and position of her baby and a million other factors, over most of which she has absolutely no control.

But she did get me swearing at this:

Now it seems we have lost confidence in our ability to give birth naturally: today one in four babies is born by caesarean, up from one in 10 in 1990"

Why, why, why, why, why, can't she and any of the other hundreds of people who opine on this subject not see what seems so perfectly obvious to me: this isn't about our confidence in ourselves; women don't choose to have caesarians.  The medical profession chooses for you. Women simply, in the main, do what they are told is best for them and their baby.

Look around at your friends and relations. I bet lots of them will have had, or their partners will have had, caesarians. How many of them actually, prior to the birth of their first baby, decided, with no medical requirement to do so, to have a caesarian?  One?  None?

How many of them, rather, after a 24, or 36, or 58-hour labour, exhausted and frightened, were medically advised that it was necessary; or were told their baby was breech and the hospital didn't have enough midwives with the necessary expertise to deliver a breech baby; or they were (like me) having identical twins and were informed (although it turns out this isn't the policy at all hospitals) that the risks to mother and babies meant a caesarian was the safest option? Pretty much all of them, I suspect.

So why do we say this is about maternal choice?  Why do we use words like "elective" caesarian, when what we mean is "planned" or "medically advised", or even "had an absolutely horrendous time last time, culminating in an emergency operation, followed by weeks of painful recovery, and is understandably terrified to go through it again"? Why does the media label four in ten British women "too posh to push"?

Now, I accept that there may be women who really do have the mythical tummy tuck at the same time, or want to time their birth so it fits in with the release of their latest fitness DVD or whatever, but I don't know any of them, and I'd be pretty surprised if they make up even a thousandth of a percent of the many, many women who have caesarians, on medical advice, and against what they had originally hoped for in this country every year.


So can we please, please, stop beating women up about this?  Why can't we accept that any delivery that results in a healthy mother and healthy baby (or babies) is a successful delivery, whether it costs the NHS more or less and whether it is the one we planned or not?

2010 in pictures

Some significant years in my life:

1976, 1989, 1994, 1995, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2007, 2008...

And now 2010:  It started somewhere over the mid-Atlantic, and ended with an Upstairs Downstairs marathon and a Thai meal.  I started as a Londoner, an employee, a mum of three and ended as a rural-dweller, a Scot (by adoption anyway), a consultant, and with the weeks until I have four ticking away a lot quicker than I expected.  

We passed through a third birthday, two second birthdays, Tunisia, Spain, the North of England (several times) and a great deal of weather.  We said a lot of sad goodbyes, and just as many happy hellos (and hello agains).

And here we are, ten days in, 2011 definitely underway, and I'm looking back at the year that was.  In pictures.  Sian at Mummytips has set up a competition, which I absolutely want to win (the prize is a ticket to CyberMummy, and the predicted arrival of number 4 some three weeks earlier means I'm reluctant to go out and spend the money now, but am nonetheless twitching in case it does all work out, I can go, and then then there aren't any tickets left. (I was sceptical last year, couldn't go anyway, and then saw how much fun everyone else had....)).

So here goes.  This was 2010.

 

Here's to 2011...... 

One bump or two?

Would it make you think I didn't love my twins if I said I really, really, didn't want another pair?

It's odd because I always wanted twins.  In fact, when my sister-in-law announced, about four weeks after we told people we were expecting L, that they were having twins, I was jealous.  I hoped L would be twins.  But then she was L, and to be honest, the thought of two Ls is enough to send anyone to spend a couple of hours in a darkened room...

But then I watched the same sister-in-law, who is a fantastic mother, coping with a toddler and new-born twins.  And I thought "I really, really don't want that".

No prizes for guessing what happened.

It never occurred to me I was having twins.  Actually that's a lie.  It briefly crossed my mind when one of my friends (and admittedly this is a very good friend) spotted that I was pregnant when I was only about eight weeks. I knew I was bigger than I had been with L, but I hadn't realised I was that big.  But then you expect to be bigger second time round, don't you? And the thing is, I felt absolutely fine.  My poor sister-in-law had to invent a dramatic vomiting bug to throw everyone off the scent (for the record, it didn't), and so I thought that's what happened if you had twins.

So B and I went along for the scan, merrily expecting just the one.  The sonographer did her jelly bit, and there was a little bean, curved round like a backwards C shape, swimming in its darkened, liquid world.  Four limbs, head, spine. Lovely heartbeat. Hooray.

She wiggled the thingy (technical term) a bit.  And there it was again, from the other direction this time, a forwards C shape, still swimming, heart still beating.

B said: "That's another one".

Now, B is not a medical professional. He has no training, or indeed experience, in reading sonographs. In fact when we went for our twenty week scan with L, he said "Look, there are its eyes" and had to be gently informed that the beautiful black eyes were in fact kidneys.  Which was good, because you want two of them too, but still wrong.

So is it any wonder that when the sonographer said: "Are there twins in your family?" I thought she was just making polite conversation and launched into a full explanation of how my dad is a twin, and B's brother has twins, and oh yes, we met some other twins on the bus on the way here blah blah blah...

Why?

Two and a half years later, I wouldn't change that moment, or my magical babies, for the world.  Yes it's been hard work, but when expectant mothers of twins ask  me about it, I'm honestly not putting a spin on things when I say that the benefits immeasurably outweigh the extra difficulties.

But the thought of more twins.... well that terrifies me.

So I was pretty nervous when we presented ourselves for the scan last week.  I'm not as big as I was, that's definitely true, but I have been feeling infinitely more ill and tired than I did with either of the other two pregnancies.  Please, please, no.....

No.

Just the one.  Breathe.  Heartbeat.  Breathe again.  My baby.

And here (I realise it's not the greatest of pictures) he/she is:

I'm looking forward to meeting you.

Her Fearful Symmetry? Her dreadful book, more like.

I think in order to understand just how much I didn't like this book, you need to understand just how much I loved Audrey Niffenegger's previous one, the Time Traveler's Wife (deliberate spelling, she's American).

I didn't read it, so much as inhale it, breathing it into my lungs and keeping it there. I dreamed about it, I thought about it, I read and re-read bits of it, because I loved the way they made me feel. I just thought, and think, it was brilliant.

As for Her Fearful Symmetry, well, not so much.

Maybe it's because I'm a parent of identical twins.  The story centres around Julia and Valentina Poole, the identical twin nieces of the late Elspeth, herself the identical twin of their mother, Edie.  When Elspeth dies, having not spoken to her own twin since before they were born, she leaves them her flat in Highgate. They move in and meet a series of eccentric characters, from Robert, Elspeth's lover, to Martin, the OCD sufferer in the flat above.

So far, so interesting.  But it just doesn't work.  Niffenegger's clearly done a lot of research on Highgate Cemetery, which shows. In many ways the book is a hymn of love to the Cemetery itself, and it's perhaps the most convincing character as a result.  Sadly she doesn't appear ever to have met either an British person, or an identical twin.

It's not just the little niggles: the flat is in a building called Vautravers Mews.  All the characters, and the authorial voice, refer to it just as "Vautravers".  Is it me, or is that just plain wrong?  It's Americans who drop the "road" or the "lane" or the "mews". Not we Brits.

Early on, she writes a letter purporting to be from an English Private Client Solicitor.   Now, it's not Audrey's fault that I happen to be an English Private Client Solicitor, but I can absolutely confirm that if I ever wrote a letter, out of the blue, to the beneficiary of an estate that contained the word "bequeathed" or the sentence "please let me know if you care to accept your aunt's bequest", my boss would have the red pen to it faster than you can say "unconvincing".  Not to mention the fact that have you ever heard of an allegedly posh firm of solicitors having a business address of 54 "D" anywhere?

It's all little stuff, but it jars.

And then there's the big issues.  The older twins have fallen out over a plot device so contrived and so unconvincing I found myself having to re-read it to make sure I'd actually understood it correctly.  Plot spoiler below, so that anyone who has read the book, or isn't going to, can see what I mean, and correct me if I'm wrong.  Essentially, none of the events of the book needed to happen, or indeed would have, if any of these characters had had half an ounce of common sense, or indeed behaved like real people.  And I'm not even talking about the ghost. I like ghost stories after all.

What I don't like though, as I look at my wonderful identical girls, and try to help them grow into individuals, to make people see them as the two different and unique people they are, however alike they look, is a book that portrays identical twins as freaks.  As one person trapped in two bodies.

Valentina and Julia are twenty.  They have been brought up in suburban America by loving parents, one of whom is an identical twin who has created her own separate identity by totally breaking off relations with her sister.  How then have they managed to bring up two girls who at that age refuse to be separated, dress alike and sleep in the same bed?  There's some attempt at trying to portray this as coming more from Julia than Valentina, but surely their parents would have, indeed should have, encouraged them to be separate, to have separate interests, separate friends.  They are both virgins because neither of them wants to have an experience the other has not had.

If my girls grow up and feel like that I will have utterly failed as their mother.

It's not as if Niffenegger portrays this as in any way out of the ordinary or odd.  Early on in the book, Robert, the lover of Elspeth, says:

"Elspeth thought there was a limit to how far the twin relationship should go, in terms of each person giving up their own individuality"

Excuse me? The twin relationship involves each person giving up their own individuality?  I cannot begin to explain how wrong that feels to someone who sees her job, as a parent of twins, as being to ensure and preserve their individuality.  I want them to have that individuality.  Even if I didn't want it, they've got it anyway, and they're 20 months old, not 20 years.   The twin relationship is a wonderful bonus, an added dimension to their relationship as sisters, and one that they'll never have with anyone else.  But then the relationship they'll have with me, or with L, is one they'll never have with anyone else too.

I wondered whether my instant convinction that this was wrong was to do solely with parenting twins, and having read too many twin parenting books, and not actually the experience of being am identical twin, but then I talked to one, and she agreed.  She said that she and her sister are close, of course they are, but that they are different, and that they have never felt that their relationship is different, in the sense of more significant, than their individual relationships with their other siblings.  They look like each other, they share a birthday, their children are genetically half-siblings, but they live their own lives, independent of each other, in their own way.

I've digressed from the book, I realise that, but I'm afraid that after that, every time one of her characters spoke, or every time she described what they were (identically) wearing, or the bond between them became too strong to transcend, my hackles rose, and my teeth began to grind against each other.

I finished the book. I had to.  I was hoping that something would happen that would redeem her in my eyes. But it didn't.
 
I won't be reading this one again, and I certainly won't be buying her next.  But what's really getting to me is that this has, somehow, diminished the magic of her first for me too.

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Plot spoiler below. Don't read if you don't want to know...

But if you have read it, am I right in thinking that what happens is:

Elspeth is engaged to Jack. She decides to test him so she swaps places with her twin.  Jack finds himself very attracted to "Edie" and breaks off his engagement to "Elspeth" to marry "Edie".  Both twins then spend the whole of the rest of their lives using the wrong name.  And of course there's a muddle about who actually gets pregnant, and who is the mother of the twins.

So far so predictable.  But aren't I right in thinking that the one he's just fallen in love with and broken off his engagement for is the one he's supposed to be in love with anyway?

Yes, admittedly they've swapped, so he'd have to come clean about not realising who was who (and in fact doesn't it then turn out that he's known all along), but isn't that actually flattering for the new Edie, that he loves her regardless of what her name is?

And assuming that that's right, why then did they all have to go on with the stupid charade? Surely they'd all just have confessed, been a bit pissed off with each other because it would all be a bit emotionally confusing, and then got on with their lives.

Oh, and, if your identical twin had accidentally slept with the man you loved and then got pregnant, would you really want her to keep the babies??

Is it just me or is it all a bit silly?

Terrible Two

I'm told that twins are harder work than one.  Everyone says so, both in words and silently.  You hear it in the pitying looks you get when you waddle past at 34 weeks pregnant and bigger than most at full term, or the gasps of shock from old ladies who peer in the pram, or the admiring glances when, by some miracle, and for more than ten seconds in a row, both babies are on top cute form.

But, you know what? I never really felt it.

I think the thing about having twins, especially after having a singleton, is that you realise that all you can do is to deal with what life throws at you in the best way you possibly can.  And yes, at times it feels impossibly hard, but it did with L too, and I can't honestly say that the worst moments with L were worse than the worst moments with A and S.

Until now.

Now I get it.  Now, two, at nearly two, are hard.  Harder than one.  Oh, so much harder than one...

We're at that stage.  And the fact that I know it's a stage isn't making it easier.  That stage where the penalty for failure is death.

And I fail.  Regularly, reliably and unremittingly, I fail.  I take off their pyjamas when they want them on. I choose the wrong socks.  I take the banana out of its skin.  I give them macaroni cheese for supper.  I put them in their pushchair.  I get them out of their pushchair.  I give them the wrong toy.  I stop them playing with the door.  I say "no".

So I fail.  And the punishment is swift and relentless.  Screams of pain, of misery, of years of unloved neglect.  Of the unrecoverable sadness that only a well-fed, cossetted, adored 20-month-old can feel when she's been told she can't have a packet of raisins.

And sitting here, both of them asleep upstairs, it's funny.  But oh, when you're living it, when you're jiggling a writhing, caterwauling baby on your hip, as she pushes and fights with rage-fuelled strength, flailing with both arms at your glasses, yanking on your hair, while you desperately try to soothe her, though with no idea what it is that you did wrong, and simultaneously try to ignore the desperate wails from your ankles as the other one screams with fury because she can't take off her shoes, knowing all along that you're failing their big sister, who just wants you to read me a story Mummy please, the funny side seems so very far away.

It's just a stage.  It's born of frustration.  I know it. They can't talk.  They can't say "Not those socks; the blue ones please Mummy", or "Please could you possibly cut up the banana for me in slices no more than half a centimetre thick" so they voice their displeasure, they express their personalities, they show their independence in the only way they can.  All babies do it.  It's part of being nearly two.  I get it. I really do. 

I just wish I'd realised how calm my life was with just the one.

The Gallery - Playtime

How bad is my timing?

I published a post yesterday with some (not particularly fantastic) pictures I love of S and A playing together, co-operating and sharing as I hope they will throughout their lives.

And then I thought "Oh, it's the Gallery tomorrow. I wonder what it is?  I'd better get my post ready."

And of course it's Playtime.  So I could just head back to that post, or tweak it and republish it, or something, but that feels like a cop-out (although do go and have a look, the pictures are lovely - or I think so, but then I'm their mother) so I'm not going to do that.

Or I'm sort of not.  Here's another one of the pictures anyway, just for the fun of it:

Isn't that amazing? They're 19 months old, and they're sharing, co-operating, playing together.  I think that's a twin thing, because I'm pretty certain that L wouldn't have played with another child like that at that age.  But, twins or no, that is what I want for all three of them, as they grow up as sisters: to have someone to play with, to share childhood- and, in due course, grown up-experiences with.  And when they fight, as they increasingly are doing (there's another post in there I suspect), I just have to sit back and remind myself that they can be like this too...

So anyway, given that that isn't my Gallery entry for this week, here's one of L too because otherwise she doesn't feature at all, and she does, after all, do her fair share of the playing in this house: 

She doesn't look like she's playing, but she is and I love that.  It forces me to remember that even when they are lolling on our tummies on a Northumberland beach, squishing sand between their fingers, they are still playing, and that although I beat myself up about not playing with them enough; about not cutting up enough bits of sticky back plastic, or making up enough stories, or using enough jumpers for enough goalposts, sitting with my children and watching the sand form little piles between their toes is playing too, and, in its own way, just as valuable.

Twins, Triplets and More Week 2010

This week is Twins, Triplets and More Week.  I know that some of you are probably thinking "Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's always something week these days, probably next week it's going to be Bad Hair Week, or Ingrowing Toenail Week or something"  but this really does matter.

Did you know that nearly twice as many mothers of multiples suffer from Post Natal Depression?  That there is no extra funding, maternity leave or government funded support for parents of multiples? That there are still areas of the country where education authorities don't consider multiples to be siblings when it comes to school allocation, so parents are left trying to take two (or three, or more) children to two (or three, or more) schools, all at the same time?  That midwives and post-natal nurses regularly tell mothers of multiples they can't breastfeed, and refuse to give support to those who want to do so?

And those are just the ones who ask for help....  I didn't have PND.  I tried very hard not to have PND.  I refused to have PND.  But there was still a period of about three weeks when I cried, every day.  When the health visitors were visiting me twice a week. When B came home one afternoon to find me in one room and the babies in another.  All screaming.

And later, much later, because they were fully weaned, a day when I sat at the kitchen table, all three girls eating their supper and screamed at him "I just don't want to do this any more"

I thought I was prepared. I have family and friends with twins.  I have love and support wherever I look, but I learned, very quickly, that nothing, however hard you try, prepares you for how hard, and how wonderful having multiples is.

Well, I say nothing, but TAMBA (the Twins and Multiple Births Association) are trying very hard indeed.  Indeed, they are using this week to launch their new initiative, Get Ready for Multiples.

"for expectant and new parents of multiple births at http://bit.ly/multiplebirths. The initiative includes FREE and subsidised pre- and ante-natal courses for families and health professionals throughout the UK; a FREE practical guide for mothers who may have PND; support from local Twins Clubs; and the FREE Twinline (0800 138 0509) which offers information and emotional support for parents and professionals"

Here in the bloggy world we're doing our bit too.  Linda, at You've got your hands full, is hosting guest posters all week on the theme of multiples (today, starring... you guessed it.... ME!) as well as a carnival on Friday and a week of blog touring (there's no escape from Linda this week, she's going to be everywhere!).

So please, read the posts, and pass the word on to anyone you know who's ever met anyone with multiples...


Many thanks.

Oh, and just in case it wasn't clear, this is in no way sponsored... didn't I say there wasn't any money?!

The Gallery - Motherhood

The Gallery just keeps getting bigger, better and more difficult!

This week it's Motherhood and, like, I imagine, many mothers, I've found it hard to find a picture where I am both in front of the lens and looking vaguely presentable.  I even flirted with the idea of showing you all my face, but decided that there were some sensitive viewers out there, and it wouldn't be kind to do that without warning.

So, here's Motherhood,  my way.  Now and then:

I love this picture because it's so representative of where we are now.

A and S are still little enough to want to hold my hands, but they are so close to independence.  You can see the determination in S's clenched fist, and if there was an audio tape of this picture you'd hear me telling A to put her hat back on, and her resolutely using one of her two words: "NO!"* .

L,on the other hand, is already certain that she doesn't need me.  She is way ahead, feet astride, firmly planted.  This is her world.  Laid out for the taking, and she's going to grab it.

And me? Their mother. Well, I look like I'm leading but we all know I'm actually following. In wonder, amazement and awe.

Not least at how we got to now, from then:

This was taken the night before they were born. About fourteen hours before all our lives changed forever (again).  I was already a mother, but I had no idea how much more motherhood life had in store for me.   It's been exhausting and magical, and I wouldn't change any of it for the world. Not even for a stretch-mark free stomach...

*I am delighted to report that the other one is "please"

Oh, and if nothing else, these pictures have really shown me it is finally time to get my haircut....

Three under two. A survivor's story.

I mentioned yesterday that I'm now a published writer!  Admittedly it's only the South West London Twins' Club magazine, but still, everyone's got to start somewhere...

Unaccountably, the SWLTC (ooh, an acronym!  Get me!) magazine does not yet have an online publication, so for your (horrified) delectation, here is the nappy-filled story of the last nearly 18 months of my life:

********************************************************

Wherever I go, as I walk down the road there is a chorus of shocked gasps.  Every so often someone plucks up the courage to stop me.  They invariably start off “You’ve got your hands full”. 

Let me explain. There are five of us: me, B and the three girls.  L is just three and A and S are identical girls now aged nearly 18 months.  There are just over 19 months between them so for four and a bit months I had three under two, and I had three under three for a year beyond that.

Answer to the next question: No, this wasn’t part of the plan. But I don’t regret it for a second. We got pregnant very quickly second time round and then it was (they are) twins.  How could you regret that? It’s two wonderful things in one sentence.

Which is not to say that I don’t have my hands full, and that it hasn’t been hard.  So here are some highlights (and lowlights) from the last year and a bit, along with some tips for how I (and my marriage) have survived thus far.  I’m not sure how much of it differs from the advice I would give someone having twins who didn’t have an older child, but it worked for me...

“Never refuse an offer of help”

My wonderful sister-in-law also has twins and an older child and she said this to me. In fact, I think she threatened to tattoo it on the back of my eyeballs.  She was right. For anyone in my position I will say and say and say again you will need help.  At the very least for the first few weeks and if possible for longer.  You have to decide what option is right for you, but we ran away to stay with my mother-in-law in Scotland for the first four weeks.  When we got back (and for the first three days between being out of hospital and going to Edinburgh) we had an utterly, utterly, can’t praise her highly enough, wonderful doula.  Angela looked after children, changed nappies, cooked, cleaned, ironed, made me cups of tea, supported me through breastfeeding, talked to me, advised me and generally made life so much easier than it could ever have been without her.  Other people go down the maternity nursery route, but, as with so much else in this parenting lark, it’s what works for you.  The only thing I can say is that having help will work for you.

Make time for the toddler

A and S are now nearly one and a half.  The impression I have is that most children that age are down to one nap a day.  They aren’t.  I’m hanging on desperately to their morning nap because that is my time with L. 

This is even more true when the babies are tiny.  Tiny babies need feeding, changing and putting to bed.  Toddlers need your attention and time.  However tiny and vulnerable your babies are, don’t forget that they won’t notice who changes their nappies.  Your toddler, on the other hand, will definitely notice who reads her bedtime story.   She will also be feeling confused and probably a little displaced by the arrival in her life of two usurpers.  She will need love and attention.   In the early weeks, when I was post c-s and therefore pretty useless at picking her up, we found that it worked quite well for B to devote himself to her while I concentrated on the babies.    Either way, she needs reassurance and, certainly for us, that had to come from Mummy and Daddy.

Make time for the babies

For the first 12 weeks of their lives, I had all three children full time.  Fair enough really, they’re my children.  But then I realised that the only times I picked A and S up were when they needed changing or feeding.    Otherwise they were left to kick on the babygym, or in a bouncy chair, while I rushed around after an incredibly demanding (although probably no more than most!) toddler. 

After much beating myself up about not being a good enough mother, B talked some sense into me and we put L into nursery two days a week.  Clearly there’s a financial aspect to this (it’s where my maternity pay went), but if you can do it, I would say it’s definitely worth it.  Failing that, a regular play date, some time with the grandparents, even a Saturday trip to a cafe with Daddy....  However you manage it, I think it was really good for the babies to have time with just me, and for me to have time with just them; to remember that I was a mother of tiny babies, and that tiny babies do, occasionally, need their Mummy.

One of the things that I think L had in immeasurable amounts more of than S and A was time just being cuddled.  Cuddling a tiny baby is natural. Except when you have twins.  When you have twins you find you’re too busy juggling and you feel guilty if you cuddle one, because then you’re not cuddling the other.  My time with just them was spent rectifying this: cuddling them, letting them fall asleep on me, or just cooing at them in a silly, besotted mum way.  None of which can be done with a toddler around. Believe me.

Make time for yourself (and your marriage)

Every now and then it all gets too much and I lose it in a dramatic (but fortunately not usually public) manner.

When that happens, B has now learned to phone a friend.  He shoves me out of the door to have a cup of coffee, or go shopping for clothes that aren’t the size they used to be, or get my hair cut, or something.  And it makes a huge difference.  It’s only maybe once every couple of months, but I would have gone mad without it.

And on even rarer occasions, we go out together.  We get someone to babysit and we go and walk by the river, or we drive aimlessly in the car (sorry environment), and we talk about stuff that matters, and not just our children.  It helps.  We’re still talking to each other, so it must do!

Believe in yourself

You will find, and I’m sure this goes for twins “on their own” as well as those with an older sibling, that people have all sorts of ideas of what you can and can’t, or will and won’t, do.

You will know, because you’ve done it before, the things that you think you can do, and those that you can’t.  Or those that you want to do.  Or even those that you’d like to have a go at.

I found that confidence made a huge difference to me when dealing with all sorts of things.  From having the courage to ignore the midwives who said that twins couldn’t be exclusively breast-fed to politely disagreeing with the people in John Lewis who said I couldn’t get three children into my pushchair...

Plan, plan and plan again.  Then change the plans.

I have found, though, that confidence needs to go with military-style planning.  I thought that my days of spontaneity were behind me when I had one child.  Now I realise that those were heady days of last minute plans and carefree changes of mind.

At Christmas 2007 B’s brother got engaged to one of my best friends from university.  They planned a Christmas 2008 wedding.  When we decided to try for another baby in early 2008, the one thing we had in mind was that we couldn’t be so pregnant that we couldn’t go to their wedding.

Of course then I got pregnant straight away.  “But that’s ok, because I’ll be 36 weeks pregnant but I can still go to the wedding.  It’ll only be a problem if it’s twins”...

Clearly, we could have said “sorry, we can’t come.  We’re having two babies on the 11^th and you’re getting married on the 20^th. In Edinburgh.  It just can’t be done.”  But we wanted to go, and they wanted us to be there.  So we planned, and we planned and we planned.  We had contingency plans and alternative plans and more plans.  And we knew, at any point, that if we decided to give up and stay at home, we could.

But we went, and I think, having planned it and thought about it and said in my head “We are going to do this” we could. 

That said, we do also have a deliberate “Abandon Ship!”  policy. If the plans go up in smoke, we are not afraid to run away... (taking the children with us, generally).

Know your limits

Plan.  But don’t overreach yourselves.  When L turned two, lots of my NCT friends started potty training.  We didn’t.  We knew our limits, and with four-month-old, exclusively breast-fed twins, potty training was beyond them.

She’s now 3 and a bit and she’s been totally potty trained and dry at night for over six months.  We started later but we’ve caught up, and I don’t think she’s been permanently damaged by having a few more months in nappies than some of her friends.  In fact, it may even have made her more enthusiastic about the whole process.   Even if we’re not looking forward to it next time round.

One last tip:

Measure your car. Lots of them don’t fit three toddler-sized car seats across the back.  Yours will need to...  We nearly learned that one the hard way.

And the good news

Don’t read this if your twins are your first babies...

When we went to the SWLTC new members evening the room was full of lots of very pregnant women, their scared looking husbands and partners, and two couples looking less pregnant but more tired.  We were one of those couples, A&S having been born about eight weeks earlier.  Oddly enough, the other couple (hello if you’re reading this!) also had an older child, of about the same age as our eldest.    We got chatting and were united in our conviction that we were enormously relieved we hadn’t had twins first.

Parenting a tiny baby, even two tiny babies, is, I am absolutely convinced, much easier second (I can’t comment on third or fourth!) time round.    This time round you won’t, I promise

• Poke the babies in the middle of the night to check they are still breathing and then wake them up and spend the next four hours trying to get them back to sleep. You’ll know better.
• Worry about whether you can/can’t/will/won’t breastfeed/allow controlled crying/wean at four months/give vitamin k/whatever else the media is hyping at the time. You will know, from experience, that the best thing for your babies is the thing that works for you and them and you’ll have worked out that worrying about what the Health Visitor, NCT or Daily Mail says is counter-productive at best.
• Refuse to see anyone because they might give your babies a cold, and as a result spend the first six weeks of their lives housebound, miserable and lonely.
• Find yourself stranded miles from home with a baby covered in poo and no nappies and wipes.  You will, like me, have learned from experience...

And you will:

• Know how to change a nappy, get a baby (even two babies) bathed and dressed, make up a bottle, assemble a breast pump, get out of the house in under an hour and a half...
• Be a team.  B and I muddled around each other for quite a while when we first had L before we worked out who was good at what.  Second time round we just knew.
• Know what is important to you as a parent, and what things you can (and must) do to stay sane. 

I’m sure we would have coped if A&S had been our first but I’m equally sure it would have been a lot harder doing that terrifying new parent learning curve with two babies, and not a mere one...

And the one thing I haven’t talked about

Sibling love.

I haven’t written anything about this, because the honest answer to any question on the relationship between my girls is “I just don’t know”.   Mostly they seem to get on, and mostly L has been fine with them throughout.  But she has had her moments, and there are still, at least once a day, incidents of hitting, or snatching, or pushing them over.  But there are now also moments of real kindness and love that make me melt with pride.   How have we got to this point?   And how do we encourage the good and reduce the bad?  I’m afraid I just don’t know.    My guess is that by reassuring L that she is not being displaced and by reinforcing her good behaviour, in this as in everything else with a toddler, she’ll get there in the end.  If there’s a magic answer though, I’d love to know.

Once again, I suspect that we’ll be making it up as we go along...

The Gallery - (blurry) Joy

I've had a rule, since I started blogging, not to put mine, or my children's faces up here.  But then Tara said "Joy".

And if I hadn't already posted it last week, I'd have used that one.

As it is, it just had to be this. Out of focus as it is (you try taking an in focus picture of two babies bouncing in their cots). Because this, for me, is joy. 

(And for them, joy is Daddy saying

BOO!)

You're smiling aren't you?

Enjoy, because no more full-face pictures for a while.  But there are more joyous pictures in the Gallery here.

What's your favourite stage?

This is mine.  Right now.  I remember adoring it with L too.

S and A are now fifteen and a bit months and I LOVE it!  They're little enough still to be cuddly, gorgeous babies, but grown up enough to be wonderful, individual people.

They can communicate, but not talk.
They nod, and grin, and manage to produce an entire vocabulary with about four consonants and three vowels.  They understand pretty much everything I say to them and they can express a preference with an amazing combination of gestures, smiles, frowns and yelps.  Oh, and they both know what noise a tiger makes too.

They are mobile, but can't really get around without me.
A is walking, just, but it's still that hilarious zombie, arms-outstretched walking that invariably ends in a bump and a toothy grin.  S is crawling, very fast, and only cares that A can walk and she can't when A gets praised and she doesn't.  Funny that.

They get stroppy when they are told off, or can't do something they want to, but they also haven't yet worked out that the person who's doing that is me, so it's me they turn to for comfort: "Mummy, it's so awful, I wasn't allowed to pull your glasses off your face.  Comfort me...."

They know what goes where and how their world fits together, but they're still so amazed and fascinated by the tiniest things.
I can keep them entertained for ages with just a hair clip, or a piece of tissue (they do have actual toys, incidentally...), but if I hand out the toothbrushes in the wrong order, or try to put A's shoes on S's feet, woe betide me.

I just think this is the most amazing stage.   Watching them as they turn from babies into children.

And it's not that I don't adore L, or think that the stuff she's doing is amazing, but she is now, aged nearly 3, much harder work.  I remember, as she went from 3 months, to 6, to 15 and then into the ages that are no longer counted in months thinking every stage was better than the one before, but that's not true any more. She's more complicated, and complex, and intelligent and demanding, and has opinions, and thoughts and preferences of her own which I can't (or not always) solve with tickles and raisins.  And I think too, that as she's grown older, I've realised that the stuff she's doing at any given point in time isn't, any more, just a stage that all babies pass through. She's not a baby any more. She does what she does because she's L.

But is that right? Are "stages" just an illusion?  Or are they going to keep getting better (or worse)?!