No third child for this mom of twins

It took me two years of peeing to get a positive pregnany test. First I peed on ovulation sticks, then I peed on pregnany sticks. When I found out I was finally pregnant I just had this feeling that it was with twins.

The sonogram confirmed it and my husband and I looked at each other with big fat smiles, and eyes wide with, what? Shock? Fear? At that moment we knew our lives would never be the same.

At the time we had only one friend who had twins. I remember calling her in a state of panic the night before I was to be induced and made her explain to me exactly how she managed to push out two babies when all I had heard from my close friends were stories of them pushing for 3 hours just to get out one baby. I drilled her on when the placenta comes out. Do they cut the cord of the first before I focus on pushing out the second?

As it turns out, it only took me 45 minutes to deliver both girls. But it was determined during labor that I had pre-eclamsia and had to be on magnesium sulfate for 24 hours after delivery. This meant no eating real food or getting up out of bed for that time. My pregnancy had been considered high-risk anyway because I was on a blood thinner for a clotting condition. While I was uncomfortable, I was more than relieved to have 2 healthy babies, and do whatever it took to keep me healthy.

Having twin newborns was exhausting. My days were filled with feeding, burping, pumping, and cleaning (bottles, diapers, laundry…). But it was especially hard because my father passed away when my twins were only 3 weeks old. I look back on those first few months and all I remember are the feelings of grief, isolation, the raging hormones, and rollercoaster of emotions. I do not think I had post-partum depression. Just the opposite – I think my babies were the only reason I didn’t sink into a paralyzing depression.

So as my twins turn 6, and most of my friends are on their third or even fourth child, I still field the question “Are you guys going to have any more kids?”.  My answer has, and will always be the same.  When I consider the stress of trying to get pregnant, the high-risk pregnany that ended safely, the fact that God gave me two beautiful (and I have to say well-behaved) children, and the sadness I still feel as I look back on those early days with them, I can’t fathom doing it all again.  But what I say is, “No, I don’t think so. I’ve been outnumbered from day one. I can’t imagine being outnumbered by even one more” because that is something people can relate to.

Photo of The Twins by Anastassiya L on Flickr Creative Commons.

Janine Nickel (@twincident on Twitter) is the the mother of 6-year old twin girls and has learned that there’s nothing like children to show you all your defects of character. Janine blogs about her neuroses, her twins, and she reviews products and hosts giveaway at TwoferMom.com.

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