Hold on the Wine

Saturday 26th February

It's Saturday night and Merry has invited us for a dinner party round at hers. My first non-drinking-when-I-would-normally-be-drinking social. I try and get out of this one like I have the others over the past few weeks but your Dad is adamant.

I mull over different outfits in the mirror but my expanding waist line and blooming bosoms have already negated most of my usual going out clothes. I huff and puff that it's not normal to be showing so soon and am not convinced my new tubby tummy is all baby as I can definitely pinch an inch and more. I have been eating for the most part an incredibly healthy diet primarily consisting of low fat protein like cottage cheese, whole grain carbs, lots and lots of veg and a moderate amount of fruit. As well I have been going to the gym four or five times a week so it feels unfair to be looking portly rather than pregnant. Eventually I flop onto the bed. Your Dad points out that there are two of you and with it double the hormones and that the usual rules of a singleton pregnancy don't apply.

It's a new experience for me going to dinner and not slugging back two glasses of wine before the entrées have even arrived. Thankfully I have picked a moderate drinking bunch to try this experiment out. It surprises me but I immediately feel at ease and comfortable with the situation. I expect to feel inhibited especially as the other loosen up as their conversation is well lubricated by generously flowing red wine. But I am not and I find myself chattering and laughing as much as any of them. It's a lovely evening and I feel closer than ever to your Dad and, dare I say it, quite grown up and civilised.

On the way home your Dad is gushing with how lovely it was to see me flowing in dinner party conversation without the assistance of alcohol. Up until this moment I have firmly believed alcohol was the lynch pin of my social life. It is surprising and even alarming given how much I have clung to it over the years to be discovering that perhaps it is nothing more than a placebo.

The First Mountain

Thursday 24th February

We turn up at the hospital bang on 9 and there's already a queue. I assume I am in for another long wait but have barely got my bum on my seat before she calls me through, by my married name which still sounds novel and new. I slip onto the pillow and she inserts the probe into me. I have told your Dad to squeeze my hand as soon as he sees you to let me know you are both still there. He squeezes, lightly, twice but his eyes don't move from the screen so I assume he has forgotten the deal. He must feel my eyes fixed on his face as he eventually turns and gently nods. A relief sweeps through me knowing you are both still there but then the next question swipes the relief aside replacing it with yet more worry. "Can you see the hearts beat?" The Sonographer is younger than last week and is easily flustered by my rapid questioning. She's found one heart beat... my own heart beat races... "And the other?" She warns me that one of them is easier to make out but that this is ordinary with twins.

Eventually she turns the screen towards me "the first is very definitely showing off" she says and points towards you the wiggling showman bean on the screen and brushes her finger over the winking pulse of your heart. "The second," she says as she twists the probe in me "is a bit more shy." The shy bean isn't wiggling so much and is tucked quietly into a corner. I wonder if you are resting or at an angle but your heart is beating just like your showman sibling. She says she's never seen twins so early on and for a moment her eyes well up and she looks flushed with emotion.

Then the Sonographer points towards the thick membrane between the pair of you and says she would hedge her bets that you weren't identical. This is a good thing she tells me as it means there is a lower risk associated with fraternal twins. Your Dad laments the lost photo opportunities. She has some concern about the possible discrepancy between your sizings and I am told I will have to come back in another 3 weeks. She is cautious of promising me to much and I find the absence of definite reassurance disconcerting. I wish for a few moments of quiet just to watch you but the procedure is swift and clinical and she moves the image swiftly onto my Ovaries focusing on the black mark on my right ovary, which is where she tells me the egg was released from.

I have to see the Consultant before I leave and she seems more confident in imparting the information that I want to hear. There seem to be a few reassuring explanations for the size difference. Firstly that you, Shy Bean are at a different angle to you Showman Bean, making it difficult to measure. Secondly that it can be normal for there to be a difference in your growth rates. Or thirdly, she tells me that you were possibly not conceived on the same day because of how long both the egg and the sperm can survive in the womb, there can be up to a week difference. Importantly you are viable and she says the signs are looking good. Aside from that I am not taking much else in. It's like a gelatinous wave of information has enveloped me.

I don't care whether you are identical or not, I don't care if you are boys, or girls, or one of each. All I want is for you to be well. I know that the wait until the next scan will seem endless and that most probably the worry will build. But for today, my babies, we have climbed the first mountain and I want to rest and enjoy the view. Your hearts are both beating and that means life.

A Waiting Game

Wednesday 23rd February

Less than 24 hours now till I see you and I hope with all my might to see you both hanging in there and see your little poppy seed hearts beating regularly. Your Dad hopes you will be rhythmically in sync, a sign, he says, that you may follow in his musical footsteps. I have been consumed by thoughts of you all day. Everything else seems insignificant. I have tired the internet of information now. This is a waiting game.

Funny Twin Things

Tuesday 22nd February

One of my closest friends is an identical twin. It must be getting on for two years ago after the birth of her son. We were having a drink and she stopped and turned and just looked at me all of a sudden. "You're going to have twins," she exclaimed, "I just felt it."

Then there's my niece. I got married last year. The tin chapel I was wanting my ceremony at wasn't registered for marriages so we married on the Wednesday at my parish church in a small ceremony with close family and friends. On the Saturday we had a second wedding ceremony with all my family and friends. My niece was sitting next to me over Christmas just gone and she turned and looked at me and said "Are you going to have two babies because you had two weddings."

Then of course there was the "knowing" before we knew, like I have already said. Not because of anything other than a feeling. I had googled it and several sites said it was normal to think you were having twins, which made me kind of rationalise it. But it wasn't just me that thought so, it was your Dad as well. He had even written "I want twins" in the Valentines card before he had found out.

Sometimes I want everything to be clear, solid, to grasp it and see it. Yet the essence of living, that which allows us to dream and hope and believe is beyond reason and logic. There is something inexplicably beautiful and mysteriously magical happening inside of me and I need to remember that. I don't need all the answers. The most beautiful things in life are born from mystery.

The Worried Well

Monday 21st February

Your Dad is back from Berlin after a successful week making music. Your Dad is the most stunning singer. He sings you the most beautiful songs. You can't hear yet because your ears are just tiny sealed indents still but when your ears finally open you will. He will sing you the most beautiful lullabies.

After a blissfully relaxed snuggly Sunday Monday has loomed in like a dark cloud raining it's usual gloomy emails. I am so over the recession already. It feels like I spend most of my working hours dealing with the aftermath of unthoughtful ideas that have been implemented by the ConDem Government. Things feel less stressful at work since you have arrived. The winds of worry go round me and over me but they don't whistle through me any more.

That's not to say I don't worry. Today's worry is, well, that I don't have a worry. To be more clear I am fretting about the fact that I am feeling so good. I feel more energetic and healthier than I have done in a long time and I float around in a warm glow of soothing tranquillity. "Lucky you!" might be your response if you are amidst the throes of morning sickness. "I wish!" you might cry if you are beyond exhaustion. "I'd ring your neck if I set eyes on you" you might scream if your emotions keep plummeting you to hell and back. But, see, these symptoms you have, they are good signs, they are signs that your hormone level is sufficient and that your baby is thriving. This is why I am worried I feel so well.

Vanishing Twin Syndrome

Saturday 19th February

I climb out of the bath and sit on the loo. More spotting. Your sister is here with her friend, lively electric about her night out. I creep back to the bedroom.

I am reading about vanishing twin syndrome on the internet again. Apparently 1 in 5 twin pregnancies which are detected very early on result in VTS. I don't even want to say those words. They make me feel sick to the pit of my stomach.

The internet offers trite and meaningless advice. One website advises that "it's best not to get too excited" about the idea of a twin pregnancy if you find out about it in the first few weeks. I think about how easily those words flowed from the fingers of that writer. One of my friends pointed out the same in a very matter of fact way. Sure, because my emotions are programmed to just take on board that wonderful reality and weave it through the hard-wired attachment.

My sister tells me that they use scans to help form attachments between Mothers who abuse alcohol and drugs as they are proven to fuse a bond and responsibility. At least it's normal to feel attached.

Please hold on

Friday 18th February

I've been free of the cramping for several days now. This feels like a relief and combined with last night's Yoga class has sent me off into a blissful calm place where the usual work worries can't reach. I am driving to work with Merry and we are putting the world to rights as usual when I get a gentle shooting pain through my tummy. This doesn't phase me, it's familiar and you've already proved you can survive worse.

Later I go to the toilet and when I wipe I see fresh pink blood on the tissue, it's a light pink tingeing a mucousy discharge. Your Dad said to be prepared for more spotting when he left. Although I thought I was I am not. I walk back through to my office and crumple. Merry pushes the door closed and tries her sweet best to soothe me. My heart is awash with sadness.

All along I have known just how fragile you are, I have read about the risks, I have told myself of the reality and yet I have also detached myself from it. I know I could lose both of you and I know I have an even higher risk of losing one of you. Yet you are within my soul already. From the moment I saw you in those delicate stages of new life my heart swelled as you swam in. It will be an empty cavity without you. I don't want to let you go. Either of you.

I speak to your Dad and he tries to reassure me but I hear the sadness in his voice too. I know Berlin probably feels like a world away from us right now.

I take myself home, I want to write to you and ask you not to leave. Standing on the crowded train I feel removed from this normal every day commute. I haven't felt such a quiet sadness like this before.

Home now I climb into my pyjamas and curl up in bed. I try and interpret the cramps but it's like trying to listen to a language I have no grounding in. In my head I pick for things that I shouldn't have done, the wine in the very earliest of days, the way I have insisted on going to the gym more than I have done in months, or maybe it was deeper, maybe it was because I kept thinking about you having some sort of abnormality and me worrying I would want you less. I grasp at reasons.

I have nothing to do but wait. Next Thursday's scan seems like an eon away.

Twilight Hours

Wednesday 16th February

I wake today at 3am. Your Dad is in Berlin and I am alone. It's still dark but the morning birds are singing to the glow of the sodium street lamps. Their sleep patterns as disturbed as mine. I stumble through to the bathroom to pee. My bladder seems to have lost all ability to contain more than a few teaspoons of liquid.

As I make my way back towards the bedroom I sense a strange smell. My first thought is the fairy lights but the lounge smells clear. I step into the dark kitchen where the smell is more intense. I peer round the corner. One of the hobs on the old electric cooker is smouldering deep orange. Sparks have begun to crackle and spit. The electric kettle that I boiled the water with for last nights broccoli is precariously placed just inches away on the neighbouring hob, not far from combusting it's so hot.

I thank the lord and yourselves for my impatient bladder and my new super-human sense of smell. I don't sleep a wink for the rest of the night, revisiting thoughts of what might have happened if you hadn't woken me.

Poppy Seed Heart

Thursday 17th February

I find myself on the internet again, I wish I could filter out all the grim news because so much inspires and delights me. You're both coming up to 6 weeks now and you have hearts the size of Poppy Seeds that beat on their own. I am praying that you are both hanging in there. It feels like heaven having you inside.

The internet

Wednesday 16th February

I watch a clip of a Mum giving birth to twins on the internet, except I find it hard to think about the brutality of a C-section as "giving-birth," it's more like the twins are removed from her body. The woman is separated from any action by a three foot or so curtain. She looks like a head in a box. I try and imagine myself in her position, just able to hear, but not see or even feel her babies entering the world. The baby's are whipped out of her and taken to two bays, sometime later, I am sure it felt like an eternity for her, they are waved in front of her face. I sob, your Dad thinks I am crying with happiness, till he realises it is something quite different. Maybe I need to come to terms with the fact that all births are pretty brutal.

Next I google "twin baby bumps" this sets the fear deep within and my body pumps me with adrenaline. I touch my stomach uncertain about how the skin can stretch so far. Before and after photos escalate the problem, one woman's stomach looks like a deflated human belly balloon that has been hacked with a clever. My body is overdosing me on adrenaline now.

I phone my sister in a panic. My sister, let's call her Alisia, tells me that internet stories are either unrealistically positive or negative because people don't have an interest in the middle ground.

I am imposing an internet ban on googling for self-diagnosis.

Muddled Mind

Tuesday 15th February

My mind twirls and somersaults like a kite in a blustering spring wind. The idea of those special moments, days, weeks, months and years getting to know you has suddenly split into two. These moments had already been written like an inner film reel, they were settled and sound images that I have known and secretly cherished for so long. Now suddenly each moment is divided, with an additional mirror like image of what it had been with not one now but two of you in each moment.

Valentines Day

Monday 14th February

I wake up before the alarm, this is not usual you must know but to be honest not much feels usual right now. My head has settled into a pragmatic place as I bathe and get myself ready for the hospital.Or maybe not maybe this wash of calm is something more like foolish hope. For some reason I feel like everything is going to be OK. I can feel you still there, inside of me, holding on.

There must be thirty or so Mother's in the waiting room of the early pregnancy clinic, from all walks of life. Most of the women with partners aside them, others looking alone. One girl, of maybe 16 or so looks so frightened, I expect her Mum to turn up or her boyfriend but no one comes. She sits peeling the cuffs of her jumper over her hands. I want to reach out to her. It doesn't seem the right place to be on your own. I count my blessings I have your Dad here, he's come into his own this past week, protective of me and you like I have never known. Ever so often a tear roles silently down a cheek but there's an air of gracious composure and dignity.

The initial appointment is brief but the nurse is warm and reassuring and funny. I have noticed women in "women's" wards tend to come in two distinct variety's. I am glad to avoid the other variety, coldly pragmatic with the insensitivity of a drunk wasp and the bedside manner of a roll mop herring.  She tells me the spotting and the persistent cramping is very usual. Then we are sent off again to kill some time out in the brilliant bright sunshine. There are wisps of snow white cloud in the otherwise clear blue sky. Then there's that smell and energy of spring. It doesn't seem like a day for losing you.

We arrive back and I am keen to get things over with now. The waiting has gone on for long enough now. The girl opposite me is eating crisps and I feel repulsed at the smell, a strong synthetic beef smell. Worse than that is the sound of her eating them. She is trying to be discreet but there's something about polite eating that makes it louder more noticeable, each bite elongated. Like having a slow leg wax.

Finally we go in for the scan. I slip my lower things off and climb onto the bed. The Sonographer places a paper towel over my legs to keep me discreet which I am grateful for. I hate internals at the best of times. In fact the week before I knew you were coming I had been prescribed Diazepan just to get through a routine smear. For some reason all my fear and repulsion has faded away, so desperate am I to know you are safe, to see your life beginning. She inserts not much more than the tip end of the long probe and I try and breathe through the gnawing pain and focus on thoughts of you.  Her face looks gravely serious as she twists and turns the instrument inside me searching in different directions. The screen faces away from me. Your Dad peers at it but I can't even look at him now for fear of seeing a look of disappointment or concern. Neither are giving anything away. My thoughts race in twisting tornadoes, perhaps I have lost you, perhaps you have never been there, then my thoughts jumped to cancer, perhaps I was riddled, and my baron womb would be removed, and I'd never know that feeling of having you inside.

Then she turns the screen towards me and I see you, I see both of you.

Sunday Morning

Sunday 13th February

Then this morning when I am sitting on the toilet, my bowels more shy than stubborn I see the spots of blood in my pants. It isn't much but suddenly you ever being there is like a momentary dream. I feel a grief like pulse coarsing through me. Your Dad rushes through and kneels before me. He presses his head against mine. I can't hear what he is saying but I look into his eyes stinging red and glazing with a film of tears.

The First Week

Saturday 12th February

The next day passes in a strange haze, an opiating like combination of exhilarating excitement and dazed confusion. I stay home for fear of someone interpreting the truth about your existence from the occasional dropping of my draw and widening of my eyes as realisation intermittently settled in. I can almost hear the collision of my old life and this new life before me. 


I have been having wakes during the night for a couple of weeks now. Jumping from deep sleep to wired and wakefulness in just seconds. I had thought it might have been the coffee, I love my coffee, not just a moderate morning espresso more like a day long intravenous drip. Then there is this pain that continues to pester. I am almost scared to go to the toilet in case I lose you, in case you slip out of me. It's like a period pain, not worse than that, not agonising but unsettling, a reminder not to take you for granted, a reminder that there are no guarantees you are here to stay. You are still fragile, still so new to the game of life. 

Then gradually as the week has gone on I have started to embrace you like a warm ray of sunshine. Your Dad and I spend Saturday by the sea. First down onto the pebble beach, watching the kids throwing stones. A young lad scampers up the cliff edge like a mountain goat. I watch with a mixture of horror and admiration, hoping maybe you will be brave like that. We walk, you, your Dad and I, along the Coastal Path where the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Alfred Lord Tennyson used to walk. I feel it appropriate to take you here where people so distinguished once walked as if I might imbue you with some magic. It is a fresh but bright and clear day and you can see out across the still waters of the Severn Estuary. We stop for pictures in a small look out tower. The sun so low in the sky it's turned the sea into a blanket of gold. We finish in a busy little teahouse where I sip on a cup of fresh peppermint tea. Tea, and even more so peppermint tea you see is quite an unusual drink for me, usually preferring a large glass of something dry and white. I don't mind the sacrifice, not for you.

The Discovery

Monday 7th February

I've already done two tests both of which came back negative. Yet there is this niggling feeling. My boobs feel like nuclear submarines like they might be preparing for battle with the heaviest period of all time. I say to my husband before leaving for work, quite adamantly, "I'll either get my period today or I'm pregnant." By the end of the day I feel strange and swollen and bloated with the most intense water retention like I have gone three rounds with the salt mill. One of my colleagues, let's call her Merry, drives me back south of the city through the bumper to bumper traffic, billboard babies peer at me with knowing eyes.

Merry drops me off at Asda, she is off to meet a client and is apologetic she can't take me all the way home.  My mind is spinning, maybe with excitement, maybe trepidation. Once inside the bright strip lit store I march up to the chemist counter and pick up the test and hand it discreetly over the counter. The woman behind the counter starts waving it around like she is rehearsing waving her flag at the royal wedding, back and forth, back and forth. I peer around for any familiar faces, just discreetly, as discreetly as you can with cheeks the hue of Dorothy's ruby red slippers. Everyone seems familiar, everyone looks like someone I know. I can almost hear the whisper hissing round the office the next day and catching the sneaky knowing smiles over the photocopier. After she has finally put it in the paper bag I pull it out of her hand, not forgetting the receipt, images of being pulled over by a security guard flash before me.

I scurry through the aisles towards the toilets, my worn down heels slipping on the polished floor. First I try the disabled toilet, thinking this will give me more space and privacy. I tug at the door but a little gnome like, heavily bearded man peers round the corner, his eyes like black opals, he gently grunts and pulls the door back to. I head towards the ladies and into the electric blue lighting. I take the cubicle on the end and hang up my bag. I tear into the packaging like a child into their presents on Christmas morning. I pee on the end of the stick. I place the stick on the toilet role holder, wipe my hands, and force myself to stare at the wall. I count the seconds and then minutes in my head.

When it's time I look, I peer down. And that is when I know you are on your way. You have marked the stick with a thick blue cross to let me know.

I walk back out into the bustle of the supermarket rush hour. I feel a dazed giddy sensation, maybe like I've been hit by a stun gun. My heart thumps as if it's trying to leap up out of the chest cavity. I try to call your Dad, dodging in and out of the busy shoppers. I know he is in but he doesn't answer. I keep trying incessantly. He is asleep on the sofa, I'd bet your life on it. You see you'll get to know that about him, it's his favourite place to sleep. It's no comment on our relationship which is more than healthy. It's just something about the sound of the TV that lulls him into the deepest of sleeps. He eventually wakes and answers his voice growly and blunt, you'll get to know that too in time, to avoid him when he has just woken up. He doesn't mean it. I want to tell him, to holler the news down the phone. I am shit at keeping secrets, especially good ones. I ask him to meet me so we can do our shopping and when he eventually turns up looking all dishevelled and sleepy I give him a big hug and that's where I tell him, somewhere between the toys and the half price cushions left over from the January sale.

I spend the night researching what I can and can't do. I thought I pretty much had this sussed but the list seems endless and the more "research" I do on the internet the more I completely freak myself out. It seems like pretty much anything that I might garner enjoyment from is ruled out. My Olympian strength comfort blankets are swiped from before me; wine my first vice, coffee my second, blue cheese my third, hot baths my fourth. I fret and fear for what risks I have already exposed to you, all that wine, even the odd cigarette. I should have been better prepared. I feel like I ought to know better. I am sorry, it has been a hard month with work and all and if I am honest I wasn't expecting you so soon.