Twins

[Jt]

I am 7 weeks pregnant with twins, I have a stinking cold & morning sickness, & generally feel pretty awful at the moment.
It will pass won't it?
I am craving some positive encouragement.

stunned was absolutely how I felt as well - I was 21 weeks and had an 18 month old girl at the time. I'm not sure how helpful the books were. I was in blissful ignorance until they arrived (by caesarean at 38 weeks) and then I went into even more shock at the chaos they caused! The best thing is to join your local twinsclub (see Tamba or www.twinsclub.co.uk) and talk to other recent twin families about their experiences - your twins club will also put you in touch with others who are at the same stage as you so that you won't be going through it alone.

Get as much help as you can in the early weeks/months and take good care of yourself. They are incredibly hard work in the first few months but they are good fun (my boys are 2 1/2 now!) & you will always get attention wherever you go!

Dear Stunned and all!
I believe all babies are hard work, be it one, two three or four! But as we all know, one magical first smile and you just know it is all worth it. As some of you know I have triplets(I still cannot believe they are no other triplet Mums out there), I had them after three IVF attempts in 1998, aged 46! When I went for my first scan they told me it was twins and I remember coming home and looking at my picture of the embryos and thinking "which one of you didnt make it", feeling sad, because I had recently lost my lovely son, so in a way it was like another bereavement. Then three weeks into the pregnancy I started to bleed heavily and was sent for a scan, convinced I had lost them. The woman who was doing the scan asked me if she was looking for two embryos, I said yes, "why then do I have three heart beats"! Stunned wasnt the word. Anyway after a very scary 17 weeks everything settled down, they were born at 32 weeks as one of them had stopped growing and he is now the biggest! They are my life, my joy, my everything, and though I am the oldest Mum at the school gates.......I am the proudest! Your children are the most precious gift you will ever have, love them and have fun!

Triplets

Thats lovely. You must be so proud of them. There is one girl in our local twins and more club with 1 year old triplets, she is so positive. We are all moaning about the difficulties with twins and she just says oh they are really good babies I'm lucky

Triplets, I bet the reason triplet mums don't post is because they don't have time!! Maybe you're just super-organised & efficient!

My son's friend's wife is expecting twins in January. They are both still at uni (the pg was an accident) so life is going to be pretty hard until finals are over next summer. But they seem to be getting plenty of support and are looking to my DS as an expert because his sis is 17 years younger and therefore he "knows everything about babies", LOL!

My sister's friend has twins, as well. She had two singletons later on and reckoned it was just soooo easy-peasy to deal with just one baby.

An aquaintance of mine has 5 children - he and his wife decided to try for no. 3, and it turned out to be triplets! How's that for a major life shock??

Oh my life, Azzie. What a terrible thing!

Hi Stunned- congrats on the twin pg. My major thought would be to look into childcare and finances as soon as possible if you want to return to work... I was forced (sounds v negative and I'd probably have chosen to be at home for much of that time anyway, tbh, but the fact remains that I had no choice) into staying at home f/t with my twin boys for well over 2 years because I could not find affordable childcare for 2 until thay were (subsidised) nursery age. Looking at it another way, my partner was forced into a role as the only bread winner and I think he suffered because he felt- wrongly- that he did not fulfil that role adequately. I don't know how far we were stymied by the facts that they were our first kids and that neither me nor my partner were in particularly well paid jobs before their arrival but I must admit that twins were a huge financial shock for us!
My other immediate thought is for your son. You'll be amazed at how much positive attention is given to baby twins- from family, friends and total strangers. Also, as I'm sure you can imagine, two small babies are a lot of work in a practical sense. You'll probably need to have some strategies in place for making sure that your son isn't overlooked. eg: always introducing him first and in his own right (NOT as the twins' brother), making sure that you grab any help you can so that you and/or your husband/partner can spend some time with him alone if at all possible.
HTH

Talking of major life shocks, a gay male friend of mine wanted to be a sperm doner for a gay female friend of his. After she became pregnant, they both left their respective gay partners, and had a son. Big shock all round.

Soon after that, they had twins (no need for a sperm donor this time) and married each other, so in the space of four years, they each went from childless in a gay relationship to three children in a straight relationship.

Brilliant tigermoth! I love it when things happen to shift the away from the 'norm'. People get pigeon-holed so much they believe they must remain the same throughout their lives without evolving.
Sorry thats a bit hevay for a monday morning but anything to take my mind off the fact I'm over a week late eh?!! (This is how I landed on this thread as I'm conviced I'm to have twin boys at some time in my life - just please not right now, please...)
Good luck Stunned

Our 15 month old has "mild" chickenpox (4 blisters so far).

I'm supposed to meeting up with all the other mums for a night out - is there any chance of cross-infection through me (I've had CP, BTW)?

No Donna-Louise - there is no risk of cross infection from you to other mums. Enjoy your night.