This is a book that has been waiting to be written since I first started fighting my brother for a little more space in the cramped conditions of my mother’s stomach. Because I am writing about twins from the perspective of being one, I feel at liberty to be a little more risqué on the subject than most. With the ‘Double Trouble’ column that has been running for the past two years in The Times, I have weathered enough ‘shocked’ and ‘disgusted’ letters from older mothers to know that times have changed. Modern mothers need a laugh every now and then to sustain them through the early years, and none more so than twin mums. It is therefore no coincidence that I have enlisted the help of my talented friend at The Times, Johnny Pugh, to remind us of this every now and then. I feel happiest when working in a team of two (that twin thing again), and Johnny’s insights into family life have been earned at the coalface of fatherhood.
Are there any messages to take from this book? Only two, surprisingly. The first is that you are a lucky, lucky person. The second is that your life will never be the same again. Different, better, but never the same. Welcome to the world of twins. I shall go now, and tread lightly for fear of waking mine up…
‘Your children are not your children They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself’
KAHLIL GIBRAN,
THE PROPHET, 1923
It may have taken an American to coin the phrase ‘twinshock’, but the sensation is felt the world over. There is no easy way to learn the news. It helps if your hand is being held by the man responsible (more possible if it’s your first pregnancy, less probable if it’s your second) or if you have a sympathetic sonographer doing the scan, but, once the word is out, the impact will take your breath away. Being told that you are expecting twins will resonate deep in your psyche, announcing that your life is about to change for good.
For this reason, sonographers doing the ultrasound often try and fudge the moment with comments such as: ‘There seems to be two. Let me check if there’s three’ (this happened to Joanne Pinkess, who heaved a huge sigh of relief that it was not triplets). Another girlfriend, Heather, was asked: ‘Would you like the good news or the bad news?’ With four children already, she asked for both. ‘The good news is that everything is fine,’ said the scanner, ‘the bad news is that you’re expecting twins.’
The other approach is to push the responsibility for the diagnosis on to you. The sonographer scanning Judy Collins, with her husband Jim beside her, turned to poor Jim to announce the news. ‘What’s the first thing you can see?’ she asked, turning the screen to the husband. Jim saw two blobs, so said ‘two eyes?’ ‘No,’ she corrected him, ‘two babies.’
However you learn, try and hang on to that initial moment and build it into a story for later. Not only will you be asked dozens of times before your life is over, but your twins will have to recount the moment, too. If only I had a pound for every time I’ve had to retell the story of my mother going into labour, and the midwife calling over the doctor to ask ‘Can you hear two heartbeats here?’ Sadly for my father, he was in the pub. My, how times have changed.
Tears and light blasphemy
From the mothers I’ve asked, the most common response to the news they were expecting twins seems to be tears and light blasphemy. I had my three-year-old with me for the 12-week scan, and he was ramming a Thomas the Tank Engine train into my thigh while the sonographer slopped gel on my stomach and swirled the scanner over my paunch for a good five minutes before choosing her moment. ‘Have you been experiencing anything unusual about this pregnancy?’ she ventured. ‘Oh, you know, a lot more tired than with the first,’ I answered, preparing for a moan. ‘Peep, peep,’ squeaked Thomas at my knee. ‘Well,’ she continued in her best breezy voice ‘there is something I have to tell you…’ (a line that never goes down well with pregnant mothers). I sat up immediately, expecting the worst unmentionable diagnosis. ‘You’ve got two babies in there!’ she blurted. ‘Ohmygod, Ohmygod, Ohmygod,’ I answered.
A few minutes later, as she helped me out of the darkened scanning room, I felt twice as pregnant as before I went in, suddenly more sow than goddess. I was directed around the corner for the next NHS appointment and for my next shock – that the hospital had no room for me. Even if they had told me that there was a Stannah Stairlift and a red carpet up to the delivery room, I would have burst into tears at that point. It was as if the initial shock was receding and reality setting in. I boo-hooed so loudly at the reception desk that a flurry of doctors suddenly poked their heads out of their doors and a kind female doctor came out to investigate. Seeing the waiting room full of anxious pregnant mothers, now massaging their bumps a little more nervously, she whisked me into her office. There she explained the relative merits of all the local hospitals, from how new their maternity units were to how many beds they held, to reassure me that if I couldn’t make it into my chosen Chelsea and Westminster there were others that would have me.
It was to be my first lesson about carrying twins and the National Health Service (make a noise to get help from anyone, blubbing loudly if necessary). I also learnt that from that day forward, and particularly when the twins were born, I was to be the entertainment for the waiting room.
Numb with no tears
Not everyone reacts with such drama. Triplet (heroine) mother Valerie Cormack had a variation on twinshock when she was told at her first scan. She sat in a daze at the news and described her reaction as ‘horror and worry’.
‘My first thought was “how will I manage this?”, and my second thought was “where are we going to put them?” – our house isn’t that big.’ Valerie, 34, had her mother with her because her husband Andy was away on business. When she told Andy, his reaction more than made up for her state of numbness. ‘He was thrilled. He said “Isn’t it great! We’ve always wanted a family and now we’ve got three children!”’ A week later, Valerie’s fears began to subside and she started to feel happy about it.
Preparing the siblings
Just as there is no perfect time to deliver the news to an absent spouse, there is also no perfect time to prepare other children.
I had my three-year-old little boy to tell, who had been vaguely aware of the histrionics in obstetrics, but was really far more interested in his Brio engine. Rather than sit him down and Have The Talk, I decided to prep him whenever he brought up the subject. A colleague at work, both of whose parents were psychologists, warned me against The Talk.
Apparently, when she was little and her parents had tried to prepare her for the arrival of her brother, she had nodded all through their explanation of forthcoming family life. At the end, they asked if she had any questions. She replied earnestly: ‘Mummy, will it have a head?’
When my son Humphrey showed any interest in my stomach, I would say proudly ‘Mummy’s got two babies in her tummy.’ One day, as I was continuing to reinforce the message, he stuck out his stomach and said ‘Humphrey’s got two babies in there, too.’
I have to say that Humphrey’s reaction was a little better than four-year-old Jake, the elder sibling of non-identical twin girls in Lewisham, south-east London. When Jake was taken along with his mother and father to the 12-week scan to share in the excitement of his new brother or sister, there were even more tears. ‘It soon became obvious that the scanner