I always wanted to have children. We had tried on many occasions but had not had any success. It seemed like it was not going to be part of our life at all and I was just about accepting this. I could continue to run or we could go travelling or move house. It was all in hand surely.
Yet another pregnancy test. Yet another failure. Ah well we have tried again. Maybe it is time to give it a break and decide will we adopt. It would take years but at least we will have a child at the end of it even if that child will bear no resemblance to ourselves.
My wife went into the bathroom once more.
“I see a faded line, do I?” she said.
Oh don’t let her be saying this. Just let her accept it hasn’t worked.
“Come here, have a look”.
My eyesight is terrible though so she couldn’t have asked a worse person.
“Do you see anything?”
Even if I did I couldn’t. Why is she asking me this now? It must be just one final moment before we accept what our next step has to be. I looked at the line. The line. There was a crease but maybe this was the line that goes pink when you are pregnant but it certainly didn’t look pink to me.
“Just throw it away” I told her “It is just the line, it’s no colour, this has happened before so what’s different now? We’ll get over it.”
“Ok”
I didn’t expect her to say that.
“Maybe we leave it on the bath there and check in a few minutes.”
So we left the bathroom.
“I really thought I saw something” she told me.
I couldn’t see anything but then again I’m blind as a bat.
A few minutes later she called me again. “It’s definitely pink, but a light pink”
I went in and looked. It was. But maybe they all go pink after a few minutes of inactivity. So we checked the box and it seemed to confirm something like this.
“This has never happened to us before” I was told, so we checked the net.
Indeed a faded line could mean that you are pregnant. This is the best we have ever done. All those years of trying, nothing different and yet a faded pink line this time. Could it be?
She went to the doctor a week later. I waited for the text. Nothing.
It’s bad news. Aw well as I said before we are well used to this by now. Then all of a sudden BEEP! BEEP!
Oh my God. I was afraid to look at it. I left the mobile on the table and stared at it for a little while then pushed the middle button.
“Doctor says I’m pregnant but to come back in a week for another check up”. I was taken aback and wanted to tell somebody but you tell nobody.
I only had to wait until I went home from work and we could talk it over. I remember her telling me it was something to do with the blood being tested to see if you were pregnant. Yes , men, we really have no idea.
Ok so I got home and opened the door.
My wife had a smile on her face but she has lots of different smiles. This wasn’t the smile you have when you watch a comedy on TV or the smile you have when somebody is taking a photo of you. No, this smile was like somebody had given her a box of chocolate but told her they were her last food ever.
The main part of the conversation revolved around what ifs. What if I’m not pregnant? What if the doctor did something wrong and we are getting our hopes up again? What if there is something wrong with the baby inside of me? What if I have to get injections and take lots of tablets and the baby dies before the first trimester is up?
“Stop! Stop it.” I said. “We cannot be thinking of things that haven’t happened hoping they won’t.”
“We need to try to think of things we hope will happen that might.”
Yes my wife looked at me puzzled but somewhere in there was actually some sense and it did seem to calm her for a few minutes before the next lot of worries. You see the two of us naturally are worriers and this was bugging me as much as her but as the male you can’t really express your own worries or they would cause an explosion altogether. A lot of the time I would pretend that it was all in control.
And so we worried for the next week and she went to the doctor. That day I got home.
“Yes I am pregnant” she said.
I was gobsmacked but delighted. I knew we might be but thought something would go wrong.
We celebrated that night but then more worries. I was told by my wife that there was a big chance of her bleeding very badly during labour. Now this was a long way away but it got at me a lot. She also warned me that a lot of women miscarriage in the first trimester. I hadn’t known that either. It was getting very stressful for both of us.
About five weeks in we had to go to the doctor for an early scan and to test things were OK with all the risks from a mature woman being pregnant.
I went with her this time.
What we were told next changed everything. It added to the panic whereas I thought that the trip here would only reduce it. I thought doctors were supposed to be a help.
“It’s twins”.
Now when I heard this the next word I uttered cannot be explained but this is what I said. Well when you are hit with an unexpected ton of bricks what do you say? Well here is what I said.
“Great!”
The doctor looked at me with a look of, you fool, do you know what it is like to have even ONE child?
Well it was great. Great in that there were two. The way I looked at it and this is terrible, forgive me dear wife if you read this, if one of them were to die in the womb there would still be a chance that the other one would survive.
Isn’t that awful? However, for the first 12 weeks this is what I was thinking. My wife was looking up all sorts of information on the net about how bleeding was common but in a lot of cases fatal. Oh sometimes I wish we didn’t have the internet. Of course after that my wife did bleed and pretty badly over the Christmas when everything was closed but the hospital did see us and scanned us and assured us that both babies had a heartbeat and that all was OK.
After this my wife went home to bed and puked for four solid weeks. Every minute was like an hour and every hour was like a day.
This time passed too. eventually. We made it to the second trimester and I drew up a chart of the months left predicting what date we would actually have the babies. According to the dreaded net the average time it takes for twins to be born is 37 weeks. If they are born any earlier than this there is the chance of complications both mentally and physically. More worries. Could we take any more of this?
We had some time to ourselves where we could go for walks in the park with the bump and go to different friends’ houses and get photos taken of the bump. We enjoyed feeling the bump jump while we watched telly, stronger every day. Then as we got into the due month I realised that the day I had predicted for the birth was just three weeks away, we were quickly running out of time and that the bump was a hill.
The weeks seemed to go by quickly at this stage but as we got nearer we both started to stress that we may have to wait a couple of more weeks and that there would be complications in taking the babies out or that they may be in the wrong positions for birth.
I was praying a lot in these days now. Praying that the birth would be comfortable, that both babies would be as healthy as could be and most of all that my wife would be OK. I was still thinking of the bleeding thing she had told me about.
The waters broke at 4-30am on Saturday morning and we went to the hospital. Strangely for a man this is one of the most things you think about a lot when your wife is pregnant. I got her into her side of the car and me into mine. I drove as slowly and carefully as I ever have making sure I went the route I had planned in my mind.
“Hurry up!” she said.
My wife never says that when I drive so I did. We got there. It was dry for once and the car-park was empty at this hour of the morning.
We went in and she was kept in. I went in and out of the shop getting 7up and mints for her. I drank water most of the time. I went home too and came back later and then came back the next day as she was still there. How long was this going to take?
Labour day was relentless. 10 hours but full dilation was not achieved so lots of doctors came into the room at 8pm and did lots of whispering. My wife was exasperated at this stage and emotional too quite understandably. She thought she might not make it.
C-Section. That’s what they were whispering. I don’t know why it took so long. My wife was taken away from me and I was a bit all over the place, to be honest. Then I was told it would be okay and that I could go to the operating theatre when the babies were born so long as I wore scrubs.
I waited outside for what seemed like ages. When I was called in my wife was lying there and there was people cutting her under a sheet but I didn’t look. It was like they were doing an exam at school and didn’t want you to copy.
I held my wife’s hand. Silence and whispering. Waah! Waah! I was handed a baby girl all wet and goo and had to show it to my weak looking wife. She was pale now. Then they took the baby away. Waah! Waah! A boy all wet and goo showed it too my wife, paler than ever.
I was told to leave. She was bleeding heavily. I might have to do this alone I dreaded. I was brought down the hospital and my babies were left with me in their small cribs and blankets wrapped around their pink heads. They were beautiful. I was in a surreal place. I was sitting in the maternity nursery with eight newborns crying around me wondering if my wife was still alive.
Four hours later I got to see her and she was yellow and a bit white. The doctor told me she had lost a lot of blood but she would be alright and that she was a strong girl. I believed him. He seemed to know what he was at and you just had to trust him.
Uninterrupted sleep is not allowed anymore but for all the smiles and joy every day brings it has been more than worth the rocky ride. I always wanted a child but two? Twincredible!
