An Admission

Rewind seven weeks to a fancy boutique hotel in Salvador, Brazil. The sun is streaming into the bedroom, and I eagerly jump out of bed leaving the Boy sleeping on the morning of our second anniversary.

I head straight over to my suitcase, unzip the section where I keep my odds and sods that I want to access quickly, grab the stick, and rush into the bathroom. Seconds later, I am have a huge grin on my face and I am in shock, as two thick purple lines appear, bold and brass. I'm pregnant again.

We've kept it quiet as far as possible, though I seem to have a penchant for spilling the beans to Mexicans. Well, they keep trying to do things to jeopardise the pregnancy, i.e. climb up ladders and eat rare meat. Anyway, that's another story.

Flash back to the day we arrived back to the horror show that was our apartment after our holiday, and there was a slight omission to the story. Upon landing at JFK airport, I started bleeding. I was distraught and crying my eyes out when the cleaner came into the toilets.

Cleaner: 'What's wrong?'
Me: 'I think I'm having a miscarriage.'
Cleaner: 'But how do you... Oh, because you've had one before.'

We rush out of our apartment and straight to my OBGYN's office. She doesn't work at the weekends, and so we go to the other branch, which is more manic. I only come here when I have problems. The results of this first scan are inconclusive. A gestational sac, a yolk sac, but no baby because it's too early. We are sent away and told to come back in a week's time.

The last few weeks have gone by painstakingly slowly. I thought I was having a meltdown at one point, but fortunately, acknowledged it and made a conscious decision to stop Googling miscarriages. That's the trouble with miscarriage; it strips you of any innocence associated with pregnancy.

Two more ultrasounds go by, one at seven weeks and one at nine weeks. I am relieved both times that there's a heartbeat. 'It's not dead! It's not dead!' The relief is incredible.

Yesterday, at 11 weeks, I go to get my non-invasive tests done. Apparently, from 10 weeks onwards you have enough of your baby's DNA floating about in your body to calculate your risk for carrying a baby with genetic mutations. Isn't that crazy?

I bowl on down, Dr K is her usually chatty self, and we get down to it. I always hold my breath before I see the heartbeat on the screen. 'Thank goodness. It's there.' The baby has proper thrashy legs and is moving about like it's being tickled.

THEN...

Dr K: 'Oh my goodness...' She grabs my arm.
Me: 'Oh what is it? Can you tell that's it a boy?' (I ask this because obviously it's easier to tell that it's a boy than a girl, but am surprised, as it would still be early.)
Dr K: 'No. There's another one. I can't believe I missed it before.'

And that's that. I am carrying twins and potentially the future mother of fraternal twins.

At this point I want to point out that fraternal twins is hereditary on the mother's side (no twins in my family at all), it's least common amongst Asians and most common in women over 5 ft 6, and more prevalent in women over 35, Amongst Chinese women the odds are 1 in 300 births.

You are now caught up to speed. Oh, but maybe be incredulous for 24 hours and then you might be where I am.