This is a guest blog from Katy, who is mum to six-year-old twin boys Noah and Bailey and expecting another set of twin boys with husband Ross.
It has taken me until their sixth birthday, but I can now officially tell my twin boys what Mummy’s super hero power is: super ovulation.
Not sure ovaries are much in demand as a costume logo, but I could sew some onto my jumpsuit and give ‘Me Three’ a super hero makeover? Yup, Me Three, that’s me and the second set of twins to board the Ark that is my womb.
I’m surprised how often I am asked whether IVF was involved in my two-by-two pregnancies. It seems a far more personal question that people casually imply, but no – to satisfy curiosity – it was not.
Apparently I am a ‘super ovulator’ and release more than one egg each month, which makes multiples more likely than singletons with each pregnancy.
I co-wrote Twins with Dr Carol Cooper after the birth of my first set, when I realised that us multiple mums were less well catered for than singletons. There were a few scary high-risk pages in the otherwise optimistic pregnancy books, and I am proud to have written the book I wished existed, but I hadn’t banked on needing to dust off a copy for myself a few years later!
Motherhood is life-changing however many babies you carry in your bump, but being a Multiple Mum is a unique parenting journey. I have a rose-tinted list of one-baby motherhood experiences that I will never get to experience: breastfeeding discreetly in a coffee shop, or losing myself totally in the day-by-day miracles of one shiny new little person. What is life like as a Multiple Multiple Mum? I don’t know yet! Cake and caffeine fuelled I reckon.
A 4D scan of my twins with my current pregnancy.
Me and my boys.
Little Noah and Bailey…about to go through it all again.
They’re so cool
What great smiles from my little boys
I know the second twin pregnancy is harder than the first, that my body is tired from being an ovulation-over-achiever, and it definitely grumbles a bit more than it did first time round. I know seeing two babies on a scan second time around feels just as magic as it did before. Extra magic in glorious 4D too.
I know with two six year olds I cannot pace myself as much as my bump and body ask me to, but I also know I am more prepared for the newborn chapter; those early twin daze when you don’t know what time of day or night it is or what breast you fed a small person from last.
Round two will still be intense and sleep deprived, just as it was before (with the added fun of school runs and two other big but still little people who need me), but this time round I’ll know what people mean when they say how brief the teeny tiny baby stage is.
I’ll know to trust my maternal instinct and cut myself some slack – and I’ll know how to change a nappy! Best of all I know this time round I have a supportive, loving and wonderful husband and won’t be bracing myself for another dose of life as a single mum.
I have always been outnumbered by my babies on the big day of their birth, but there are no half measures in my love for them. Nor will there be any half measures in the love the big twins feel for their little half brothers. Our modern multiple blended family will be full of chaos and love, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.