When we first found out that my wife Helen was expecting twins, my initial reaction, after the swearing had stopped, was to ask her who the father of the other one was. Here I was; a man of very little experience of babies and children; already wondering what the hell I was letting myself in for, and I find out that there’s going to be two of the little buggers. You don’t really know what to think. I didn’t know what having one was like, so two at once?!
The pregnancy wasn’t easy: There was lots of terrible morning sickness, the odd faint, and the final month before they were born was spent in residence in hospital due to the potentially fatal pre-eclampsia. But somehow I bravely managed to see it through. My wife Helen, however, seemed to find constant vomiting, becoming the size of a small family car and lying around in bed for a month a bit of a trial. Some people do make such a fuss about things.
When the time came at about 33 weeks for the delivery to take place due to Helen’s worsening condition, you’d think that Helen would’ve enjoyed the novelty of a ride in an ambulance, but for some reason she just found something embarrassing about being wheeled around in a bed like an invalid.
So after a nervous wait we received the call to enter the delivery room containing seemingly several dozen medical staff. As things started to go badly, what with Helen throwing up again and generally having rather a rough time, it was decided that the caesarean would need to be conducted under general anaesthetic. I was unceremoniously thrown out so that they could get on with it, and thus lost the chance to video our little miracles being born. And, perhaps more importantly, actually be there in the first place.
So Helen was attended to by a multitude of doctors and nurses, just because she was the one who happened to be giving birth to the children, and I was left to fend for myself on my own. Rather disgruntled, at missing the birth and the England football match which was taking place at the time, I did the only thing I could do under these circumstances of extreme tension and emotion – I sat down and ate my sandwiches. And tried to find out the score.
A little while later a couple of nurses rushed down the corridor pushing an incubator on wheels. Amongst the pile of blankets I saw one flash of hair, but as they whizzed past the nurses informed me that both of my children were in there: I took this as a sign of intelligence – barely even born and yet already playing hide and seek. And that was it for a while. I couldn’t see Helen. I couldn’t see the children. I couldn’t see the football either. All I could do was wait, make the obligatory phone calls to relatives, and go and find mother-in-law to fill her in on developments so far. She failed to reciprocate, however: she had no interest in the football for some reason.
It was a couple of hours later that I was first allowed to visit ‘skaboo’ – the Special Care Baby Unit. This was it. I was going to meet the little people whom I’d had a hand in creating, and would be lumbered with for the next eighteen years or so. What did I expect at the time? I think, if I remember correctly, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of not knowing what to expect. It felt very strange to enter this world of tiny, scrawny little approximations of humans housed in fish tanks. Monty Python’s ‘Machines That Goes Ping’ were working overtime. There were bleeps from all directions every couple of seconds. It was a surreal atmosphere to go with the surreal feelings I was experiencing.
And then there they were. My daughter Katie looking, well, tiny, was all bundled up with a feeding tube in her nose. She had weighed-in at 4lb 4oz. There are much smaller babies who can still make it, but they must be minute. It’s barely believable. And Adam – at 3lb 10oz – looked even more fragile. And to exacerbate the feeling he had a tube in his mouth to help him breathe. I was told that he’d had a bit of a rough time, so they were keeping a very close eye on him as there was a certain level of concern that he might not make it through the night. I can’t honestly say that I was blown away with feelings of love for them at this first meeting. It was more a case of, “So these ones are mine then? Right, OK. Weird.
It was three weeks after that before they were finally allowed home. So these tiny little people were strapped into what seemed like hopelessly over-sized car-seats and unleashed on the outside world. And then the real job began.
At first it seemed like a thankless task. You’re constantly feeding them, changing them, cleaning up after them. And you get nothing for it in return. But there was a moment after a few months when Katie smiled at me. It wasn’t just the contorted face which accompanied a fart or a dump, but a real smile, directed at me. It made everything worthwhile. I can’t describe how it made me feel. This was my little girl – looking at me and smiling. It was magical.
As twins get older you soon realise that you can’t own just one of anything. Whatever one of them has got the other will want it as well. You could have twenty toys laid out, but if Katie had a certain bit of plastic tat, you could guarantee that Adam would desperately need it simultaneously. But just as it can be a disadvantage having twins because they fight over things, it can also be an advantage because they have a playmate constantly at hand. While parents of single children might be constantly pestered for attention, the parents of twins can occasionally receive some respite while they entertain each other. I also think it’s much easier having two at the same time, rather than having another single child a year or two after the first. For example, once they’re out of nappies that’s it. Whereas the process must seem like it goes on forever if another one comes along a couple of years later.
We are obviously still in the minority, so it’s usually a bit of a novelty when you reveal that your children were indeed womb-buddies. You can get some odd comments and questions too. Before the kids were even born we were in a maternity shop and Helen got chatting to another pregnant lady. And this woman’s response to the news that we were expecting twins? “Gosh. That’s brave.” What do you say to that? “Hmm. You’re right, now I come to think about it. Perhaps we should have one terminated?”
Another favourite question following the ‘twin-reveal’ was, “Are they identical?” . Now given that one of them has short, straight hair, whilst the other’s is long and wavy; given that, though evidently siblings, they have very different features; and given that – and this is the real clincher – one is a boy and one is a girl, you’d think the answer would be pretty clear. My children were six in June 2009, and I’m sure I was still occasionally being asked up until about a year ago, it seems as if it’s a reflex action to ask this question, even though one look at them reveals that this is obviously not the case. I would conclude that the person asking the question might be a bit thick, frankly, but for the fact that before I had children, I probably would’ve done exactly the same.
A lot of people think that having twins is a difficult job, but never having had a child before you have nothing to compare it to. You just have to get used to ‘being a parent’. There is no distinction between becoming a parent and becoming a parent of twins. You soon get used to carrying two changes of clothes, two favourite toys, two dummies, 78 nappies, and not being able to get into half of the shops in town because your pushchair is about four feet wide. In fact, it was only on the rare occasion that we took the children out in single, separate pushchairs that we’d suddenly realise how easy this was in comparison to pushing a tank.
All in all, being the father of twins is a joy. It can be hard work sometimes with two children pestering you for this and that, making twice as much noise and mess, and generally beating each other up. But I wouldn’t miss it for the world. My kids mean more than anything else, and I’ll keep making up how to be a Dad to the best of my ability. I don’t think we’re doing too bad with them so far. Oh, and the best news of all? England won.
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