No one can plan their life and their kids to a tee, I don’t know why I thought I’d be different.
Did you always know how many kids you wanted? I don’t think I ever thought about it that much. Until a very clear moment, about an hour after having my second baby – when a switch flicked inside of me. All of a sudden, I knew I needed a third baby. We were meant to have three children.
I told my husband about my revelation. He wasn’t too convinced. But as the months went on, I couldn’t let it go. I nagged and obsessed and read up on the logistics of having three kids. Could we handle it? Could we afford it? Would we need a new car? I went over the details and figures until I made them work in favour of the third child. I’m a bit obsessive like that. Happily, I reported back to him that we could handle the addition. ‘We won’t even need a new car!’ I proclaimed. ‘Three seats can go in the back!’
Eventually I got my way and was up the duff for a third time. I was ecstatic. To my surprise, a bump appeared quite quickly, at around 9 weeks. This was weird, as it took months to show with my first two pregnancies. I put it down to the third-pregnancy thing. My stomach muscles were lax, I was out of shape. Maybe the baby was sitting differently. Even my doctor agreed.
Even so, I googled 'twin pregnancy'. I'd heard that showing early was a symptom. But apparently, so was excessive morning sickness. I had barely any of this. And we had no twins in either of our families. I breathed a sigh of relief and put the suspicions to rest. I mean, twins sounded fun in theory, but no way could I handle two babies with two other small children in tow. The thought of trying to get two babies to sleep (it's the thing I'm worst at) sent me into shudders.
When our 12 week scan date finally arrived, I was chomping at the bit to meet our baby for the first time. I lay back on the bed, bared my tummy for the sonographer and squinted at the screen above us, waiting to catch the first image of our baby and signs of the heartbeat. As usual, all I saw was a blob. I stared, looking for a flicker, while the sonographer seemed to pause.
