Two sets of twins 

What are the odds of that?  We get asked that question over and over.  Ann Barrows, author of “The Magic Half“ – a children’s book featuring two sets of twins, has  compiled some interesting twin statistics, including the odds of having two sets of twins — which she puts at 1 in 50,000.
Two Sets of Twins 2
After we had our twin boys, I was amazed at how many people asked me, “Are you done then?”  My answer was almost always “yes”, although in truth, I wasn’t so sure. My husband and I had talked occasionally about having another child, maybe a girl at some point in the future.  The thing was, we really didn’t think it was possible to have more kids.  We thought maybe we would adopt a little girl once our boys were a little bit older.

You see, we’d had so much trouble getting pregnant with our boys — we’d been told it was virtually impossible for us to get pregnant “on our own”. 

After we were married, we thought we’d wait a year and then try to get pregnant.  We were “older” when we married (32), but we thought there was still plenty of time to get pregnant. Wrong.

For years I had struggled with undiagnosed endometriosis. I had lower abdominal pain every day. I had been to many different kinds of doctors and specialists. Their conclusion? I had IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), and my symptoms were just something I would have to live with.  It wasn’t until we tried to get pregnant did we start down a path that would reveal my “IBS” was really endometriosis. Looking back on it, it is unbelievable to me that all the doctors and specialists I had seen did not think of Endometriosis as a possibility. Now that I know the symptoms of endometriosis, it is so very clear to me that it was an exact fit to all my complaints. Why didn’t they see it?

Endometriosis is a painful, fertility stealing disease. For those of you that don’t know, it is where the tissue that normally lines the uterus is found in places outside the uterus. This tissue reacts to your monthly hormonal changes which leads to internal scarring. In my case, I had adhesions on my ovaries making them incapable of ovulation. Unfortunately, we didn’t learn this immediately.

Infertility — it’s a series of incremental losses.  We struggled with infertility for years.  We started out in ”the normal way” trying to get pregnant. But, after a year with no luck, we sought answers.  Fertility specialists often begin with a “let’s try this” approach. Each “let’s try this” step took months, stretching into years of unexplained infertility. Finally leading to the discovery that I had endometriosis.  I won’t dive into the details of that painful time. If you’ve experienced infertility — you know. But after many different types of treatments and procedures, we were very blessed with our twin boys.

So, when people asked if we were “done”, naturally we said “yes”.  But since we thought we couldn’t get pregnant, we didn’t take any precautions against it. And when our boys were only 18 months old, it was quite a shock to discover we were expecting. We thought there was no way we could get pregnant, and yet, we were!

As I was heading into the room with the ultrasound technician, I said, “I just hope it’s not twins.” She looked at me and said, “Why, do they run your family?” And I said, “No. But I already have a set of IVF twins.” Then, as she was taking her first look, she suddenly sucked in her breath and said, “Oh my God!” 

It is amazing how many thoughts can run through your mind in a split second. All the imagined dangers, the possibilities of what could go wrong. And my concluding thought was that she would not have exclaimed out loud if there was a real problem with the pregnancy. And therefore, it must be twins. “It’s twins, isn’t it?”, I said. She turned the monitor towards me and said, “yes, let me just check to make sure there isn’t another one!”

When I came home, I entered my husbands home office looking white as a ghost. He quickly said, “Oh, honey… what is it?” thinking that there was a problem with the pregnancy.  I handed him the ultrasound picture without a word.  He knew what he was seeing… because when you have twins, they do many more ultrasounds than they do for a singleton pregnancy.  He had seen dozens of pictures with two little embryos. He quickly scanned the image, looking at the text in the corner for the date.  He thought I was trying to pull a prank on him! But, no. We were indeed pregnant with a second set of twins.

As we told people about it, many people said, “At least you know what to expect!”  Our response was always, “Yes. Think about it. Now we know what to expect and we’re scared!” But God wouldn’t do that to us without also giving us the blessing of my wonderful mother. She has been there for us every step of the way. Saint Bev.

Now when people ask if we’re done, we can say with confidence, “Yes. We’re done.” Because we’ve taken precautions. When I had my C-Section with the girls, I also had them do a tubal ligation. No more surprises for us.

So… my little lesson is this: If you think you can’t get pregnant again because  you had so much fertility help… think again. Be sure to take precautions – unless, like us, you would be overjoyed at the idea of a second set of twins.

Copyright 2009 – twinParenthood.com / Kathryn Whiteley