A Mother of Multiples

I never really thought that I would be a mother of multiples. I have a small amount of family history with twins. My maternal grandmother was one, but her and her twin were children 11-12. Since the incidence of twining goes up as a woman ages, I wasn't holding my breath that I would have any.

When I realized that we would have to do IVF to have more children, having multiples became a real possiblilty. Even knowing that, it was quite a shock when we were told that we were pregnant with triplets. At first I didn't believe it, but I quickly moved to excitement and a little fear (Jason mostly just stayed shocked.). Although I only knew I was pregnant with triplets for 13 weeks (and everything was normal for only 7 weeks), that was more than enough time to figure out how much that my life was about to change. As I have stated here before, I am a planner, and life with triplets takes a lot of planning. How would we feed all three? How would we move them around? We knew that we had a pair of identicals. I had started thinking about how and if I would be able to tell them apart. I picked out cribs and car seats after I reached the 12 week mark. After we found out that we were having three boys, I thought about how it would be to have a houseful of boys.

When I lost the boys, I lost three children first and foremost. They were three individual children. But, I also lost the experience of triplets. It was not something that I had seeked out, but it had already become part of my identity, part of how I see myself. I am still a mother of triplets, but most people will never know.

When we attempted to get pregnant again, I had mixed feeling about having another set of multiples. Part of me wanted a normal, healthy, full-term singleton. Another part of me wanted another set of multiples. I felt that my body had failed me when carrying the boys and I wanted another chance to prove to myself that I could handle it (I will say more about this in another post). This part of me also wanted to physically belong to a culture that I already felt emotionally tied to.

Although the twins have made me a mother of another set of multiples, I have found is a means to constantly remind me of the boys as well. Often when we come to decisions about the girls, I often ask myself how I would have handled it with three instead. When we are out with the girls, we often draw a lot of questions. Some have looked at our stroll end asked if we have two or three babies. Then we get asked if they are identical or not. It is sometimes answering these questions knowing that they will probably never know that I have three other children and that I have identicals and fratenals. It sound silly I know. Most of them are strangers. Why would I care? I just find it strange that people I meet don't see this big piece of me.

I try to remind myself that I have been greatly blessed. I am blessed to have carryed three little boys, and I am blessed to be raising three children. It is far more than some people get, and far more than I deserve.