“After I had Ava, I contemplated with my husband about having a second. When I was younger I personally was iffy if I’d even want to have any kids. But the moment I became a mother, I knew it was what I was meant to do and be. When I talked with my family about a second child, we somehow got into the family history about twins. It was somehow mentioned that there was a history of twins running in our family but on the extended side. Out of 9 children my grandparents had on my moms side, and 13 grandchildren — there were no twins. The only closest “twins” we had were Irish twins — babies born a year or less apart. I don’t consider that genetics but simply pure luck. Still, I am pretty sure every woman who finds out they’re pregnant gets anxious at their first ultrasound appointment. I sure do.
After we had our second girl, our life felt complete for my husband and I. The thought of anymore children after Amelia never occurred to us. Even though people would ask us if we’d try for another considering we now had 2 girls, it was never discussed between us. No we weren’t going to try for a boy, or another. Not yet maybe not ever.
Shock. Disbelief. Nervousness. Fear. Those were my initial reactions when I found out I was pregnant, again — Amelia was only 4 months old when we found out and by then I was 8 weeks pregnant. I never even had my period return yet, but apparently the 2 months post-baby is pretty much the most fertile period. We hit the lottery there without even knowing.
I nearly cried as I realized we were going to have a 3 year old and Irish twins. They weren’t happy tears though, but a mixture of the shock and fear. Two little ones so close in age, how were we going to mentally survive this? I get it that raising Irish twin babies are incomparable to actual twins, but we too were going to have 2 under 1 year old which meant: two babies in diapers, two babies still needing as much love and attention from their parents, two babies unable to communicate like my 3 year old.
My husband, the supportive one who helped his mom raise his 4 younger siblings, reassured me things were going to be fine. Fun, exciting, crazy, but we would be fine. He was actually thrilled! Of course after we found out baby number three was going to be another girl, and I had joked with him about trying for a boy later on (much later on because what were the chances I’d have ANOTHER set of Irish twins?!) he shot that idea down real quick.
34 weeks later and this “surprising” pregnancy has been the most difficult for me mentally and physically. I haven’t been able to appreciate the beauty of pregnancy this time around. As my bump continued to get bigger so did Amelia, and physically it’s been draining. Mentally it’s been just as exhausting.
With this pregnancy, I was diagnosed with complete placenta previa since I was 20 weeks pregnant. That means my placenta is covering my cervix and that’s not good when it comes to labor and delivery time because if it’s still covering well, if you didn’t know, the placenta can’t come out first before the baby in a vaginal delivery. Around 28 weeks, I was thrown another scare regarding third baby’s growth. Amelia was born early due to growth restriction — something about my placenta pretty much stopped working with providing the nutrients she needed in utero. On top of the physical stress, I worry all throughout the day if I am about to have a bleed — the number one “symptom” of placenta previa. So far, I’ve been lucky to not have any bleeding. I had two beautiful vaginal deliveries, but this third one will be a c-section making our babe come even earlier than expected (most doctors including mine schedule c-sections earlier than 40 weeks, generally between 36 and 38 weeks, because they don’t want labor to happen with placenta previa) meaning Amelia will be just over 10.5 months old when this third baby arrives.
Caring for a newborn and an infant at the same time scares the hell out of me and here I am trying to prepare my three year old to help me out as much as a three year old can help with caring for her sisters. Even as simple as getting me diapers and throwing the said dirty diaper away after.
I know once my girls are older — much older and not little babies and toddlers — they’ll be so close and have a bond like no other. For now, my husband and I are just going to have to hold on to this crazy rollercoaster ride of parenthood.”
Instagram: @amysoub
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