Izzy Biz and Doodle are thick as thieves. Of course they are. They spend almost every minute of every day together, separated occasionally when we remember that it’s important, and mostly, they love that time. They get ratty with each other, obviously, and they wind each other up, the giggling and the hysteria drive me absolutely bonkers but when they snuggle up together, Izzy’s hand on Doodle’s knee, Doodle’s head on Izzy’s shoulder, you cannot imagine them ever not being this close.
I was lucky enough to grow up with sisters and I was clear that I wanted the same for them. People would patronisingly explain that they had each other, but I didn’t mean that, I meant the experience of a younger sibling, I had a picture in my head of one of my big girls cuddling a baby, a gaggle of kids running ahead of us as we walked to the park. The idea of the twins and no more was not at all what I had pictured for my family.
I didn’t factor in fourteen months of trying to conceive said third baby but that is another story for another day. When I did the pregnancy test and it was positive, I was delighted, J was his usual nonchalant self and we didn’t say a thing to the girls before we had had a scan and all was well. Doodle wondered if the baby might be a horse instead and Izzy still wonders if she can have a brother. But they are excited largely and their understanding is growing as to what might actually be about to happen.
But then I worry. Worry that the new little one will be left out, will be excluded either because there is a four year gap between them or because they are twins. Worry that the little one will be lonely with her big sisters at school, just hanging out with me, doing all the things that I did with the girls but by herself. Is this a twin mum thing? At the moment, I can’t imagine babies coming as one, just one baby, how is this possible? I’m imagining a relationship with one baby that I simply didn’t have with the girls, able to have a cuddle because I, or she, wants one not because I have to console a screaming baby or she wants feeding or winding or rocking to sleep.
The girls will be our focus after she is born. She will require a level of looking after that is physical, to be fed and changed and cuddled but emotionally, the girls are going to be the priority. Three weeks after she’d born, my parents are taking them on holiday and I’m delighted that they are going, it’ll be just what they need and the timing should be spot on, long enough after she’s born that they won’t feel as if they’re being sent away and exactly when they’ll need that one-on-two attention.
A third baby (or second in most cases) is a curious and unusual thing.
Fairy Lights and Fear 