Twins, Triplets: What's One More?

I just spent a lovely evening with my best friend, looking after her sister's five-month-old twins. One boy, one girl. Perfect. One shot and bam! - instant family.

I'm sure every reader who has twins or multiples is saying "oh god it's not that simple". And no, just having to change the boy's diaper while keeping an eye on the girl while my friend was in the washroom - I cannot imagine what it would be like to raise two babies at once. Two times the madness... but two times the love as well. Even two nipples ain't going to make the job that easy.

The babies are so different from each other. Physically, the girl looks like mum and the boy looks like dad. The boy giggles and smiles and dances and the girl is low-key, relaxed, a little less emotive and holy crap she's pudgy! They were actually a C-section just because the girl was almost 3 pounds bigger than the boy in the womb, and stealing all his nutrients. Hopefully (or not), she'll grow into her cheeks.

It made me think about the odds when couples are TTC. With the hormones, the potential meds, the clinical aspect, cleaning sperm so only the goodies can swim, making it the perfect place for conception. A lot of the moms I've read blog of have multiples. Does anyone know what the stats are? For any fertility treatments? IVF? Good ol' shoot 'em up turkey baster style?

Makes me think that the odds would be higher when I try to conceive. Can a woman who struggles with mental health, low energy, and pain really take care of two babies, let alone one? But the cards will fall where they fall, and I imagine that if it were meant to be that I somehow conceived twins or triplets, I'd just have to fucking figure it out like everyone else who is in the same boat does.

These twins tonight were so good and well behaved. The boy cried for about 30 seconds after I put him to bed. Everything was so easy... and then I thought about the other 21 hours of the day. What does mum have to go through to keep herself sane?

That's when I'm grateful I would have a supportive family nearby if I am going to have a baby. I don't know whether I could go forward on this journey without my mum around. I just wish she hadn't recently moved a ferry ride away.

Oh well, there's time. Perhaps too much time. Especially as I set the clock back tonight.

Preggo with a capital EGO

I've been spending more time than usual with one of my best friends. I don't know if it's just pure circumstance, or because she's pregnant and her husband is sick of hearing about it and/or she just wants to talk and talk and talk about it, and I happen to be around.

We've been friends since we were fourteen, and she's stayed with me through my crazy days, visiting me in psych wards religiously and just generally keeping an eye out for me when my eyes were full of pain. She's a great woman, wonderful at her job (social work with families) and I am genuinely happy for her. She and her husband are fabulous, and they're going to be amazing parents.

But here's the thing: since she made the announcement, nothing else in the world matters. And I completely understand that being pregnant - especially for the first time - is one of the most exciting things in the world, but there's a line, and I think she's crossed it.

She was barely three months pregnant when we had a particular dinner, which was interrupted every ten minutes because "the baby is pushing on my bladder". After said meal, she took my hand and put it on the top of her stomach, just underneath her breasts, saying that her baby makes this area feel harder after she eats. Now, if I'm not mistaken, a fetus at 12 weeks is about 2 inches, or the size of a small plum:

  

If you want to see it inside of you, in relation to all the girlie parts around it, according to BabyCenter, this is what a 12 week fetus looks like:

Is that really anywhere near her breasts? Not so much...

Now, I'm not saying that this size is not significant. This is the kind of thing Pro Life activists use to keep people from having abortions. This is a living creature growing inside of you, and it's an amazing thing.

Because she won't stop talking about it, and because I'm curious and can't wait to feel it myself, I ask her, "Can you feel it?" And she replies, "well, no; not yet... but I hear I'm going to feel butterflies soon."

I love her to pieces, I really do. But out of all of my friends, she is the one that knows how badly I want to get pregnant, and by no means am I asking her to hold back her excitement because I'm not where she is... but I wake up every morning to a text from her about a dream she had about a baby, or log into Facebook where she has already posted a "belly pic" profile shot (none of her friends have the guts to tell her that HER gut might just be a "generous" gut, without the baby's help) and is endlessly posting status updates about how her baby is doing today.

It took her and her husband two months of trying before she got pregnant, and they were "so worried" that they'd never be able to conceive, considering "it took that long". I have no idea what it's going to be like when my partner and I are trying to conceive with frozen sperm and a bunch of towels under my ass, getting injected by near-strangers in a clinic, staring at the ceiling and hoping one of the anonymous sperms is a good swimmer. Will it take 2 months? 2 years? Will it happen at all? Will I turn to her then? I don't know...

So while I'm ecstatic for her and her little plum, it's tough to listen to her go on and on about it. She gets to do this, and so far, she gets to do this so easily. I get that I'm jealous of her and I understand that it's okay to be, especially when I *am* happy for her deep down, but I don't know how many more coffee dates or walks we can take where I take a backseat and listen to how her life is evolving right in front of her - literally - while I feel as though I'm as frozen in the process as the frozen sperm that's potentially going to be involved in the conception of my (hopefully) future child.

I'm at the age where a lot of my friends are getting pregnant and having babies. It's tough and it's beautiful and it's inspiring and fucking frustrating. I can't make my breeding friends stop (and why would I try?) and at this point, I can't get my partner to move forward with our plan - because we lost our plan - so I feel as though I'm in limbo, surfing around in some sticky muck that may look a little like amniotic fluid, but with none of the nourishment or protection.

Empty.