Twins.

(note: Weird. I just noticed I had accidentally hit "publish" instead of "save as draft" when I only had written the title. I had gotten distracted ~gasp~ and I was going to come back in a few minutes to continue writing it. And what do I see? "Twin" blank posts had published, purely an coincidental accident.)

Is it just me or is the world being inundated with twins lately?

On the pregnancy message board I was on during my pregnancy (PAIF - pregnancy after infertility), I think the girls pregnant with singletons were the minority. Most had twins and then there were a small handful of triplets; most conceived via IVF and I believe the triplets were IUIs - again, just pointing out most HOM (high order multiples) are from the riskier (for HOMs) IUIs.

What is the attraction of having twins? I can't tell you how many women I saw on the first trimester boards were just convinced they were having twins and actually really disappointed when they found they were "only" having a singleton. (Another funny thing I see with first time preggos is most all of them think "I have a feeling this baby is going to come early." hehe. Yeah, that's why the statistics show most first time babies come after their due date.) And then there is the ART (assisted reproductive technology) mommies, who go into their pregnancies assuming/hoping for twins even more because of the multiples rates are higher. Some of these mommies are even more surprised when they don't find multiple babies in their bellies.

While I think twins are a wonderful gift and I can see how they could be hoped for even more in some circumstances (ie: a women can only conceive via IVF and with having to pay out of pocket for the procedure, a "two-fer" would be extra awesome), I would never hope for a twin pregnancy. Why? Because they are hard, scary, dangerous and risky. I'm not going to go into the specifics and technicalities of the risks and dangers, I'm sure you all know a twin mom who lost one of both of their babies. Those stories are burned into my brain because it's just so damned heart wrenching.

And then there is the big thing about after the pregnancy - if both babies make it through delivery, you have ~two~ babies to care for! Ack! Although ... I do believe having two kids close together are even harder to care for than twins. So in that aspect, having twins would have been "better" for me. One of my best friends have twins. Shortly thereafter, I had babies close together (15 months apart). While I think having twins is ridiculously hard, I really think having two babies close together are even harder. Why? Because when you have twins, while you have to do twice the amount of work and it's hard for both babies to be on the same schedule, with kids close together you are not only doing double the work, but the work is completely different.

I watched my friend trying to feed both babies at the same time. But then she watched me trying to feed a newborn and then cooking a meal and feeding it to the toddler. I watched her catch a break when both babies were content and laying on their activity mat happily. But then she watched me not being able to take a break even with both kids happy because even in the content moments, the newborn had to be protected constantly from the toddler. Ella wasn't an unruly child, she was simply too young to know to be careful around Allison. I couldn't leave the baby happily sitting in her swing alone with Ella while I ran to the bathroom. The work was more constant and literally never ending. So I will say that given the choice in regards to how hard it was, I'd rather have twins than two kids close together. Saying all that, could you imagine how hard Sugar & Ice has it? She's got a toddler AND newborn twins. Oy vey!

Whoa. Sorry to get a little off topic there.

I want to make it very clear I am ~not~ speaking negatively about anyone who has twins (or the twins themselves). I'll admit that I'm jealous of twin mommies because twins are, for the record, so damned cute!!! But they are a lot of work comparatively speaking to a singleton and the pregnancies are so dangerous and so risky and most are so hard at the end. I am only speaking to the question in my mind of not understanding why so many women hope and pray to be pregnant with twins. It's a blessing and a gift to get, yes, but it's not something I ever put on my wish list. I guess it makes me a little sad when a mommy is disappointed in their singleton when they were secretly or openly hoping for twin heartbeats at that first appointment. While twins are incredibly cool and get a lot of attention, a singleton is pretty damned incredibly cool too.