New Here

[Montessortof]

Hi all,

I thought I would come and introduce myself. I just found out two days ago that I am pregnant with twins! We did IVF, so I knew it was a strong possibility, but finding out is such a shock anyway. I'm overcome with excitement and fears right now -- Will everything be okay with the pregnancy? Will I have to have a C-section? Is my career effectively over? How am I going to stay sane while taking care of two babies and my older son (he'll be just turning 4 when the babies come)? What should I name them? But mostly I'm just happy that I finally managed to get pregnant.

Anyway, I'm hoping to hang out here and learn from all of your wisdom!

[Red Pajama]

Welcome!

Do a lot of reading.  Twins can be more complicated as far as pregnancy goes. Some do have C-sections. If your first birth was a vaginal delivery, you may be in a better place to have one again.

The book "When you're expecting Twins, Triplets, or Quads" by Dr. Babara Luke worked for me. Some don't like it, but I thought the nutrition info and REST admonishment were spot on. She also assumes one can breastfeed twins, which is a welcome attitude.

You may decide to be home for awhile after the twins are born. For us, we realized that one whole salary would go to daycare for two. For us, it made no sense to have both parents working, so husband stayed home first year after my maternity leave, and finished his masters, and I stayed home after that. If your income will survive paying for twin daycare, you will see the situation quite differently.

As for what to name them, there's lots of fun out there. I liked a book called "Xena, Puffy, and Quinten" or similar. There's also the social security name database, that lets you see trends in baby names and see the rank of popularity of certain names.

[twinpossible]

Welcome to the group!

Twins are exciting and such a blessing but my house can be summed up in one word...LOUD! :)

I agree with the above post, do some reading. Creating a sense of normalcy made me function. As for your career I also agree with the above post. If we did daycare it would eat up one whole salary! Also, I hate daycare! I worked too hard to throw away my career (I am a Professor) so I cut down my classes to a manageable load and only go to work 3 days a week for a couple hours to teach. We hired a former college student of mine to come to our house to watch the girls, we pay her a flat monthly salary that seemed fair to everyone and gave her free access to the fridge. I still consider myself a SAHM, after all I am here for 21 hours out of a day! Maybe you can work out something like what I described with your profession.

Now staying home all day is another matter entirely! Sometimes my sanity is on the line :) I would make sure you have a support network, we go to a local Managing Multiples group which helps a lot. I also have my nanny come over every once in a while to play with the girls while I do housework.

Congrats momma! Enjoy this time of preparation!

[mylilmonkeys]

Congratulations and welcome!

[Montessortof]

Thanks for the warm welcome, everyone!

I think there's no point in worrying about the delivery now. Things will be clearer as everything progresses. I did give birth to my son vaginally, just barely. I was induced at 41 weeks because my doctor wouldn't let me go any longer and the he measured huge on the ultrasound. Sure enough, I could barely push him out (had an episiotomy) and he turned out to be 9.5 lbs with a head circumference above the 90th percentile. And then I had a post-partum hemorrhage, which could have been from the Pitocin or could have been just from having a ginormous baby in there. So I'm sure they will be worried about me hemorrhaging again with double the amount of baby. That might point toward an earlier scheduled c-section, but we'll see what they say.

As for childcare issues, day care for three kids would cost slightly more than my take-home pay. But even if I did decide to stay home, we couldn't take my son out of the pre-school he loves so much, so then we'd lose my income plus still have to pay day care for one kid. He's in a Montessori school, and we're really committed to completing the three-year Primary cycle if at all possible. Twinpossible, coincidentally, I'm also a professor. But I'm at the pre-tenure-track stage where I just have one-year or two-year contracts, which means I haven't "made it" yet and might end up pushed out anyway. Oh, and I don't get maternity leave. It's just so frustrating to think about.

[twinpossible]

You don't have maternity leave? How horrible! I am pre-tenure as well with 2 year contracts but I am full time so we have benefits. I cannot believe employers are still not giving maternity leave. What do you teach? Maybe my subject is the reason I am so well treated, I teach American Sign Language. It is hard to find people with the right balance of education and experience in my field so being "pushed out" is not a possibility.

Maybe a nanny could help with pick up and drop off of your son and watch the twins. I love having the nanny come to our home, we live in university housing so the kids are close to my classroom. Also, the girls have all their toys and receive individual attention. That is one of the lovely parts of a university culture, our nanny is a child dev. major and lives down the street. I guess what I am saying is that it is possible to keep our career with twins :)