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Double Trouble: Twins and How to Survive Them
Emma Mahony
This indispensable guide to multiple pregnancy, birth and beyond, comes from an expert on the subject – Emma Mahony is a twin herself as well as being the mother of twins. Humorous cartoons from the Times’ front-page cartoonist make this a lighthearted, informative guide to everything expectant mothers of twins need to know.Twins are amazing – but multiple pregnancy and birth, not to mention coping with twins once they are born, carries a set of special fears, risks and issues. Many parents-to-be find themselves overwhelmed.This guide is informative yet informal – in a similar vein to ‘Best Friends Guide To Pregnancy’.The author is uniquely experienced in this subject, being a twin and also a mother of baby twins.Contains advice from pregnancy and childcare experts as well as case studies.Illustrated inside with humorous cartoons from Jonathan Pugh, father of two and front-page cartoonist at The Times.An exploration of practical issues such as eating for three, managing breastfeeding, and the trend towards Caesareans for NHS twin births.• Any special concerns? The unnecessary label of ‘high risk’ in pregnancy.• Testimonies from mums who have tried different approaches.• Interviews with medical and midwife experts.• A step-by-step guide to the different stages of pregnancy and birth, including how to involve the father and explain twins to other siblings.• Tips on managing once the twins have arrived.




Double Trouble
Twins and How to Survive Them
EMMA MAHONY
(with chapter cartoon illustrations by Jonathan Pugh)




Dedication (#ulink_1dacbd7f-e093-54c9-8197-b407bb26e4f7)
For my twin brother and Olympic hero, Dominic

Contents
Cover (#u7a8b12a3-a0fb-5398-9073-5005de8ca4c4)
Title Page (#ub7f47e9e-c43a-56fa-97f7-c3158e7b3016)
Dedication (#ulink_2cdb1031-ff77-5d4a-97d3-5e6c08dee5f8)
Ten Great Things About Twins (#ucad3e2f9-ed3c-5f76-b636-6d5f0b4c3477)
Introduction (#u4fafc36b-d03d-5037-b2c9-bff6a8623366)
Chapter 1: Twinshock (#u569c7fdb-326a-533e-9b5c-dacc143ed32e)
Chapter 2: What Flavour Are They? (#u6445eb4e-6d1e-541e-8b50-454966928b27)
Chapter 3: Eating and Exercising for Three (#u95976c73-a8fe-5dbc-9abd-953ec26dc8d0)
Chapter 4: I Shop, Therefore I Am (#u96ab2952-20ff-5de2-a372-965ba1938ca8)
Chapter 5: Help! I Need Help! (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6: Positive Prem Baby Talk (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7: Everything You Want to Know about Twin Birth (and Are Too Afraid to Ask) (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8: Ready for D-Day (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9: Happy Birth Days (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10: Congratulations! Congratulations! The Babies Are Here! (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11: The Gentlewomanly Art of Breastfeeding Twins (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12: The Fourth Trimester (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13: Milestones in the First Year (#litres_trial_promo)
References (#litres_trial_promo)
Further Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
Index (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Footnote (#litres_trial_promo)

Ten Great Things About Twins (#ulink_b03ab1ad-6d8f-5eb8-b6e6-14256348e600)
1. You have an instant family – just add milk.
2. If you get fed up with one, you always have the other.
3. Nobody asks you whether you are going to have any more children (for a year, at least).
4. You never feel guilty about getting more help.
5. You get to eat 4,000 calories a day when breastfeeding (that’s a tub of Häagen-Dazs and a pint of Guinness for lunch).
6. Twins start giggling at each other as soon as they can smile.
7. You make proper use of ‘buy one get one free’ offers at the supermarket.
8. You only have one birthday party to organize every year.
9. You become a local celebrity in the park and playground.
10. Your twins will turn out to be more confident, supportive, innovative, substantial, self-knowing, sought-after and giving than the average singleton.
(#litres_trial_promo)

Introduction (#ulink_70e22170-5d53-5319-a90e-bb17030acce4)
Welcome to the club. If you are reading this because you have just learnt that you are expecting twins, sit down. It may be your last chance. Whether you got to this point through good old genetic probability or, like a growing number, via the magic of IVF, congratulations! You are one of the most blessed people on the planet. Twins are the greatest gift in the world. I should know, because I am one. And I’ve never once had to worry about being the only person at my birthday party, because I’ve always had my brother there. And now I am doubly blessed, a twin who’s had twins. What more could a woman want (okay, a career, a little more money, a husband who thinks you’re Kylie, a flatter stomach – oops, sorry).

If you’re reading this and you’ve already got twins, well done! You’ve made it back into the real world. You’ve made it into a shop, fully dressed (or did you buy this online, like most twin mothers?) And there’s more good news. Like it or not, you have just become a lifetime member of the most inclusive club in the world. The twins club is a club where you will never again be stuck for conversation. From now on, you will have enough stories to entertain the oldest of grannies and the youngest of Teletubbies fans. You will discover the universal truth that everyone, old and young, loves twins. And the worse the stories are, the more they love them.

This is useful information to absorb now, because there will come a day when you feel like ‘putting the twins out with the rubbish’ (to paraphrase a comment from a three-year-old sibling). At that moment, you know you can load the babies into the double buggy and someone, somewhere, will stop you and say ‘Are they twins? Aren’t they gorgeous! Well, you have got your hands full.’ And as you nod back in agreement, you will find all those frustrated feelings melt away. It’s a funny thing, motherhood.
But for you pregnant women, that’s all way, way into the future. Right now, all you care about is whether you will find any jeans to fit you in the last month and whether your husband will still love you when he can no longer fit in the bed. So, you’ve got the book in your hands, what are you waiting for? Now all you need is a box of chocolates (‘eating for three’ excuse) and a nice cup of raspberry leaf tea (if ‘nice’ and ‘raspberry leaf tea’ can sit in the same sentence) to settle down and prepare for the onslaught. I won’t keep you too long – I know about pregnancy and attention spans, and I will make any important stuff stand out in bold so you don’t have to try too hard to remember it.
For those who already have their twins, I hope this book will help you buy at least one good double buggy or learn a few tricks about how to stop the little angels crying. Or if you are a man reading this and have already got this far, feel free to skip straight to Chapter 12, ‘The Fourth Trimester’ and read the bit about Sex after Birth. I promise not to tell. Of course, as a woman who forgot to pack a proper hospital bag and brought her twins home wrapped in the midwives’ scarves, I can’t pretend to be an authority on everything. Because I know I don’t have all the answers, I have canvassed dozens of other twin mothers who do.

This is a book that has been waiting to be written since I first started fighting my brother for a little more space in the cramped conditions of my mother’s stomach. Because I am writing about twins from the perspective of being one, I feel at liberty to be a little more risqué on the subject than most. With the ‘Double Trouble’ column that has been running for the past two years in The Times, I have weathered enough ‘shocked’ and ‘disgusted’ letters from older mothers to know that times have changed. Modern mothers need a laugh every now and then to sustain them through the early years, and none more so than twin mums. It is therefore no coincidence that I have enlisted the help of my talented friend at The Times, Johnny Pugh, to remind us of this every now and then. I feel happiest when working in a team of two (that twin thing again), and Johnny’s insights into family life have been earned at the coalface of fatherhood.
Are there any messages to take from this book? Only two, surprisingly. The first is that you are a lucky, lucky person. The second is that your life will never be the same again. Different, better, but never the same. Welcome to the world of twins. I shall go now, and tread lightly for fear of waking mine up…

‘Your children are not your children They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself’

KAHLIL GIBRAN,
THE PROPHET, 1923

ONE Twinshock (#ulink_c8e5b93e-948b-512b-ab94-fcef67e73ff0)
It may have taken an American to coin the phrase ‘twinshock’, but the sensation is felt the world over. There is no easy way to learn the news. It helps if your hand is being held by the man responsible (more possible if it’s your first pregnancy, less probable if it’s your second) or if you have a sympathetic sonographer doing the scan, but, once the word is out, the impact will take your breath away. Being told that you are expecting twins will resonate deep in your psyche, announcing that your life is about to change for good.

For this reason, sonographers doing the ultrasound often try and fudge the moment with comments such as: ‘There seems to be two. Let me check if there’s three’ (this happened to Joanne Pinkess, who heaved a huge sigh of relief that it was not triplets). Another girlfriend, Heather, was asked: ‘Would you like the good news or the bad news?’ With four children already, she asked for both. ‘The good news is that everything is fine,’ said the scanner, ‘the bad news is that you’re expecting twins.’

The other approach is to push the responsibility for the diagnosis on to you. The sonographer scanning Judy Collins, with her husband Jim beside her, turned to poor Jim to announce the news. ‘What’s the first thing you can see?’ she asked, turning the screen to the husband. Jim saw two blobs, so said ‘two eyes?’ ‘No,’ she corrected him, ‘two babies.’

However you learn, try and hang on to that initial moment and build it into a story for later. Not only will you be asked dozens of times before your life is over, but your twins will have to recount the moment, too. If only I had a pound for every time I’ve had to retell the story of my mother going into labour, and the midwife calling over the doctor to ask ‘Can you hear two heartbeats here?’ Sadly for my father, he was in the pub. My, how times have changed.

Tears and light blasphemy
From the mothers I’ve asked, the most common response to the news they were expecting twins seems to be tears and light blasphemy. I had my three-year-old with me for the 12-week scan, and he was ramming a Thomas the Tank Engine train into my thigh while the sonographer slopped gel on my stomach and swirled the scanner over my paunch for a good five minutes before choosing her moment. ‘Have you been experiencing anything unusual about this pregnancy?’ she ventured. ‘Oh, you know, a lot more tired than with the first,’ I answered, preparing for a moan. ‘Peep, peep,’ squeaked Thomas at my knee. ‘Well,’ she continued in her best breezy voice ‘there is something I have to tell you…’ (a line that never goes down well with pregnant mothers). I sat up immediately, expecting the worst unmentionable diagnosis. ‘You’ve got two babies in there!’ she blurted. ‘Ohmygod, Ohmygod, Ohmygod,’ I answered.

A few minutes later, as she helped me out of the darkened scanning room, I felt twice as pregnant as before I went in, suddenly more sow than goddess. I was directed around the corner for the next NHS appointment and for my next shock – that the hospital had no room for me. Even if they had told me that there was a Stannah Stairlift and a red carpet up to the delivery room, I would have burst into tears at that point. It was as if the initial shock was receding and reality setting in. I boo-hooed so loudly at the reception desk that a flurry of doctors suddenly poked their heads out of their doors and a kind female doctor came out to investigate. Seeing the waiting room full of anxious pregnant mothers, now massaging their bumps a little more nervously, she whisked me into her office. There she explained the relative merits of all the local hospitals, from how new their maternity units were to how many beds they held, to reassure me that if I couldn’t make it into my chosen Chelsea and Westminster there were others that would have me.

It was to be my first lesson about carrying twins and the National Health Service (make a noise to get help from anyone, blubbing loudly if necessary). I also learnt that from that day forward, and particularly when the twins were born, I was to be the entertainment for the waiting room.

Numb with no tears
Not everyone reacts with such drama. Triplet (heroine) mother Valerie Cormack had a variation on twinshock when she was told at her first scan. She sat in a daze at the news and described her reaction as ‘horror and worry’.

‘My first thought was “how will I manage this?”, and my second thought was “where are we going to put them?” – our house isn’t that big.’ Valerie, 34, had her mother with her because her husband Andy was away on business. When she told Andy, his reaction more than made up for her state of numbness. ‘He was thrilled. He said “Isn’t it great! We’ve always wanted a family and now we’ve got three children!”’ A week later, Valerie’s fears began to subside and she started to feel happy about it.

Preparing the siblings
Just as there is no perfect time to deliver the news to an absent spouse, there is also no perfect time to prepare other children.

I had my three-year-old little boy to tell, who had been vaguely aware of the histrionics in obstetrics, but was really far more interested in his Brio engine. Rather than sit him down and Have The Talk, I decided to prep him whenever he brought up the subject. A colleague at work, both of whose parents were psychologists, warned me against The Talk.

Apparently, when she was little and her parents had tried to prepare her for the arrival of her brother, she had nodded all through their explanation of forthcoming family life. At the end, they asked if she had any questions. She replied earnestly: ‘Mummy, will it have a head?’

When my son Humphrey showed any interest in my stomach, I would say proudly ‘Mummy’s got two babies in her tummy.’ One day, as I was continuing to reinforce the message, he stuck out his stomach and said ‘Humphrey’s got two babies in there, too.’

I have to say that Humphrey’s reaction was a little better than four-year-old Jake, the elder sibling of non-identical twin girls in Lewisham, south-east London. When Jake was taken along with his mother and father to the 12-week scan to share in the excitement of his new brother or sister, there were even more tears. ‘It soon became obvious that the scanner was on to something,’ said Paul, his father. ‘The first we knew was when she turned to my wife and asked whether we had a history of twins in the family.’ Jake asked his father what ‘twins’ meant. ‘It’s very special,’ said Paul, in twinshock himself but choosing his words carefully, ‘there’s not going to be one baby, but two!’ Jake promptly burst into tears, howling: ‘But Daddy, I don’t want two babies, I only want one.’

Telling the office
There is only one good rule when it comes to the office: tell them as late as you can get away with (which won’t be that late on with twins). If you are someone who likes to be the centre of attention, then blurt the news out as early as you like. However, the rest of us will find a twin pregnancy a rude awakening. It is the equivalent of dressing up in a clown outfit and wearing a big red nose.
From the moment everyone knows in the office, you will spend the rest of the run-up to maternity leave answering questions on whether you have chosen names, found out sexes, or, worse, how cousin Ethelberga had twins and was committed to a psychiatric hospital shortly after. Nobody will be interested in how well you gave that presentation, or took the minutes of the meeting, only in the gusset of your elasticated trousers. If you want to be taken seriously, don’t let on until the most tactless person finally asks. Then you know that you can hide it no longer, and the truth will out. By then you will have your handbag ready on the desk to swat the next person who makes a bad joke. Go in hard to deflect the more cautious jokers out there.

Scans, scans, scans
It is well worth making friends with the staff in the ultrasound department because you are going to see a lot of them by the end of your pregnancy. A box of Quality Street never goes amiss. Once they have spotted twins, they’ll probably expect you to come in every fortnight after 28 weeks (just when you don’t feel like moving far), as well as having the usual 12-week and 20-week scans. What they are checking for is how the twins are growing and whether they are lying head down or head up, which will make a difference to the birth. Particularly with identical twins sharing a placenta, they are looking to see whether one of the twins takes the lion’s share of the food (twin-to-twin transfusion, a great name for a ’70s rock band). In the unlikely event that there is a dominant and greedy twin, they may suggest delivering the babies ahead of time. One friend of mine was told by the sonographer that she could continue with her identical-twin pregnancy without being induced because the twins were exactly the same weight at around 5lb. When born, one twin was over 7lb – two pounds heavier than the original estimate. It turns out that they measured the same twin twice.

So, scans may look like a precise science, but they aren’t. Sexes are wrongly reported, anomalies not picked up, and suggested birth weights are often wildly inaccurate. All this human error is further confused by giving you probability equations to do in your head, when everyone knows pregnant women can’t do maths.

‘Excuse me, is a one in 500 chance in the Nuchal Translucency test a good result or a bad result? Does that mean that if I have 499 children, the 500th may have Down’s syndrome? Or will it mean that one of my twins will have it, and the next 199 sets of twins I produce won’t? But won’t I be given another nonsensical probability equation at those subsequent pregnancies? Why can’t someone just say “yes” or “no”? Anyway, we’ve already decided that if we do have a Down’s baby we are carrying on with the pregnancy. Which begs the question: why are you scanning me in the first place?’ This is what I would like to have said to the sonographer. Instead, like thousands of pregnant women, I just nodded and felt a little scared.

If you do feel anxious at the prospect of a scan, take your partner, mother or girlfriend with you. They can listen while you feel fearful. And, if you are unhappy about any scan diagnosis, ask to be scanned again by the head of ultrasound in the hospital. Scans are so often wrong, they are not worth losing sleep over.

TWO What Flavour Are They? (#ulink_b77023a3-bf96-538a-aea1-fa6a80971a12)
Okay, I promised in the Introduction that I wouldn’t befuddle you with words like ‘monochorionic’ and ‘dizygosity’, but the time has come to get the dictionary out. You may as well get a handle on what flavour your twins are, because throughout your and their life, plenty of people will try to tell you differently. You will be amazed at how many intelligent people were obviously sound asleep during their biology lessons.

All twins are identical (not)
People desperately want to believe that all twins are alike. There is some deep-seated desire in the human soul that needs to believe this. It is not a rational thing. Perhaps it is steeped in our ancient tribal belief that we must hunt in identical pairs. Or maybe it’s a more modern, narcissistic view that when we die, a clone of ourselves will continue to carry on our important genetic heritage and be available for medical science when needed. Some people will even argue with you that ‘your twins are not proper twins’ unless they are identical.

This means that if you have fraternal (non-identical) twins (another misnomer to make all twins sound like brothers), you will often be asked ‘are they identical?’ Even if you have boy and girl twins, and the girl is standing in pigtails and a dress and the boy is brushing mud off his football kit, the same stupid question will be asked again and again. And don’t be fooled by the intelligence of the interlocutor. My headmaster asked my brother and I the very question in front of the whole school when we went up to receive two different awards at an end-of-term ceremony. In this instance I refrained from my stock answer (‘No, he has a willy and I don’t’). However, I highly recommend this one for closing the subject quickly.

If you have non-identical girl twins, or non-identical boy twins, you may need to engage in a brief biology lesson, particularly when your answer of ‘No’ will be met by disbelief. ‘No, they came from two separate eggs and two separate sperms,’ is usually pitched at the right level. Most people’s eyes will glaze over at the mention of zygosity.

The truth, however, is a little more complicated. And if you only read the following once in your life, it will give you some insight into why twins are so endlessly fascinating to the medical establishment.

Boy/Girl Twins
Girls and boys cannot be identical. Nobody mistakes a brother and sister for each other, so why do people mistake boy/girl twins? Statistics
(#litres_trial_promo) show the national average for boy/girl twins to be 33 per cent of all fraternal twin births. Expect around 100 per cent of the population to ask you ‘Why don’t they look the same?’ Women are more likely to have fraternal twins if there is any incidence of twins on their mother’s side (not their father’s).

Non-identical Girl/Girl or Boy/Boy twins
Statistics also show that 33 per cent of all non-identical twins are two-egg girl/girl combinations, and the other 33 per cent are two-egg boy/boy combinations. These twins will show the normal sibling differences in temperament, intelligence, social interests and choice of pop music. Unlike their identical counterparts, where studies have shown twins to co-operate more with each other, fraternals are, if anything, more competitive than other siblings. This is not a given – again it’s back to temperament – but it is worth preparing for, especially in toddlerhood (where buying two identical ride-on cars will save you having to shout constantly ‘SHARING, for God’s sake!’). Competitiveness among twins is not that surprising when you consider they have to compete for everything from day one, from mother’s milk to parental attention.

Nor should acquiring a competitive edge be considered a downside. My twin brother went on to win a bronze medal at the Olympic Games in modern pentathlon (running, riding, swimming, fencing and shooting). I am sure he honed his skills in the back garden while running away from me in my nurse’s outfit.

Identical twins
Identical twins are sometimes described as ‘a freak of nature’, because there is no genetic reason for producing them. Unlike fraternal twins, that follow the mother’s hereditary line, identical twins are theoretically a one-off occurring in one in every three twin births.

Not all 20-week scans, when you can tell the sex of the babies, can diagnose for sure whether the twins are identical or not. Sometimes with identical twins the egg splits later in the pregnancy, between day 7 and 14, resulting in separate placentas and separate sacs. To confuse matters further, non-identical twins can sometimes be misdiagnosed by ultrasound scans when their two placentas have fused into one.

There are now two types of test done at birth to confirm for sure whether the twins are identical or not – a blood test to compare blood factors, and the more recent DNA fingerprinting. Parents of identical twins usually want to know the results, not only to establish their birthright, but also for medical reasons. If one child shows susceptibility to allergy, asthma or any childhood illnesses, they will be better informed to protect the other.

One good thing about identical twins is that when people ask you: ‘Are they identical?’ You can answer ‘Yes!’ (and so can your twins). However, be prepared for fresh idiocy. Caroline Watton, who has identical twin girls, was stopped by an old lady in the supermarket as she was pushing the girls around in a trolley. ‘Ooh, aren’t they sweet!’ cooed the old woman. ‘Are they identical?’ Before Caroline could answer ‘Yes’, the woman contradicted her. ‘Of course they’re not!’ she said. ‘Look, one’s fast asleep and the other’s awake.’ The nation’s biology teachers have a lot to answer for.

Just to confuse you further…
As well as the simple and straightforward combinations, there are small differences that will really make you confused. I don’t recommend you venture into conversation with any old women in the supermarket about the following subjects.

Mirror-image twins
About a third of all identical twins are ‘mirror-image twins’. If the one egg that splits does so later in the pregnancy, after the seventh day, then sometimes the twins have mirror-image traits – such as one is left-handed, the other right-handed. As they grow, you might notice one sprouting a tooth on one side, while the other does so on the other side, or different hair whorls curling in opposite ways. No-one is exactly sure what causes this effect, but it all adds to the mythology surrounding identical twins.

Identical twins who don’t look alike
Because some identicals share a placenta, and don’t always have equal access to the nutrition because of how they are lying in the womb, they may have quite different birth weights. The weight soon equalizes after birth, however, but the changes in the shape of the face or bodily difference may stay for life. Identicals may also have slightly different hair colour and birthmarks.

Twins that result from superfecundation
Superfecundation describes the fertilization of two eggs after two or more bouts of sex during the same menstrual cycle. Given the small window of ovulation and the short lifetime of a sperm, these bouts of sex have to take place quite close together. Very interesting. Could this be you? (unlikely if you have any other children in the house).

Superfecundation gives rise to the possibility of twins with two different fathers, for women who might wave their husbands off to work and then open the back door to the milkman. Rare incidents of mixed-race twins where one baby is born black and the other white can also happen in normal twin conception with the same father, as in the case of the twins Karen and Cheryl Grant from Essex, now 19.

IVF or natural? Who cares?
I’ve included the question of whether your twins are ‘IVF’ or ‘natural’ because you’d be amazed at how many people think it is their business. You have probably already been asked this, usually by Ms Nosey Parker.

My view, whether you conceived with the help of IVF or not, is to tell people a lie. Anyone tactless enough to ask deserves to be led astray. As long as those who conceived naturally are quick to answer ‘naturally’, as if there is something inherently better about this answer, then people will continue to ask. Perhaps you could ask a question back to Ms Parker, such as ‘What is IVF exactly?’ and then nod interestedly as she attempts to explain. Then ask her, regardless of whether she’s had children or not, whether she’s had IVF herself, because she seems such an authority on the subject.

Men and the assisted conception business
When my husband told a West Indian client that his wife was expecting twins, the client slapped him on the back and shouted, ‘Congratulations! Mon, you shoot with double barrel, never miss – Bam! Bam!’ The Jamaican summed up the view that all men secretly share – that twins are an expression of a man’s (not a woman’s) fertility. I haven’t met a single father of twins who hasn’t puffed up his chest when remembering his own important walk-on part in the twin drama.

Of course, all women know that this Woody Allen view of sperm is ridiculous, and that all sorts of complicated factors are involved to make conception possible. However, there is no harm in encouraging this virile fantasy (and if that means suppressing the information that they are IVF, just carry on lying) because a swaggering partner in the early days is more likely to be a helpful one later on. All women know this instinctively, so you don’t really need to be told.

The IVF twin mix-up stories
The ‘mix-up-in-the-lab’ story is recycled again and again whenever the latest fertility scare happens. This is a variation on every woman’s irrational fear that her baby will be switched by mistake when the nurses are chatting abstractedly over a cup of tea. This fear is as old as the hills. My mother admits to being so scared by it that she insisted on having a home birth for her first born, back in 1961. When my 11lb (ouch!) big brother finally appeared, I think few would have mixed him up with some 5lb weakling.

There are three twin mix-up tales in the IVF history books. The first was when a white mother gave birth to black twins in the summer of 2002 here in Britain. The sperm was wrongly mixed with the woman’s eggs after a laboratory error in an NHS clinic, and the legal outcome determining who are the parents has yet to be settled.

The other two happened elsewhere in the world. The first was in 1993 in Holland where twin boys, one white and one black, were born to Willem and Wilma Stuart after two samples of sperm became accidentally mixed before being used to fertilize Wilma’s eggs. The biological father made no attempts to gain custody of his twin, but the family keeps in touch in the event that his biological son may want to meet him one day.

The second case happened in 1998 in New York when two lots of embryos were mixed and both women, Donna Fasano and Deborah Rogers, were implanted with what they took to be their own embryos. Only one of the pregnancies turned out to be successful, and the mother had one black and one white twin. There followed a difficult legal battle, leading to the black twin being handed over to his biological mother. Despite the recrimination between the parents and the hospital, the now four-year-old twins still visit each other.

Natural or not so natural?
The folic acid factor
New research
(#litres_trial_promo) also suggests that women who take folic acid are nearly twice as likely to give birth to twins as women who do not. A higher rate of twin births in relation to folic acid was first noticed in an earlier Hungarian trial. The recent Swedish research team examined Swedish records since 1994. The scientists found that among 2,569 women who had used folic acid supplements, the rate of twin births was 2.8 per cent – nearly double the normal level of 1.5 per cent. They are unsure why folic acid might be responsible for producing more twins. It is possible that folic acid encourages multiple ovulations or the implantation of more than one egg. It might also prevent the spontaneous abortion of one or more foetuses occurring in women who do not take folic acid.
The official advice is still for women to take 400mcg of supplemented folic acid before conception and for the first three months of pregnancy (see also www.hsis.org – Health Supplements Information Service).

I took 12 times the recommended dosage because my first baby was born with a cleft lip and palate, so I read the study with interest. But, then again, I also fell into all of the other categories that made me more likely to have twins: I was over 35, taller and heavier (charming) than your average British mother, a twin myself who had already had one child.

TWIN PREGNANCY VITAL STATISTICS
(#litres_trial_promo)
Natural conception:

The chance of having twins rises steadily as the mother gets older.

The peak age is 35 to 39 for European women.

Women are more likely to have twins the more children they have, independent of their age.

Fraternal or non-identical twins are more common if there is a presence of twins on the mother’s side of the family (contrary to popular opinion, the father’s side makes no difference).

Identical twins are random and occur in one in three of all twin births (although scientists are still trying to explain why they occur more in some families).

You can insure against the extra cost of having twins before your 14th week of pregnancy, providing you are not having IVF treatment and have yet to be scanned by your doctor. At the time of going to print, insurance company Marcus Hearn (0207 739 3444) will pay out £1,000 for a minimum premium of £42.
Assisted conception:

Since the very first test-tube baby Louise Brown was born in Britain in 1978, in vitro fertilization now accounts for around 8,000 babies born every year in Britain.

One in four IVF pregnancies results in twins.

The number of triplet births has risen from 91 in 1980 to 262 in 2002.

The number of twin births has grown from 6,400 in 1980 to 8,500 in 2002.

In Britain alone, the number of cycles of treatment has risen from 28,000 in 1991 to 44,000 in 2002.

A quarter of infertile couples succeed with IVF.

THREE Eating and Exercising for Three (#ulink_b872dd81-6189-531d-8be0-ea68015a4016)
Make no mistake: one good thing about a twin pregnancy is that you get to eat a lot, and most of the weight will go on the babies. All of us who have had guilt issues surrounding food can now look forward to nine months of bingeing, and even longer if you hope to breastfeed. For a twin pregnancy, you are not only invited to eat one-and-a-half times more than for a singleton pregnancy, it is practically a responsibility.
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There is also enough evidence now to support the welcome news that in a twin pregnancy there is a direct correlation between higher maternal weight gain and better birth outcomes.
(#litres_trial_promo) So, what are you waiting for? Order that Fortnum & Mason hamper now. This should be the rekindling of a long love affair with food.
During my own twin pregnancy, which was remarkably trouble-free and ran the whole course to term at 40 weeks, I went food mad. I decided to allow myself absolutely no restrictions on the amount of food I ate, and arrived at work having visited the deli with two plastic bags from the greengrocer and the baker en route. For all my no-holds-barred approach, I was very picky about the type and quality of food I ate. In my first pregnancy, I had put on a lot of weight by eating badly, pretending that my penchant for crisps, cider and Maltesers was a craving. It took me 18 months to shift the excess stone (or two).

Second time around, I had learnt my lesson about office vending machines and was careful about the type of food I ate. I would bring in as much fruit and raw veg as I could carry – carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, cauliflower, apples, bananas and grapes. Added to this would be a mixture of cheese, quiches and whatever else shouted ‘eat me!’ from the deli that day. Should anyone ever question you on the size of that cheese sandwich you are about to put in your mouth, just remind them that you are ‘eating for three’.

The first three months
The most important eating time is the first three months, when the babies are, literally, being created. This is when the nutrient factor is most crucial. Do not fret if you are among the many twin mothers who suffer from morning sickness. Multiple mothers tend to have a higher level of pregnancy hormone in their blood so they experience more nausea and vomiting than their singleton friends.
(#litres_trial_promo) Paradoxically, if you suffer from bad morning sickness and can’t keep the food down for long, this won’t affect the babies’ eventual birth weight. It’s the nutrients they are after, not the fat. And they will take the nutrients from your own body’s supply if you don’t provide them (get used to it, it goes with the territory). Mothers with morning sickness should be heartened by the research showing that sufferers have babies with better overall outcomes. Studies suggest that vomiting may stimulate early placental growth.
If you feel tired and sluggish in the first three months, but not nauseous, remember that your body is making two babies and extra blood volume. For twins you can expect a 75 per cent increase in your blood volume (for triplets there’s a 100 per cent increase).
(#litres_trial_promo) Add to this the fact that a mother pregnant with twins can carry up to 20 pints of water more than a mother of a singleton during her pregnancy, and you can see why you have a perfect excuse to take to your bed at 8pm. Things will ease up in the second trimester, your metabolism will go into high gear, and the weight you gain will all go towards making healthy babies.

Just say ‘no!’ to the calorie counters
Personally, as a poor maths student, the calorie-counting view of the world has never appealed. It turns a sensuous experience, eating, into a tax return. Also, for twin pregnancies, I’ve noticed that the number of calories suggested by ‘experts’ varies wildly. In my own twin book library, the figures range from 2,700 calories to 3,500 per day. However, if calorie counting helps you to feel in control, aim for somewhere in the middle.

My main beef against calorie counting is that it puts you in the frame of mind of dieting, which is the wrong thing to do when pregnant. Also, anything that limits your intake of food (‘I’ve eaten my 3,500 calories today, I should stop now and just drink water’) should be avoided. This is your time for growing the babies, so enjoy it. No other vices are possible in pregnancy (you may get away with lust for a few weeks, but the wolf whistles will disappear by that last trimester), so you may as well indulge in gluttony.
One mother of twins was told by a nurse that she was gaining weight too fast and should stop drinking milk. When she told her husband, he opened the fridge door, took out a two-pint carton and handed it to her. She drank the whole lot on the spot. Don’t listen to any jealous nurses or doctors on the subject. Listen to your body. If you are hungry, it is for a good reason.

Never weigh yourself during pregnancy
Another trick in pregnancy is to never ever weigh yourself. If the midwife wanted to weigh me at the checkup, I asked her to put it in kilos, and my mathematical dyslexia ensured that it stayed a mystery. I found the best place to put my scales was in the loft until the babies’ first birthday. And if you plan to breastfeed for longer, chuck the scales out and buy some new ones when you are ready.

If, however, you are wedded to weight-gain issues, American charts suggest the following:

By the 24th week of a twin pregnancy you should have gained double the number of pounds as a singleton mother – between 24 and 30lb.

By the 37th week you should be around 50lb heavier than your normal weight.
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Use these figures only if they help you feel more comfortable about your weight gain.

Why tons of fruit and veg are a good idea
Recent research
(#litres_trial_promo) also suggests that eating plenty of fruit and veg before and during pregnancy may protect against pre-eclampsia. This condition, which is a little more common in twin pregnancies and often appears in the final stages of pregnancy, is characterized by high blood pressure and swelling (my midwife always used to tell me ‘if you can’t get your wedding band off, call me’). Pre-eclampsia is a treatable but serious concern for pregnant mothers, and can sometimes necessitate an early delivery. It has to be monitored because, left untreated, it can eventually affect the function of liver and kidneys. Routine urine tests during pregnancy check for a type of protein which indicates pre-eclampsia.
New research shows that an underlying factor in pre-eclampsia is damage to blood vessels caused by destructive molecules called free radicals. In theory, upping the intake of nutrients that combat free-radical damage – such as vitamin C, found naturally in fruit and veg – may help to reduce the risk of pre-eclampsia. Another reason to gorge yourself at the greengrocers.

Why fish is also good
There is no dispute that well-fed women seem to make healthier babies with higher birth weights. What is news is recent research from Danish scientists reported in the British Medical Journal which suggests that women who eat a diet rich in fish are nearly four times less likely to give birth prematurely. Among 8,700 pregnant women surveyed, 7.1 per cent who never ate fish had a premature delivery, yet only 1.9 per cent of fish-eaters did. This is quite a significant finding for twin mothers, whose babies are usually assumed to be premature. So get baking that fish pie.

What can’t I eat?
Raw fish, such as sushi, is to be avoided. It increases your risk of exposure to salmonella, parasites and hepatitis A infection that can damage your liver. Similarly, you should avoid uncooked eggs and unpasteurized cheeses. Finally, peanuts (which aren’t actually nuts but beans) are still a controversial food item, because some experts believe that including them in your diet sensitizes the baby to peanut allergy. There is no definitive study to show this, but it’s best to avoid them and err on the side of caution.
If you do eat or have already eaten any of the above by mistake, as I have during both my pregnancies, do not panic. Remember that you come from a long line of genetically-fit ancestors, and your pregnant forebears probably feasted happily on Stilton crawling with maggots and boiled boar’s head.

What the experts say
Suzannah Olivier, author of Eating for a Perfect Pregnancy (Simon & Schuster Pocket Books) has the following advice to offer twin mothers:
‘The important thing in any pregnancy, particularly a twin pregnancy, is to eat ‘nutrient dense’ food. Everything provides nutrients, bar sugar, which is empty calories and gives energy without providing nutrients.
‘The other thing is to have more calories than normal. You are going to put on extra weight because of that extra placenta and amniotic fluid. For nutrient-dense food, think of half an avocado rather than extra butter on your bread.
‘Remember, you need these nutrients for yourself as well as the baby in the post-natal stage. To get through those first six months, you need to build up your reserves. You are going to lose a lot of iron, zinc and essential fats in the last trimester and from the birth and the early months of breastfeeding.
‘Food-wise, nuts – tree nuts such as almonds and walnuts – seeds, pulses and oily fish are all good. Zinc is found in any protein-rich food, like red meat.
‘In the third trimester, zinc and essential fats are particularly important for growth. If there’s not enough in the diet the baby will take it from the mother’s reserves (a lot of postnatal depression may be linked in part to the mother’s depletion of zinc and essential fatty acids). Good nutrients also help your own energy levels and stabilize your moods after birth. Often eczema in the mother while breastfeeding is triggered by not having enough essential fats. If you take linseed flax oil, it works very quickly to improve your condition.
‘Two other key nutrients are calcium-rich foods and antioxidant-rich foods, found in fruit and veg. We tend to take a sledgehammer approach to calcium and just drink milk (yoghurt is also good because it is predigested by bacteria), but there are swathes of people who are lactose intolerant. Many people don’t realize that there is plenty of calcium and magnesium in green, leafy veg such as spinach, cabbage, pumpkin seeds, pine nuts and sunflower seeds. Raisins and dried apricots are also unexpected sources of calcium, magnesium, potassium and iron – all needed for bone health.
‘Finally, I would strongly advise every mother pregnant with multiples to take a specially formulated prenatal supplement all through the pregnancy. You can buy them at any chemist, and it’s never too late to start.’
Here is what four triplet (heroine) mothers ate during pregnancy to produce three healthy babies.
‘I ate a lot of toast and Vegemite (my favourite), apples and cheese and lots of red meat (which I found pretty horrible!).’
Susi Gorbey, mother of Abigail, Lucille and Manon, went to 38 weeks with her triplets (‘Don’t let the doctors bully you into delivering early’)

‘I’m a vegetarian, and ate organic food as much as possible during my pregnancy. I ate plenty of fresh foods, but nausea restricted me a lot. I wanted to eat “comfort food”—pies, quiches, potatos, savoury carbohydrates. I avoided caffeine, alcohol, aspartame/phenylalanine as found in fizzy drinks.’
Tracy Alter, mother of Jake, Luke and Daniel

‘I didn’t change much of my diet during pregnancy as we eat a fairly healthy diet in any event. The only change was not drinking alcohol at all and starting every morning with a good breakfast that included flax seed – which I swear kept me extremely well throughout my pregnancy. I didn’t really have a favourite food and didn’t have any cravings.’
Marion Davies, mother of Thomas, Helen and Emma

‘I was either sick or nauseous throughout my entire pregnancy, so ate a lot of whatever didn’t come back up. I steered clear of complex carbohydrates. What I liked best was ice cubes!’
Alex Salmon, mother of Freddy, Lulu and Alexander

Exercise for the permanently tired
There is a lot to be said for keeping fit in pregnancy. Not running around sort of fit, but keeping moving sort of fit, as a preparation for labour. Walking, swimming and yoga are all thoroughly recommended in both the early and late stages, and can be done right up to the day of delivery.
Swimming is the best exercise for twin mothers towards the end, particularly if you are a member of a clean health club (pregnancy makes you notice the plasters on the bottom of the public pool). I loved the feeling of weightlessness as I took to the water, cupping my stomach and the babies as I slowly made my way up and down the pool. I even managed to escape buying a maternity swimming costume by wearing a black Lycra size 20 until the very end. Swimming is also good because it keeps your temperature stable in the water, increases blood flow and urine output, and reduces swelling. At the same time, it puts less stress on other parts of your body, particularly the uterus.

Yoga is also wonderful if you can find a pre-natal class locally, or a yoga teacher who can show you a few simple exercises to do. Pre-natal classes, as opposed to normal classes, also give you the opportunity to sit around chatting to other pregnant women while the yoga teacher reminds you to do your pelvic floor exercises.

Love your pelvic floor
The pelvic floor muscles are what your expanding babies are sitting on. They sit like a hammock supporting your internal organs, and withstand a lot of pressure during pregnancy. Regardless of whether you have elected for a Caesarean and are hoping to escape ‘honeymoon sweet’ (a myth, I’m afraid), you need to learn to love your pelvic floor muscles. It is pregnancy, not birth, that stretches them, so nobody escapes. If you don’t learn to love them now, you may never set foot on a trampoline again, or survive a coughing fit without a dash to the loo. Take those Bangkok girls with ping-pong balls as your role models and ‘squeeeeze!’ (in the words of the heroine of Allison Pearson’s hilarious novel I Don’t Know How She Does It
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Once a yoga teacher has helped you locate your pelvic floor, find a regular place to do your exercises, such as when sitting at the traffic lights. The only place I could remember was in the bath. Lying on my back, I would do the hold for 10 seconds, release for 10 seconds, hold for 9 seconds, release for 9 seconds, until the water went cold. Those without a yoga teacher can practise by sitting on the loo and holding back their pee intermittently.

Working out
As I have never set foot in a gym, I can’t give any sensible advice on what exercises can and can’t be done in later pregnancy. However, the actress Jane Seymour writes quite comprehensively about her workout regime before the birth of her twin boys Kris and Johnny. Without wishing to pour cold water on her efforts, her impressive gym activity is tempered by the fact that she did go into labour at 34 weeks after the onset of pre-eclampsia. (Her disappointment about being wheeled in for an emergency Caesarean, however, was offset by the surgeon’s flattering remarks as she lay under the knife. In her book Two at a Time the surgeon is quoted as saying, ‘Look at those abdominal muscles – good work, Jane. They look like the muscles of a 20-year-old.’
(#litres_trial_promo) The following excerpt from her punishing schedule carries a warning that you may well feel tired just reading it:
‘My workout stayed essentially the same between 28 weeks and 34 weeks with some important exceptions because of the irritable uterus episode I’d had at 28 weeks. I no longer warmed up on either the recumbent bike or the Stairmaster. I also used stretchy exercise bands instead of the weight machine, and I did exercises seated or lying down instead of standing. Gently, I kept up with my abdominal exercises, even though I had grown so large, although Dr Ross pointed out that if I had experienced pre-term labour, all abdominal exercises would have been out.’
Phew. Cup of raspberry leaf tea, anyone?

Obviously now is not the time to take up jogging, because there is nothing more uncomfortable than your stomach and boobs swinging up towards your face. But for those of you who were runners before your body was invaded, there is little reason why, with the blessing of your doctor or midwife, you can’t carry on. In the Autumn issue of our twins club newsletter, we reported on a 33-year-old marathon runner who became pregnant with twins. After her first antenatal visit she cut down her running from 96 miles a week to around 66 miles, and eased off her pace. The twins grew at a normal rate and the mother stayed healthy, only giving up running three days before the birth. After a planned Caesarean at 36 weeks, she gave birth to twins weighing 4lb 14oz (2.2kg) and 5lb 1oz (2.3kg). Go girl.

Dealing with common complaints
Ranking in order of popularity, from the most popular complaint to the least popular, here are the most common symptoms that 50 twin mothers in our local south-west London area experienced in moderation during their pregnancy. The questionnaire did not include ‘exhaustion’ which was cited by everyone. Suggested remedies are in brackets next to the complaints.

Backache (48% – yoga)

Indigestion (42% – glug Gaviscon, which you can buy or get from your GP on free prescription in industrial sizes to alleviate symptoms)

Sickness (34% – ice cubes, lemon juice and water mouthwashes, boiled sweets and ginger products such as tea and preserves, but not concentrated ginger capsules – all seem to help some but not others.)

Swollen lower limbs (23% – swim or lie down)

Swollen upper limbs (21% – swim or lie down)

Higher blood pressure (5% – lie down and leave work)

FOUR I Shop, Therefore I Am (#ulink_f7bd5a78-320d-52b1-9e38-c680204f0e5f)
When I interviewed the triplet (heroine) mother Valerie Cormack, I asked her what was the hardest part of caring for her babies. I expected a long diatribe about visiting special care units or sleeplessness, but instead she answered: ‘Shopping. There is nothing worse than buying three of the same thing, and then realizing that it was a mistake.’ And this comes from the woman who gave birth to all three of her babies naturally in hospital.

So, let’s get serious about shopping for a moment. After all, you have worked hard for your money, and you don’t want to blow it on something you have no hope of returning to the shop after the babies are born. There is a lot of necessary stuff to buy in preparation for twins – pregnancy clothes, cots and nursery furniture, buggies and bathtime accessories – so there is no escape. You might as well enjoy the experience by starting early and acquiring the catalogues and getting the boring but important stuff out of the way now. Then you will have hours to coo over cashmere booties as the pregnancy wears on, knowing that a telephone call to one of your hundreds of catalogue people will solve any last-minute necessities. Sorted.

Maternity wear for big mothers
The best rule is to avoid the twilight world of non-fashion that is maternity wear until you can no longer go a day without those comfy jersey gussets for the stomach. Before that moment you can make do with the latest fantastic invention from Australia, the Bellybelt, an ingenious device that fits over your normal trousers and allows you to keep within the bounds of normal fashion for a few weeks longer. It sells for £12.95 and the box comes with three sizes of elastic and three different materials – white, black or denim (see www.grobag.com).

However, when the Bellybelt and the size 18s and 20s from your favourite shops no longer fit, you have to give up and call in the brochures. Once you have, and you are wearing your first pair of maternity jeans, you will heave a huge sigh of relief. They will feel so comfortable. You can’t believe why you didn’t succumb to big pants or maternity tights earlier. Don’t worry – your partner will thank you for holding out this long. There is nothing in this world less sexy than a drop-down bra.

Sadly for twin mothers, the day of maternity-wear reckoning will be reached far earlier than for those carrying singletons. But you can at least comfort yourself in the knowledge that you will get far more wear out of them. Also, lest you forget, you will be wearing those same maternity trousers for a good few weeks (or months in my case) after you have had the babies. The sight of a twin mother’s stomach after the birth is best kept under wraps. It will be a while before the diamond in your pierced tummy button is back out on display.

When it comes to buying maternity wear, go only for the ‘capsule wardrobe’. You remember that 90s’ fashion phase that urged everyone to go out and buy dark-coloured tailored basics to wear with T-shirts for power breakfasts and board meetings? Well, it may have dropped off the agenda for London Fashion Week, but it is still vital to your pregnant sense of wellbeing. There is nothing worse than waking every morning and having a clothes tantrum because you can’t face your multicoloured ‘fun’ top. You need to invest in some dark-coloured basics, even if the only power breakfast on the horizon is with your pussycat.

The capsule wardrobe
For your capsule wardrobe, the ‘maternity’ basics are:

Big pants (I suppose thongs are doable under the bump, but all that rubbing is soon going to make you head towards Bridget Jones’s favourite drawer)

Maternity tights (other tights just don’t work)

Maternity drop-down bra (this is for breastfeeding later, but as your boobs will have already gone up a cup size or two, you may as well buy early rather than buy twice)

Maternity jeans (see below)

Maternity stretch trousers (black, don’t be tempted by any fawn or ‘fun’ light colours as they will remain stubbornly in the wardrobe)

Some tops (don’t have to be cut in the maternity bias but may show the unattractive jersey stomach gusset if not)

Two dresses (optional, but dresses are just so much more comfortable by the end, when even the forgiving gusset has a piece of elastic pressing down on your stomach). Dresses, particularly if they are long with long sleeves, need minimum extra layers, which you don’t have in your wardrobe anyway. Plus, with dresses, you can sometimes get away with non-maternity stuff. I wore two Ghost non-maternity dresses right up until my 40th week with the twins, so anything is possible.

The joy of mail order
Whether you live in the city or the country, by the time you have become so pregnant that you don’t feel like moving, or later on a housebound mother, you are ready to discover the joy of mail order. It is part necessity and part fantasy (impossibly clean babies, no hint of baby sick anywhere, being pushed along by beautiful blonde teenage model mothers, no sign of bags under the eyes). Once you have rung for your first catalogue, you will become an addict. It is a perfectly normal symptom of shopping deprivation brought about by being too large to undress in tiny cubicles. Fortunately for you, your addiction will be fed forever more by new catalogues from different baby-related manufacturers arriving on your doorstep unasked for. You may tut about the paper wastage, but before long you will be hooked, flicking through the pages to see the latest baby gizmos.

The upside to mail-order shopping is that you can do it when you are pinned to the bed breastfeeding two babies, and you can shop online when the children are asleep. The downside is that once the babies are born, you are unlikely ever to find an envelope and Sellotape to return anything that didn’t fit. My twins are still waiting to grow into their cute Breton tops, bought by mistake at size six years instead of six months.

The best maternity-wear and baby shops
Blooming Marvellous
(0870 751 8944: www.bloomingmarvellous.co.uk)

Blooming awful name but it boasts the ‘UK’s largest range of maternity wear’ and has some good classic items for late pregnancy, such as large linen shirts that can also be worn afterwards. It is a one-stop shop for your pregnancy capsule wardrobe with a growing newborn section. Just steer away from Womb Song Kit (£49.99). Your babies will never thank you, and that money would be better spent at the Gucci of pregnancy wear – Formes.

Formes
(0208 689 1133: www.formes.com)

Formes is the French maternity-wear company where all pregnant mothers would shop if they were rich celebrities. That doesn’t mean you cannot treat yourself to one item there. And if you do buy only one thing, make it a pair of jeans. A pair bought by a friend for £75 is on its fourth pregnant mother, and they still look great. Women who work in the City should only buy maternity wear from Formes, because they can.
Jojo Maman Bébé
(0870 241 0560: www.Jojomamanbebe.co.uk)

Also French, and a little more classy than bloomingterrible-name. Its website is well-organized and easy to buy from. Its denim jeans are cheaper than its French rival at around £32.99.

Brora
(0207 736 9944: www.brora.co.uk)

This company makes exquisite cashmere baby clothes: cardigans (£45), trousers (£45) as well as hand-knitted baby bonnets (£23), baby booties (£19) and baby mittens (£15). One friend who was given a gift box of trousers and cardy loved the feel of her cashmere baby so much that every night for three months she would wash out the top and bottoms and hang them on a radiator for the next day. Some may be horrified at the thought of spending so much on baby clothes, so this is one to be given as a gift, if anybody’s asking. Yasmin Le Bon, who discovered Brora for her children, never hands on the clothes but recycles them into cushions. If it’s good enough for Yasmin…

Beaming baby
(0800 034 5672: www.beamingbaby.com)

This is a totally organic website offering mainly toiletries for babies – natural bathcare, talcum powder and kits for mothers. It also sells some unusual hand-finished clothes for babies made from organic cotton – its long-sleeved ‘bodies’, sleepsuits and babygros are an environmentally-friendly alternative to the bigger stores.

Mothercare
(0845 330 4030: www.mothercare.com)

Unless you are reading this after a major relaunch, Mothercare seems to me to have gone off the boil in recent years with some frumpy maternity offerings and often poorly-stocked shops. Shame when you consider that it’s the name everyone gropes for when they need anything baby-wise. One pregnant friend became so exasperated with not being able to find a shop assistant recently that she stood in the middle of the store and announced ‘I am here to spend hundreds of pounds with you, please can anyone help me?’ She spent £800 at the store and had to return to the shop when the goods were delivered because they still had their security tags on.

When I contacted Mothercare about these general issues of stock and customer service, they replied:

‘We acknowledge that our performance in these areas has not lived up to the expectations of our customers. We have a new and revitalized senior management team in place that is concentrating its efforts on returning Mothercare to its position of pre-eminence as the number one retailer for parents.’
Watch this space.

Not Mail-order but Worth the Schlep
H&M Hennes – Mama Range
(www.hm.co.uk)

The Hennes maternity line knocks spots off the catalogue stuff price-wise. Pick up basic long-sleeved T-shirts and stretchy trousers for a few quid. It is also much trendier. Think Natalie from All Saints rather than Cherie from Number 10. However, as we go to press, the website only offers a store locator rather than online ordering, so you will need to plan a trip.

Little stuff for tiny babies
You’ll be amazed at how little stuff you need to begin with, particularly if you are breastfeeding. Don’t be seduced by the magazines. Buy as you go along and second-hand from twins club newsletters, if you can. There are some things that only the catalogues sell, however. I’ve listed below the best buys that do the rounds through our local club’s quarterly journal.

The swing chair
This is a battery-powered rocking chair, suitable from birthish up until 25lb in weight. The benefit for a twin mother is that you can put one baby in it, rocking happily away on one of two speeds, with annoying jangly music, while changing the other. The downside is that they take up about as much room as a small helicopter in your living room. Brand new, they cost around £89 from catalogues such as Perfectly Happy People (0870 607 0545: wwwthebabycatalogue.com). Second-hand, they sell for around £50.

The V-shaped cushion
This is used for breastfeeding and propping up one little baby while you feed the other. One twin mother even uses hers to stop her two-year-old falling out of bed (one arm is a pillow, the other a buffer). She also found a rare V-shaped cushion with Velcro straps, allowing her to walk around the house with it strapped on like an ocean-going liner. Poor husband. The V-shaped cushion always comes out as a best buy for twin mothers because it allows you to breastfeed both babies at the same time (the double football hold), no-handed. Even if you bottle-feed, you can prop up both babies facing each other while you hold the bottles. Oh, what versatility! As well as being on sale at WI meetings for oldies who like to read in bed, it is also found at John Lewis stores and catalogues such as Perfectly Happy People (see above).

The baby change station
If you only had one baby, you might get away with not having to invest in a baby change station (the cheapest being a canvas and metal foldaway number costing around £30 in IKEA). However, if you don’t invest in one with twins, you would spend triple the cost at the osteopath after 100 nappy changes in the first week alone. If you can possibly afford it, buying one for upstairs and one for downstairs will also see you through the blizzard of nappies in the first few months.

Bath safety seats
Bathing twins in the early days is a two-person job unless you invest in bath seats. I bought two from Cheeky Rascals (£12.95 mail-order: 01428 682488) and I credit the purchase with helping my twins love water. The seat, which has recently won Parenting magazine Best Buy, is made of moulded plastic and props the baby in a semi-upright position. The baby is supported under the arms and legs, which are free to flail about, but cannot slip downwards. Once the twins get used to the water (my little girl used to scream when first immersed for about a week), they can splash around to their hearts’ content. In the early days, this means you could down a whole cup of tea. Well worth every penny.

The real nappy issue
You may be wondering at this stage what on earth makes one nappy brand better than another (the answer is whichever has a freebie of some wipes attached to them). Or you may be thinking that you’d like to do your bit for the environment and use real nappies. Whatever your view, you are entering a fiercely competitive world where the big brands like Pampers will be vying for your loyalty along with the little local nappy laundering services. Whatever you decide, remember that you will only have time to research the options before the babies are born. After that, it will be whatever the local store has in stock.

Biodegradable disposables
There is only one brand of disposable nappy that is biodegradable, and it is called Nature’s Boy and Girl. They are unisex (useful for boy/girl twins) and sold in all the big supermarkets, but sadly not in smaller chemists. Invented by a Swedish woman called Marlien Sandberg, the nappy is 70 per cent biodegradable, and a new prototype – 100 per cent biodegradable – may even be in production at the time of reading. For those too overstretched to want to wash or fold nappies, these are a good compromise. You are doing your bit for the environment, and can sleep at night knowing that of the 800,000 tonnes of nappy waste collected every year in UK landfill sites, at least your babies’ contributions will be rotting down. The shocking alternative is the knowledge that the very first disposable nappy ever made has yet to biodegrade.

Real nappy laundering agencies
For the first nine months of the twins’ lives, I opted for a nappy laundering service, which delivered 100 nappies for the babies every week and took away the soiled ones. As well as the laundering service, I also rented 12 plastic pants to put the nappies in, and they worked well with no problem of rashes or leakages. I even quite liked the chore of folding these white cotton nappy liners; it gave me a whiff of what it would be like to be a real earth mother. However, my main problem was the smell. The buckets that had to wait for a week for collection began to pong so badly that they eventually had to be put at the end of the garden near the compost. And if I forgot to put the nappy bucket out for collection, then the garden became a horsebox. The total cost was around £8 per week per baby, around the same cost as disposables. For your nearest nappy collection and delivery scheme, call The National Association of Nappy Services (0121 693 4949).

Real nappies to buy
In the year 2000, there were 10 companies selling cloth nappies; today there are about 22. Some mothers go for buying and using the cloth nappies because it works out cheaper in the long run. Friends of the Earth estimate that cloth nappies cost an average of £400 per baby over a two-year period before a baby is potty-trained, including the cost of washing powder, electricity, water and wear and tear (estimated at £40). Disposables cost £1,200 per baby for a two-year period – no small figure when doubled.

These days ‘real nappy systems’, as they are grandly called, have come a long way from the terry-towelling-and-safety-pin days of our mothers. Lively animal prints make them a little more fun to hang out on the washing line, and the Velcro or popper fastenings are a doddle to do. Catalogues such as PHP (0870 6070545), Cheeky Rascals (01428 682488) and Little Green Earthlets (01825 873301: www.earthlets.co.uk) carry a range, but for background information contact The Real Nappy Association (0208 299 4519).

One of the biggest manufacturers, Kooshies (0870 607 0545), often provides a sample pack for interested mothers. Those wishing to turn their interest into a lifetime of placard-waving on behalf of the environment can also get the low-down on the impact of disposables on the planet from the Women’s Environment Network (0207 481 9004).

The wonderful world of double buggies
If you thought buying a car was difficult (am I a hatchback sort of person or a sports car kind of girl?), then the double buggy showroom will send you rushing to the nearest shrink. Double buggies seem to cost about as much as a car, need at least an O-level in engineering to put up and down, and generate very little interest in the male species. If you do have a man with strong opinions about what you should buy, think twice about doing as you’re told against your better judgment. Exactly how much pushing up and down the pavements and hills will he be doing with it? A Saturday stroll is quite different from a slog back from Sainsbury’s with the weekly shop.

One reason why the world of double buggies is so complicated is because manufacturers are always bringing out new pushchairs with fabrics and features that instantly make last year’s model look like stale buns. We have a video in our twins club library called Coping with Twins (don’t bother, it’s from the 1970s), which shows a mother trying to ram a new double buggy through her front door. Under the helpful banner of ‘make sure your double buggy can fit through an average door’, this poor woman is trying to negotiate a vehicle the size of two shopping trolleys up the front step. Meanwhile, her twins are lying down on their fronts in the buggy, with their heads bobbing up and down like nodding dogs.
In a recent local twins club survey, two mothers groaned about how the Mothercare Urban Detour model was 82 cms wide and didn’t fit through their front doors. The thought of unloading your twins in the rain, and taking the shopping off the back of the buggy while finding the keys in the bottom of your handbag is no small consideration, so don’t rely on manufacturers to build to standard-width doors. At the risk of making the book instantly out of date, because by the time you read this some company will have just brought out a model with a pump-action pellet gun to zap other buggies out of the way, let me offer the results of our own twins club survey a little later on (see pages 56–7). In defence of being yesterday’s news, note that manufacturers’ ‘new ranges’ tend to offer cosmetic changes, such as different fabrics, rather than radical design improvements.

The first three months
The pram you need for the first three months of your babies’ life is quite different from the one you need for the next two years. Some manufacturers do try and get round this by getting their sitting-up versions to lie flat, but it can often look like a compromise. Although you will be focused on the babies as tiny little beans that need protecting, if you are buying new, do look ahead to the moment they can sit up – around six months.

Many twin mothers get round the problem by renting a pram (not particularly cheap) or borrowing for those first three months, and then buying the three-wheeler of their choice when the babies are six months old. For the first three months you will want your babies to be lying together, replicating the experience in the womb, so that they sleep more soundly comforted by each other’s presence. For that reason, old-fashioned prams – or even single prams for a month or two – often do the trick of keeping them tucked up cosily as twins. Once the babies are sitting up, a whole new world of buggies open up to you, and these buggies can then last the next two years.

Buy second-hand
One of the advantages of living on our crowded, small island is that neighbours and friends are always keen to offload equipment to make space in their shed. This is particularly true when your news of expecting twins reaches the outside world. Offers will come from the most unexpected sources – I was offered a front-and-back buggy in shocking purple and green from my sister-in-law’s former au pair’s current employer (see what I mean about ‘unexpected’). Then a friend turned up with a side-by-side Maclaren umbrella double buggy. As it turned out, both were useful. The front and back one lasted no more than six months because it became too heavy to lift up and down pavements. The second side-by-side number is still brought out for emergencies (and I was interested to see in our twins club survey that 45 per cent of mothers had a Maclaren as a second buggy).

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