Читать книгу Double Trouble: Twins and How to Survive Them - Emma Mahony - Страница 6

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