Nineteen weeks into my pregnancy, as I lay on the table for my first ultrasound, I told the technician I didn’t want to know the sex of the baby. She reminded me of the more significant reasons for this test and said, “First we want to make sure the baby is healthy.” My heart nearly stopped when she looked at the monitor with concern and said, “I have to tell you something.
“There are two babies in there.”
This revelation was both exhilarating and terrifying. Firstly, I was relieved that there was nothing wrong with the baby – er… babies. And twins? Who would not find the idea of two babies at once a little exciting? But I had just come to terms with the thought of having one baby, my first. On the way to the ultrasound I was joking with a friend about getting a t-shirt for the baby that said 100% unplanned goodness. Now I’d need a second t-shirt that said Totally frikkin’ random or Holy crap!, or maybe even the French-Canadian f-word Tabarnac! (It literally means “tabernacle” – most of the curse words here come from Quebec’s disenchantment with its Catholic history.) Logistics had had nothing to do with my pregnancy; I still hadn’t worked out exactly how it was all going to add up, although I did have a handy list of bookmarks in my web browser and numbers of baby equipment stores, government agencies, and doulas I knew I needed to call.
The twin factor would force me to contend with this stuff in a whole new way.
S., the father, wasn’t at the ultrasound because work had taken him out of town for the week, and rescheduling would have meant no ultrasound for a few more weeks. It would be up to me to drop this bomb on him when he got back. The last time we’d had sex, he had looked up at my belly and said, “We’re lucky this isn’t how twins are made.” How would I break this news to him? Obsessively logical, he was already more concerned than I was with the “business” side of having a baby. I decided I should look into things to get some answers for when I gave him the news.
My ovaries must have sensed my relocation to Quebec, because my move coincided with getting pregnant, and Quebec has the best pregnancy and childcare policies in Canada. My pregnancy books talked about asking for a “sibling discount” at daycare; but in Quebec, where government-subsidized daycare is just $7 a day, I couldn’t really complain about having that raised to $14. I would need to sign up soon, though, since space is obviously in high demand. We also have maternity, paternity, and shared parental benefits here, meaning I am entitled to up to 50 weeks off at between 70% and 75% of my salary. Would I get more benefits for having two babies at once? No: special bonuses are reserved for supertwins – triplets, quads, and so on. Still, I felt that of all the places in the world to find out I was having twins, I had landed in a pretty good spot. And twins wouldn’t literally cost me double – at least, not for the first few years.
After that initial flood of concern on the ultrasound table, then, giddiness was not long settling in. It’s hard not to feel special hearing that the odds of your pregnancy are one in one hundred. It’s not exactly lottery proportions, though now I might be tempted to play – I could use the money after all – but still, it’s as close to a feeling of being blessed that a secular woman like me is likely going to get.
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