When My Twins Were Born: I Finally Found Myself

When you are blessed to have twins, and believe me it is a blessing, it’s incredibly special knowing that you are a dad of twins. Two children born at the same time. It’s very hard to explain how you feel emotionally.

That moment they’re born, and you become a daddy twice in two minutes. That feeling like a rabbit in the headlights often springs to mind. It is of course very special if you become a daddy to just one child, I also know that feeling three times over.

Even though I was already a father of three children nothing in this world could prepare me for how I felt when my twin girls were born.

My twin girls were born two minutes apart. My wife had a planned caesarean birth because the girls needed to be born six weeks early. This was due to growth issues with one of our girls.

Leading up to the birth was a very nervous and anxious time, but it had to happen to give the girls the best chance of survival. Looking back now, if this had all been going on 30 years ago, would both of our girls have survived the pregnancy? I do wonder. Thankfully with modern medicine and the attention that midwives and consultants give to twin births, the survival rates are better than ever.

Leading up to the that moment just before the girls were born has always been a blur to me. I do remember waiting on my own to be called into the operating theatre. I was full of tension and apprehension, sweating and just very nervous, wanting and willing everything to go smoothly without any issues.

I knew the girls were going to be tiny and not look like what we expect a baby to look like, but nothing could have prepared me for those few minutes after the girls were born.

Upon entering the operating theatre, I was shocked at the amount of medical staff in the room. Doctors,surgeons and nurses. I felt like the entire staff of the neo-natal unit were in that room all at the same time.

I sat down next to my wife who I have admit was a bag of nerves and emotion. I was doing my best to comfort her, although I am not sure if I was any help.

The next minutes of my life changed my life forever. What I considered important disappeared forever.

My twin girls are going to be six years old in a couple of weeks time and only now I’m able to fully appreciate how I felt in those first few minutes. It has genuinely taken that long to understand how much of a blessing it is to become a daddy to twins.

I clearly remember the anaesthetist saying would you like to see your babies being born, and without hesitation I was up out of my chair looking over the top of the sheet, and hearing in the background my wife saying don’t look you will pass out! I never did! I have no recollection of blood or seeing inside my wife’s stomach.

The only memory I have was seeing my twin girl, R, coming out of the womb and into the world weighing just 4lb 3ozs followed two minutes later by M weighing 2lb 11ozs.

That few minutes of new life that my wife and myself had created reduced me to an emotional wreck as I started to realise the enormity of the situation. The girls, yes, were healthy to a point, but the care they were going to need for the next 27 days is only now that I can begin to understand.

I was consumed by a love and feeling of vulnerability that I didn’t think was possible to feel. I felt this overwhelming desire to put an umbrella over us all to protect this wonderful new life that been born to protect and cherish forever.

I was changed as a person forever. I never knew how much two minutes would change my perception of life.

I held both the girls for what was about 10 seconds and then they were gone to the neo-natal unit.

As for me, I felt special. I was a daddy twice in two minutes. I was a father for the fourth and fifth time. I felt love bursting out of me for my twin girls, and how special that my other children had twin sisters.

It’s moments like this that define you after a life of ups and downs, dysfunctional childhood, alcoholism, divorce, depression and numerous other things, feeling lost and never quite fitting in. As the saying goes I felt like a round peg trying to fit into a square hole, never really knowing what my purpose in life was meant to be, who I was. In those two minutes it struck me exactly what I had been searching for all these years was there right in front of me. I was simply meant to be a dad!

I had reached the plateau of happiness that only life can deliver and many fail to achieve. I was finally home, and a dad of five children. That is my home, my perfect happiness.