My toddler twins are now 20 months and although late walkers I am proud to announce we can all start to walk holding hands! I went to the G.P., the physio and pediatrician and they gave the girls the “all clear” but still we are waiting for them to break free and run. I think the older they get and more independent they become and if they have not already learned to walk they can just be stubborn and say “no.” Crawling is just as easy but we are trying.

Besides the walking milestone, I am amazed every day of the new words and capability to learn at this age. I was so excited when they started to recognize shapes and play with puzzles, sing songs and when you test them on animal sounds they can give you an answer. They are just a joy to play with that I miss them even more when I am at work but can also see some educational benefits of the two days in daycare.

From great sleepers (6pm t0 6am) in their first year, this year their sleep through the night has not been of great pleasure. From sickness, to teething, to “I have no idea what is wrong screaming,”  the girls continue to take turns to repeatably wake up during the night. On average I am up  3-4 times a night which is very frustrating. At the moment they just scream and point for me to take them to the rocking chair in the lounge room for extra cuddles  where they just curl up with me until I lumber them back to their cots. Although nice, it is becoming a habit that I really need to go something about.

I am reminded everyday that their second birthday is coming round fast and I reflect on where we were this time last year. On Tuesday we sat down and did the Australian census online. It was 5 years since the last one. I had moved three times in the last five years and from a family of me to a little family of 4, we registered ourselves. I wonder where we will be in the next 5 years but for the minute I enjoy today – holding hands at the beach.

“It gets easier,” they say. I do enjoy being part of the unofficial parents of Multiple Birth Club. A club where instant recognition and understanding between parents can bring an instant connection and conversation.  However when I do meet parents of older multiples the most common retort is “It gets easier.” “Really,” I sigh.

I confess we had two easy babies. After the sleep deprived period where I thought it would never end, things just did get easier. The girls slept 12 hours a night, 5 bottles (times 2), 2 naps in the day, and routine baths and nappies. It was such a routine I had no problem going back to work for a few days a week when they were 4 months old. The rest of the year was really a breeze. They were a joy to drive with and to walk around the shopping centre, and to cuddle and giggle with. What happened?

18 months happened and it has gotten harder. They wake up at night (are you cold, hungry, nightmares, teething, sick)and get sick a little more.

We are two individuals. I don’t like marmite, but I do. We love a bath but we don’t want to get out. We don’t want to go home from the park. You don’t understand me, That is my sister, No, no, no. I don’t want to go to bed. Up, pick me UP. I want Dora, No I want Dora. Waaaahhhhhh!!!!

To finish this post. The other weekend I went to the Mummy Tree Markets and while I was waiting I spyed a man pushing a double stroller with ten week old twins. Oh the memories as I looked down at my two trying to get out of their pram. Another lady from the unofficial parents of Multiple Birth Club went up to him and said the standard “It gets easier, my two are now 7.”

“It’s my second set,” he said.

I laughed to myself. No more advice needed to be made.

Bed Time!

What is the tipping point to decide to have Baby number 3? At 31 years old, a good group of my friends have at least 1, a lesser few have had no 2 and announced it as their last and only a couple of school friends in contact through facebook are having a third this year. As my mother says, “I have time on my side” so perhaps this will be a different post in ten years time at 41 where I survey the same group of friends on the final number of children. But who decides to have another baby after twins?

So what is the deciding factor to have a third baby? Are stay at home mums more inclined to have a third than a working mum? How many mums of multiples go back for “just one more..” and how many were twins again? How many “just one more’s” turn into multiples?

My twin girls are 17 months and no 3 has been on my mind as I feel the family is incomplete. BUT my career has just been getting back on track… finances are still unstable with N’s back injury, my weight is back to normal (except for the twin tummy which I will have forever) and I am trying to make room in our busy schedule for more things for me.

Having twins didn’t give me a choice for baby no 2. Overall since I didn’t know any better perhaps twins were easier than two singletons. When it is time to feed one, what is one more mouth to feed?, change?, clean?. On the other hand it was more expensive: twice the cots, bottles, formula, clothes and nappies. But one less pregnancy and they are both at the same developmental stage (Please walk). When is a good age gap between twins and another baby?

So baby no 3 is on hold for another year. Let’s reassess next year…

One month Twins...just one more?

L

The girls are now 15 months old and still not walking so grocery shopping alone is impossible without some help. I usually leave the shopping to N as he is a better one with the grocery budget but as he is just out of hospital from back surgery it is now a family affair. Nether-the-less I love the double trolleys!

The baby aisle is the scary aisle as it has been the most expensive in the past year. Formula, wipes, bottles, nappies, sterilizers and baby food. Yikes! Luckily now it is mostly nappies we continue to buy. This trip we spent ages trying to work out if the bulk Huggies box was cheaper than the sale smaller packs. Dollar cost averaging all the way.

Breakfast is also a challenge for me and the girls. I don’t always have time to whip up an omelette and I think toast does not always fill the girls up. They love yogurt but I am trying to think of some other choices. Cereal with milk is too messy and they just spit out any porridge. At the moment the Special K was on sale so dried cereal flakes might be on the menu.

But on this day we treated ourselves to a McDonald’s Happy Meal for lunch. Not too bad considering the girls can share happily one meal between them. Moana’s new words for the week are “apple” and “hat.” Apples we gladly fed her rather than fries.  Feeding can be challenge.

“Is it Sunny in Adelaide today or raining?” we ask Stevie Jacobs every morning on the Today show.

Adelaide Rose is our Twin 2; our little quirky baby. Consistently smaller than her sister since birth but her spark and attitude already gives us nightmares of sneaking out of the bedroom to run away with her boyfriend on a motor bike.

Adelaide was not named after the South Australian city. By coincidence there is a Moana Beach in Adelaide so South Australians presume we have named our twins after the city. This confuses me as the South Australian capital Adelaide was named in honour of Queen Adelaide. Not the other way around. It is a girls name and the meaning reads “noble kind.” The name was a popular English name in the early 1900’s and is slowly coming back in Australia. It is not that uncommon but I confess I do not personally know any other Adelaide. I did a search on the Bonds Baby 2011 and there are 17 beautiful little Adelaide’s listed.

Another familiarity with the name was my Great-Aunt Del whose middle name was Adelaide. Del a shortened variant which suited the Aunty title. The second most common question I get after “Is she named after the capital?” is “What is her nickname?”

Why do Australians have to have a nickname for everyone? No we are not shortening her name to Addy, Ada, Ado, Della. Her name is Adelaide.

And lastly our Adelaide has a peculiar little chicken dance, was the first to crawl and announce “Up” to be picked up.  So far she shows little interest in walking preferring to speed crawl across the floor especially if there is a bottle in her sight. We have entered our beautiful Adelaide int the Bond  Baby search 2011 so please visit.

Good night,

Lisa

Bonds Baby Search Adelaide

Adelaide our Bonds Baby

If you see me madly cutting around my head with imaginary scissors, not to worry, I don’t intent to look crazy, I am just cutting the cords of attachment from all the negative and rude people I meet in the day to day of my life. I learnt this technique at one of the meditation classes many years ago. It is called “Cutting the Cords of Attachment” and now it has turned into a little habit that both N and I share.

Just quickly if you have no idea what I am talking about, cord cutting is a term to describe the energetic threads that link people together. Energy cords are invisible cords of energy going from you to other people and from them to you.

Some of these cords are positive (partner, family and friendships) complimenting positive relationships but most often they can be harmful and negative (ex-partners,unhealthy relationships ) and unless you use techniques like meditation to sever them, you have energy cords attached to you that you do not need. However a quick and easy technique in case you do not have time to meditate (like me) is visualizing and cutting with your fingers. Simple.

Perhaps I have taken it to the extreme because as soon as I feel angry or feel negative about someone (friend or foe) I get out those scissors and start cutting away.

Some of my most memorable cutters include:

• To the Community Health Nurse who I called at work to reschedule an appointment because A) I was home alone with twin newborns, B) It was pouring with rain and C) did not think I could cope packing up the babies, three trips to the car, driving across town in the rain, unpack the car for an appointment on my own. To my disbelief the lady was unkind and the appointment was cancelled. Cut.

• To the Manager at the Ella Bache store. I had a gift certificate given to me on my baby shower. The certificate was saved within the valid date. I selected a beauty treatment. I organized a babysitter weeks in advanced. I went to the salon for a luxury that I no longer take for some relaxation. After the consultation my gift card was not accepted. No money was on the card (mistake from the purchasing store). The company would not honour the card and quote, “I don’t care you have just had twins, it is $80.” Cut Cut

• To that person at work who stood at my office door after returning to work two weeks early when my twins were only 4 months old because I believed my work was valued and important but was “too busy” to see me for a few more week and often asks if I A) can attach a document to an email, B)convert a document into PDF and C) Do Track changes. CUT CUT CUT

Feel better now.

Try it.

Lisa

It would be lying if sometimes multiple mums had singleton baby envy. After posting this question on The Blogfrog and Multiple birth parents forums it was nice to know I am not the only one. The girls are  now 14 months and I love watching them learn new things everyday (both can now crawl!) but honestly the expense and logistical planning of day to day can be tiresome that I can’t help glance at my singleton baby friends or strangers in the park and sometimes wonder how easy it might have been. Double the expenses of formula, nappies, cots, clothes, high chairs, car seats, strollers, and daycare. The logistical nightmare of fussy eaters times too (identical babies have different tastes too), trying to bath two babies safely when there is only me, going to the shops in a huge double pram, chasing crawlers, and giving one-on-one attention. I suppose I most feel envious is when I see new babies nursed for long periods and the apparent ease it is to collect one baby, put on a baby sling and get out and about. I would have loved to attend baby and me yoga and swimming classes but alas not this time round.

But once the little envy irritation passes, I would not have it any other way. I only have today to enjoy my double blessings and watching them play. I am happiest most when I hear them chatting away together and the rare occasion of when they make each other laugh. Singleton baby envy no more for this mum.

Moana and Adelaide trip to the beach. 14 months.

So I bit the bullet and bought a new Apple iMac  before Christmas. I confess I didn’t quite have all of the money so I have a credit card bill to start off in 2011. I still have two weeks of annual leave to enjoy but this Summer has been miserable. Most of Queensland is under water with flooding impacting most of the state. We are not terribly effected where I live except for flooding in my rental property (another $1200 bill to fix) as we could have lost everything as towns around the state are being evacuated.

Christmas was fairly uneventful. This year we bought a “real” Christmas tree however next year we might pick it up a week later as by the time Christmas arrived it was starting to look a bit sad and droopy. Perhaps it is time to sell my beloved 7ft slim fake Macedon (from the days working at Myers) for the commitment of real trees. On Christmas eve, N and I celebrated ourselves with Mussels, oysters and champagne on the deck. Memories of carefree and single holidays of kayaking in New Zealand for New Years a few years prior was playing on our minds. How quickly holidays change.

For the previous two days I was trying to create the Jamie Oliver Christmas Trifle. I was quite impressed by my efforts. At least it looked nice on the Christmas table.

Mussels of Christmas Eve.

On Christmas morning after opening a few presents (the girls received togs, buckets and spades this year. Luckily they are still too small for Christmas) we headed off to my parents for the rest of the day of eating.

Just a few photos to mark the year. In particular last year our girls were less than a month old and look at their smiling faces now. xoxo

Christmas Tree with the girls

My Jamie Oliver Christmas Trifles

Our First Christmas 2009 Photo when the girls were less than a month old

Christmas 2010. The Four of Us

All mums are amazing whether you have had one or ten children (actually more than ten children these days sounds a little neglectful but that is for another blog post) but it is the multiple mums I love to hear from the most. At the moment we are all waiting to hear of the pending birth (false labour starts on the news everyday) of Princess Mary’s twin girls. As an Australian, Princess Mary’s life reads like a fairy tale. I am sure if I really knew her I woud understand her daily life is probably much more challenging than the tabloid reports but I can dream. Meeting her Prince at a pub in Sydney during the Olympics and then a world wind romance, wedding, castles and two babies… So I was delighted to hear the next pregnancy was spontaneous twins. Will she cope with four children under five? So far she looks radiant and healthy and now I can not wait to the magazines of when she comes home with twin girls.

Courtesy of Google.

The other famous mum I confess I love to read about is Angelina Jolie. Besides the fact like Mary she is drop dead gorgeous (do they really look like that ALL the time?) I really do wonder how both these women do it all. We have all heard of Angelina’s huge international brood and I would love to know how she does have the time to spend quality time with all six of her children while she makes movies, travels the work and does all her charity commitments. Maybe I am naive and really both Mary and Angelina have a number of nannies to do the “real” work. Real work as in lack of sleep while attending to babies all night long while wearing a perfectly unsexy nightie or bed time routines of cooking dinner (maybe Brad is the cook), feeding dinner to babies, dinner on floor and all over babies, cleaning floor, bathing babies, and lastly settling babies. For some reason I can not imagine either Mary or Angelina on their hands and knees picking up food scraps thrown from the high chair or negotiating with babies about how much TV they should be watching. But perhaps they do. That is one magazine article and photos I would read.

Courtesy of Google

Last of all the other mums is Australian Westpac CEO Gail Kelly. Ranked the 8th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes in 2010, Gail has four children including Triplet girls. Starting as a teacher and bank teller, this Triplet mum is now the highest paid woman in an Australian corporation. Wow. I love hearing her story because she continued to build a successful career after having Triplets. No, when she had her family she was not famous and no multiples are not the end of the world. Your life does not just stop. If I decided to keep climbing that corporate ladder, I’d like to think of Gail and remind myself that It is OK to pause your career for a few years as there is plenty of time to climb that corporate ladder (if you want too).

Gail Kelly. Photo Courtesy of ABC.

Mrs Kelly says having children taught her the importance of balancing work with other parts of life.

“I really am a huge believer in work-life balance,” she said.

“Practices of flexibility, practices of encouraging people to live whole lives, those are principles for me that I’ve lived and believed in all my life and certainly been the recipient of myself.

“I have four children, three of whom are triplets, and in my life I’ve needed employers who were prepared to back me and provide some flexibility to me during different stages in my career. Reference: Market gives thumbs up to Westpac CEO appointment

Just because you have decided to be a mum, if you want to have a career, you can still do it. Multiples and all.

I was recently asked for my opinion of the benefits of Private Healthcare in planning to have a baby. You see if you do not have private healthcare and would like to when planning children you need to have cover for at least 12 months to qualify. Birth is such an unpredictable event my recommendation was better to be covered.

I have had friends who have had babies in the public health system but babies are so unpredictable and lots of things can happen (or nothing hopefully) so the best healthcare is what you want. One of the major benefits of private health is choosing your Obstetrician and Private Hospital. When you confirm your pregnancy with the GP they give you a referral to a OB of your choice. At 12 weeks you have your first appointment and then a scan. You meet with the OB every month until the last trimester then it is fortnightly and then weekly. For a single birth, medicare only pays for two scans 12 week (to get the nuchal fold scanning to test for downs syndrome) and then a growth scan at 20 weeks. Because twins are considered high risk pregnancy I had of course more appointments and scans so I am happy I went private health. Plus in the end I was very sick with pre-eclampsia and HELLP Syndrome. We had our 36 week appointment with the OB at 4pm and after checking my blood pressure we were admitted into the hospital. It all happened really crazy fast and scary but the twins were born at 8pm by c-section. I was hoping for a natural birth but babies what can happen can be so unpredictable. I spend the night in ICU and the girls were in NICU (special care) for a week.

In regards to money:

• Each appointment with the OB cost us about $65 (Although the initial appointment was probably over a $100). Make sure you are covered by the Medicare safety net because as soon as you reach the threshold (I think it is $500??) you get about 85% of that back. Download the medicare safety net information here.
• Around your 20 week appointment the OB will request a payment of about $2000 for the management of your pregnancy. I just put this on my credit card as we had met the medicare threshold and got the money back fairly quickly.
• The two scans are also covered by medicare but it depends where you go as well. If you go to a fancy imaging place you might have more out of pocket expenses compared to the standard x-ray place where it is cheap and you don’t get all the fancy photos. I went there for a scan at 9 weeks to diagnose twins but the rest of the scans were at a private clinic so there was a little more money there.
• The Private Hospital was 100% covered by private health. However we had to pay a $500 excess (it depends on you excess you have on your private health) only because we had twins – two babies. The first baby was 100% covered but we had to pay an excess to take the second baby home. If you don’t have multiples don’t worry. All special care was also covered as part of our private health.
• During my stay in hospital I had lots of blood tests and we did get a bill from QML for a few hundred but all the other tests during the pregnancy was bulk billed.
• During the birth a Paediatrician attended and assessed the girls before admitting them into special care. He oversaw the girls for the week but I never got a separate bill. However in “normal births” I have heard they do send a bill.
• After you leave the hospital you have wonderful access to the QLD health children community health. I had several appointments for weighing and breastfeeding etc. All free.
• At six weeks post baby you see your OB for the a final check up.

Also during the pregnancy I did baby yoga as some exercise programs are covered in private health but you need to check what is covered.

Another little tip is you you can track all your Medicare out of pocket statements online. Just register on the Medicare Australia website.

We were covered by MBF and you can also track the hospital expenses on their website as well.

All up I think we were out of pocket with private health by about $2000 but that was because we had twins and had to pay an Excess and I was a high risk pregnancy and needed more tests and interventions compared to a normal pregnancy. Saying that you never know what might happen. Babies come early, you might get sick, or you might conceive multiples, or there might be other complications but overall it was a positive outcome as we have two healthy happy little girls. Plus we received the $10,000 Baby bonus so all good.

On the other hand a friend of mine did not know she was pregnant until late in the first trimester. She did not have private health and her GP managed the whole pregnancy. She had no out of pocket expenses and only stayed in the hospital for a few days.

I stayed for a week. When you have a look at different private hospital, take a tour, ask what is offered and how long the standard stay is. But in the end it is the midwives and doctors who make up the stay. I chose a smallish suburban hospital compared to the city one who churns out babies by the minute. Although the facilities were not as fancy the staff was fantastic. Once the birth is over – and you have been discharge the hardest part is then looking after the little thing.

Adelaide (L) Moana (R) NICU