#atozchallenge - Multiples

Whenever you read birth statistics that mention multiple births, there’s invariably a mention of the fact that fertility treatments have led to an increase in multiple births. It might sound a little bit greedy, but a little bit of me would love to have twins from the IVF, partly because I’ve imagined myself having three kids and I’ve come to accept that I might only get one now; twins would give us an instant ‘complete’ family.

I say it’s greedy because even if you get a clutch of perfect embryos from the IVF, there’s no guarantee that any of them are going to stick, so to speak. It’ll be heartbreaking to be ‘almost’ pregnant only to have it not actually go all the way. Of course, there are dangers inherent with multiple births, both to mum and to the babies. Generally speaking, during IVF, only one embryo will be transferred depending on the woman’s age to help reduce the risk of a multiple birth. Plus there’s the extra costs of raising more than one baby at the time. But that doesn’t stop me from wishing, just a little bit.

I love reading blogs of people with large families. I think I would be perfectly happy living on a little spit of land with sheep and cows and about seven kids, but maybe that’s because of the sort of books I like to read when I was younger. The Sound of Music has blatantly given me unreal expectations of what family life should be like.

I was an only child for seven years and I remember clearly that during a lot of that time I really wanted older and younger brothers and sisters. Where other kids had imaginary friends, I had imaginary siblings. I suppose that’s another reason why I like the idea of a large family; always someone to play with, share a book or film with, no less need to try playing monopoly with a stuffed bear or your pet dog. I realise that would also mean more chance of squabbles, actually having to share stuff and more getting blame for your younger siblings’ messes, but I do think that the pluses outweigh the minuses.

I suppose it’s human nature to want what you can’t necessarily have. And obviously, if we can only have one child, then I’ll definitely be satisfied with that. Unfortunately it will need to have about twenty names just in case we never have a chance to use all the names I’ve planned for my children.