No, They’re Not Twins

If I had a nickel for every time I got asked if my girls were twins, I’d be rich.

Let’s rewind to five years ago when I was happily and finally pregnant with my first child. I had been married to my college sweetheart for two years and one day, I told him I was surprised I hadn’t gotten pregnant yet; we weren’t trying, but we weren’t preventing things from happening either. It took my mom nine years to get pregnant and it was always in the back of my head that I might struggle too. I lived in a new city and decided to find a new OBGYN to make sure everything was “working.” A few appointments and some blood work later, we found out that I wouldn’t be able to get pregnant on my own, so I started my first round of Chlomid (I could write a whole other blog on this journey, but I’ll save that for another day).

I was fortunate that the Chlomid worked and we welcomed our beautiful baby girl into the world on April 21, 2016. I was just barely getting the hang of being a full-time working mom, when one day after work, I could barely stay awake while I was getting my hair done. I had a five-month-old at the time, but she slept well and was an easy baby, so I thought it was strange that I was nodding off while my hairdresser combed my hair. The thought ran through my head: “I haven’t felt this tired since I found out I was pregnant.” Surely not. There was no way. I had to have medicine to get pregnant — it didn’t happen naturally for me.

I had a slew of cheap Amazon pregnancy tests from when I was trying to conceive, but I had given a friend all but three of them the weekend before. I went home to take a pregnancy test just to rule it out. By the time I got home and settled in, I was fast asleep before I knew it. I woke up before my alarm went off the next morning and sat in the bathroom. One test, then the next, then the last. All three had two pink lines. I screamed. I am pretty sure my husband thought our house was burning down. I held the baby monitor in my hands and bawled my eyes out watching my baby sleep in her crib.

How could I be having a baby when I already had a baby?!

May 16, 2017 we welcomed our second daughter, 12 months and three weeks after my first was born. If I am being completely honest, I really don’t remember a lot from the first two years of her life. My oldest daughter couldn’t even walk when my youngest was born. It was hard. One would get over teething and the other would start. It seemed like I was fighting back to back battles every day.

A few months ago, when the world shut down and we were quarantined to our home, I started noticing how well my girls were playing together. They were laughing together, snuggled up watching movies with each other. When their daycare closed and they didn’t see their friends for weeks, they had each other. This year has been hard for so many reasons, but it has made me realize how thankful I am that my girls have such a special bond and friendship. While it has been hard to raise two babies and then two toddlers, I almost think this year would have been harder if they didn’t have each other.

They constantly get asked if they are twins and we have to do the whole “almost” speech. No, they’re not twins, but they are best friends and I wouldn’t have it any other way.