By Tracey Davies

‘And how many babies were you expecting to see here today, Mrs Davies?’ No-one really expects to hear those fateful words in the scanning room, but 1 in 67 parents-to-be do.

With the sonographer’s words still ringing in my ears, my identical twin daughters, Nancy and Lola (now seventeen months old) look up at me with toothy grins as wide as the Blackwall Tunnel. The shock of having twins hasn’t completely subsided, but we have survived that terrifying first year and two smiling baby girls prove that we haven’t done that bad a job of it…so far!

In my part of London you can barely move for double buggies. Here it becomes glaringly obvious that the instances of multiple births have increased by more than 20 per cent over the past ten years. Along with the rise in IVF treatments and the use of fertility drugs, the third most valid reason for this increase is that women are simply having children later in life. Couple this with other determining factors, previous pregnancies, family history and physical stature. As a six-foot tall, thirty-something mother of one, I shouldn’t have been at all surprised.

While there are many myths on how to get pregnant with twins, from eating a diet loaded with yams to having sex in a tree under a full moon (some with more validity than others), it is one decision which falls either in the hands of science or Mother Nature. As one of the ‘lucky’ ones, the question I have been asked a thousand times over is, ‘are there twins in the family?’ For me, no, but when there are twins on the maternal side, women will be more susceptible. This however, is not the case if the twins are on the father’s side, as a man has no influence on how many eggs his partner releases. Age can also be a factor. Women over thirty are more likely to conceive two or more babies as the ovaries, in an attempt to lighten up before the menopause, release more eggs as they get older. Recent statistics show that 62% of twins born are to mothers over 30. The third and perhaps lesser known reason is your physical stature. If you are tall or of larger build you have a higher chance of conceiving twins, this is possibly down to the perceived necessity of good nutrition.

Alongside the usual barrage of ‘double trouble’, ‘was it buy one get one free?’ and ‘you’ve got your hands full’ comments, the question I am frequently asked is ‘are they identical?’ Twins fall in to two categories, fraternal and identical, or in medical terms, dizygotic (two eggs) and monozygotic (one egg). Two thirds of twins are born fraternal, when two eggs are released and fertilised by two sperm. These can be any boy or girl variation and the children will be no more alike than other siblings. There have been incidences of fraternal twins being born with different fathers. This suggests that the two eggs were fertilised by two different men’s sperm, causing the twins to be half-siblings. These extremely rare cases tend to attract the attention of the press, not to mention some serious questioning of the mother’s fidelity.

The remaining third of twins born are monozygotic, or as they are more commonly known, identical. Identical twins are produced when a single fertilised egg splits into two embryos, usually within two weeks. They will have the same DNA and although they will look very similar, there will be some slight physical differences between each child. Genetically speaking, the children of identical twins are half-siblings rather than cousins, which could raise all kinds of interesting issues later in life. Identical twins are not influenced by the usual determining factors; they are almost always the result of chance. Rarer variations of monozygotic are mirror twins and conjoined twins. Mirror twins will mirror each others physical differences. One will be left handed, one right; one may have a freckle under the left eye, one the right. Conjoined twins are the result of an incomplete split of the embryo, causing the twins to be joined together.

After the initial shock most parents will start to revel in the thought of having a pair of cute babies. Thoughts of the multi-million dollar enterprise that is the Olsen twins will spring to mind and before the end of the second trimester, they’ll have their names down at stage school and be on the shortlist to play the next Eastenders baby. I too, went through this excitable phase, until I had the ultimate reality check when my girls were born two months early. Yes, having two babies together is double the joy, but it is also double the cost and I can safely say, about ten times the work!

‘We were just so excited we didn’t think about how much our life would change. Thankfully, I hired a doula for the first three months and she was a real life saver.’ says Cathy, mother of 6 month olds Alys and Cian.

‘One baby on its own is hard enough but when you’ve got two you really have to have your wits about you’ says Claire Verity, baby guru and resident expert on Channel 4’s Bringing up Baby. ‘You have to be in the routine the second they arrive home from the hospital. Twins thrive on it. They sleep together, they feed together and they bathe together, its all very much togetherness in the first two years.’

This is where the benefit of having had a child before comes in. My first child commanded the household from day one and I was determined not to let that happen with the twins. Nancy and Lola had a set routine from very early on, which ensured that they slept/ate/bathed at exactly the same time each day. Although this was restricting, it did give me the confidence to cope. Having a routine in place gave me structure which in turn, gave me some much-needed time with their big brother.

‘Mothers of twins soon find that, although they get lots of admiring glances and appreciative remarks, there are few offers of practical help.’ says Dr Carol Cooper GP and author of Twins and Multiple Births. It’s important that friends and family provide a necessary support network. I had one friend who would watch over the girls for 20 minutes once a week, just to allow me to pick up my son from pre-school alone. Another would often turn up at the witching hour (tea/bath/bedtime) with a bottle of wine, a copy of Heat and a spare arm for feeding. Gestures like these really help in the early days, but offers of assistance need to be encouraged at all times, not just in the beginning. ‘Our friends were amazing, especially in the first few months when they developed a rota and cooked food for us.’ says Anra, mother of 7 years olds, Lucy and Millie.

The day we all trooped home from the hospital was one of the scariest of my life. There was no going back, we either survive or we suffer. We survived and the first year has flown by (possibly due to the fitting of 40 hours of work into just 24) and before I knew it, they are sleeping through the night, eating solids and are on the move. As my baby girls turn into toddlers, with all the tantrums, fights and food-flinging that goes with it, I can now look back at the hazy, sleep-deprived newborn days with a flood of fondness.

‘It was somewhere between one and two when we felt it had suddenly got a lot easier.’ remembers Jane and Les, parents of 5 year olds, Laura and Joe. ‘We went on our first family holiday just before they turned one and it seemed like such hard work. But the next year, when they were two we suddenly realised we were having a nice holiday and it just seemed a whole lot easier.’ We reached our even keel just after the girls’ first birthday. It felt like we had held our breath for a year and once passed, we were able to breathe again.

‘As they got older the twin issue was starting to become less important in all of our lives. We did agonise about separating them at school for quite some time.’ remembers Les. ‘Laura appeared to be the dominant one and she would often speak for Joe. We thought it would be good to split them up and that’s what we did. In fact, Joe took to school straight away and loved it, whereas Laura found the separation from him much harder.’ As the adult it’s our job to make these important decisions for our twins, children are very adaptable creatures and if it feels like the right choice, then it probably is.

‘The major advantages of having two together became really apparent at key stages like starting nursery school. It made settling in much easier for Lucy and Millie as they were taking part of home with them.’ says Anra.

‘Starting school is a major step and there is a lot to consider about whether to separate your children.’ says Helen Forbes, Director of TAMBA, ‘I believe they need to be seen and act as individuals from day one - but you have to do what’s right for your own family’. With smaller, one form schools the decision is taken out of our hands, at least in the beginning. ‘Teachers may treat twins as a unit and that may have negative effects for one or both of them’ says Dr Pat Spungin, Child Psychologist and Director of Raisingkids.co.uk. ‘If there is a dominant (or even a cleverer) twin it might be better for the less assertive twin to be in a different class.’

There are the obvious social advantages of having two children together. They can entertain and become a constant companion for each other throughout their lives. ‘Twins have a resident playmate and therefore will learn to play cooperatively before other children of the same age.’ comments Dr Spungin. ‘This may not be all positive. Having established strong patterns of interacting together, there could be a problem in school which makes twins less likely to make friends since there is less need as they have each other’.

‘They do have fights like other siblings but they also have these incredibly imaginative and involved games together. It’s very different to my friends with one child as they have to go off to clubs, arrange outings and play dates. My girls have a ready-made playgroup.’ says Anra.

As the birth rate of multiples continues to increase, there is a good chance that my twins will not be the only ones in class. However, if the Human Fertilisation Embryology Authority’s (HFEA) recent proposal to reduce the number of embryos implanted by IVF from two to one goes ahead, it will dramatically reduce the number of twins born in the UK. ‘The chance of having twins after IVF is about 1 in 4 which is ten times higher than after a natural conception.’ says Jane Denton, Director of the Multiple Births Foundation (MBF). ‘Twins can be a great joy but sadly a multiple pregnancy also brings higher risks for the mother and a greater chance that the babies will die or be disabled, mainly due to preterm delivery. At the MBF we see the extent of the impact of bereavement and disability on the children and families, which is a consequence of multiple births that is often underestimated and little understood by professionals and the public.  With all the evidence we have about the complications of multiple pregnancy, which is the single greatest risk for IVF babies, the aim of all fertility treatment should be the birth of a single, healthy child born at full term.’

Raising twins is really tough. We’ve had more ups and downs than a trek over the Himalayas. But there are many, many benefits of my hard labour. Seeing a pair of adoring, shiny faces peeping through the bars of the cot is all it takes to bring me back from the depths of sleepless despair. The dual-mutterings of ‘mama’ has a similar tear-jerking effect, as does watching their special and unique relationship develop. Having twins has pushed me physically and mentally to the edge, but like running the London marathon, I feel the undulated glory of achieving what I thought was the impossible, every single day.