Yesterday (17th August) it was a year since we found out that I was having two girls. Of course, we already knew that I was having twins and so it was just a case of checking that both babies were healthy and finding out what combination of sexes we were going to have.
I think that everyone who finds out they are expecting non-identical twins hopes for a boy or girl because it signals completeness. Any couple that discusses the names they are going to give their children, in that heady time when they decide to have a family, chooses a name for a boy and a name for a girl. Little girls playing with dollies and prams invariably talk about a girl baby and a boy baby. I didn’t – my dollies were named after my grandmothers so I had a Mabel and a Winifred but that’s another story.

Before we found out what we were having, I had a strict wish-list. Number one was the classic boy/girl combination. Number two was boys. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit this, but having two girls was last on my preference list. Dh and I both have younger sisters and although we love them very much they were both extremely hard work. We had visions of a little girl like J and a little girl like D. We would never be bored but boy, would our lives be turned upside-down.

There were signs that I was expecting girls: the old wives tales say that being ill in the first trimester is a sure sign of a girl. It’s all rubbish of course but I was as sick as a dog. At the first scan, their heartbeats were measured at 153 and 155bpm. The theory goes that girls in utero have faster heartbeats than boys. I reckon it’s because girls are industrious and boys are very lazy! This also proved to be correct for us. The biggest sign of all was that we couldn’t agree on names for girls. R and G didn’t even have middle names until a month before they were born, when I had finally worn dh down. We had the boys names pretty much straight away so obviously we were destined to have girls.

Although he didn’t say too much beforehand, I know that dh badly wanted one of the babies to be a boy. He’s a very pragmatic person though and reasoned that if they were the same sex they could at least share a room.

During the scan, I asked the sonographer if we could find out the sexes. He ran the wand over the right side of my (rapidly expanding) tummy. “It looks like a little girl”. I looked at dh and he smiled. Inwardly, I prayed for the other baby to be a boy. The songrapher moved the wand over to the right hand side of my bump. “Another little girl”. I looked at dh. He had gone slightly pale.

I was sent to the loo to empty my bladder for a quick internal scan. I went in, locked the door and suddenly, without any warning jumped up and down in the air shaking my first with joy, with a big smile on my face. “YEEEEEES! YEEEEEEEEEEEEES!” I bellowed. I was so happy that 1. The babies were completely healthy and 2. I had got my girls. The people sitting outside must have wondered what was going on. I composed myself and went back in for the rest of the scan.

To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure what I would have done with two boys. I would have got my Tom but boys have boy bits and they fight and egg each other on and get into trouble and they smell! I don’t mean any of this, of course…

Dh was pottering around in the kitchen the other day and we were chatting randomly about the girls and what they were up to. He looked over and said: ‘I’m really glad we have girls now. I love them so much’. He’s the sort of person who doesn’t say things for the sake of it so it was clearly a heartfelt statement.

I’m glad too because I believe that you get the sex(es) you’re meant to have. We were clearly meant to have two girls and we were given R and G who are very much their own people and definitely not clones of J and D. We are incredibly lucky to have them.