The Ups and Downs of Raising Twins

An Interview with Lotta Rosander

Lotta and Fredrik Rosander live in Sweden with their twin boys Axel and Emil. They were at one point told they could never conceive without IVF, but decide to not go that route. Imagine their shock when Lotta does indeed turn up pregnant, and with twins no less...

MM: Did you know you were having twins before they they were born? What was your reaction to the news?

Lotta: September 10, 2003, we went for the first routine ultrasound. I was 18 weeks and 3 days into my pregnancy and I was very nervous. What if something's wrong with the baby? What if the baby has some kind of syndrome or handicap? I wonder if they can tell if it's a boy or a girl? But no, I don't want to know, I'm sure it's a girl anyway! It feels like it!

Or what if it's two in there??? People have been joking about it the past month or so since my stomach got so big right away... And my colleague at work, who's supposed to be a bit psychic, has for the last 2 weeks been walking around with a "secret" smile saying: "You'll see, it's twins!"

"Yeah, right. Sure, baby" I thought, I don't have any twins in the family... And it's supposed to be genetically hereditary! Fredrik has twins in the family, but it's not supposed to be hereditary from the father's side, is it?

But my stomach was HUUUGE... When we enter the examination room the midwife says: "So, you're having two? We'll see!"

I lay down on the cot in the examination room and expose my stomach which gets a large heap of cold gel on it. Fredrik sits in eager expectation and neorvousness next to me. The midwife puts "the ultra sound thing" on my stomach and Fredrik startles in his chair:
"That baby has too many heads!"
The midwife says: "Oops, there's two of them in here!"

I burst into tears, I'm all shaking, my tears are squirting out and I can hardly see the monitor in front of me. Fredrik is shaking uncontrollable, he can't believe his eyes. We who learned that we never would conceive a child without in-vitro fertilizing - we're having "home made" TWINS!