Two crying babies, one Mum

It’s a cold morning. From the look of things, everything is set for my discharge from hospital. Except, I still don’t feel so good. I know I have a long way to go before I recover my health.

Meanwhile, I thank God that I am in one piece after what looked like a health disaster two days ago. I never thought I was that bad until my doctor came with a pressure machine. When they tried to get my blood pressure, it was not there. I told him I didn’t feel it the way I do on the machine, and I could not sit down up on the bed because of the unbearable pain.

The doctor called the nurse aside and the two talked in low tones. In no time, my bed was surrounded by machines and catheters that were inserted everywhere, save for my eyes. I was also fixed with several intravenous streams of medications. I didn’t have the energy to ask questions. But I could read panic in a nurse who, despite everything, remained positive, telling me everything would be alright. I could not understand this because I didn’t know what she was talking about.

Friends, that’s one of the prices I paid for having twins.

Preparations

“You’re fully recovered,” the doctor said, days later, “and you have been discharged.”

Now I was waiting for my family to pick me up. From the endless calls I got from home, it was as if I had delivered half a football team. I kept getting call after call asking where to place what. First there was the baby cot. Joshua never used it, and Issa too refused to sleep in it. Now it had to be placed in the living room, but it could not go through the door.

I could not remember how it got inside back then. So I suggested it be dismantled and reassembled in the living room.

Welcoming party

On arrival home, there were many caretakers; several tens than the babies I had carried home. Everyone looked very busy doing something to make my twin comfortable. There were over seven relatives who came just to wait and help with the settling of the babies. Some friends from the office were there to help with feeding. One woman was there to specifically help put the twins to sleep. One caretaker was in charge of Issa, my third-born son, whom we did not want to feel like he had been neglected or upstaged.

On arrival, Issa went dead silent. Even after hugging him and assuring him that I loved him, he just  nner prayer, I thanked everyone for being there for me and welcoming Baraka and Gabriel.

Terms and items

“Be calm and relax, everything will fall in place,” I said, although it seemed as if I came home with over ten babies.

As time went by, things took shape and form, as we adjusted to the twins’ feeding routine.

We coined terms and items that addressed the needs of the two newcomers. For example, water came in two thermos flasks: one in the name “express”. This meant this water had been boiled and allowed to cool to a lukewarm temperature that is suitable for milk formula. Then there is the “rescue-hot”.

This one comes handy when one is in a hurry to prepare formula and has forgotten to cork the ‘express’ thermos, making the water go cold.

Further, this can be used to sterilise the teat or the bottle when there is no time to wait for the sterilisation to take place in the assigned basin.

I have found out that you don’t know the pains and pleasures of having twins: until you have twins. Folks, this is just the half of it. I’ll share more so you know what you’re asking for when you pray for, to quote that praise chorus, “double-double”.

Asunta Wagura, a mother-of-five who tested HIV-positive 25 years ago