What are the Odds?

Before all this happened, I worked as an analyst for a healthcare organisation.

I don't really know how I fell into the world of statistics, I have no natural aptitude for maths at all. But in some ways statistics is more of a dark art than a science. I always feel that, as a field, it is a bit fuzzy around the edges. Perhaps that is why I like it. There is always wriggle room if you make a mistake. What generally results from all the numerical manoeuvring is an answer something along the lines of "hmmmm, I am x% confident that the true value of this particular variable lies within the region between y and z".

Occasionally, I do get the feeling that I might be a bit of a charlatan who will one day be exposed with cries of "ha, she never really understood what she was doing " but in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. Some of the people I work with don't believe that they can calculate a percentage change (they can, but they just don't believe that they can) so I feel pretty confident in my royal, one eyed status continuing for at least a while yet.

Sadly, this means I am a bit of a data geek. There is nothing I like more than a freshly constructed database full of nice, complete fields. Hmmm, I can smell all the initial analysis, charts, scatter plots, models. Yum, yum.

It also means that I can't help looking up all the numbers related to what happened to me and my girls. I'm not going to quote them here as I'm using some pretty dubious sources. Ends with -paedia, first bit rhymes with icky.

My chances of conceiving fraternal twins in the first place were pretty low. I don't have any of the risk factors for conceiving twins. I'm not very tall (5ft 8), my BMI is not over 30, I fell pregnant when I was 28, there are no other fraternal twins on my side of the family, I didn't have fertility treatment.

Jessica and Georgina were non-identical twins with separate placentas and separate sacs. I was reassured time and time again that these are the 'safest' type of twins to have.

Once I had made it past 12 weeks, I felt so relieved. I knew that the chances of having a second-trimester miscarriage were much lower. I started to relax. I started to talk about the girls after that point. The costs of two of everything. I even bought a double buggy, two cots, two chairs. Oh dear.

I honestly don't know what the odds of babies of such early gestation even surviving a natural birth are. I shouldn't think they are great. The girls were very large for their gestation (my dh is 6ft 4) but large is relative.

I don't know what the odds of Jessica surviving at all were. Again, I am thinking that they weren't good. I remember 50:50 being mentioned to me at one point. And that is 50:50 chance of surviving, not the odds of surviving without any serious consequences. Now, that sounds horrifying. At the time, it seemed pretty good given that Georgina's chances were always described as small to vanishing.

So very unlucky, so very lucky. Perhaps lucky and unlucky don't really come into it.
All these outside bets, all these strange chances, all these long shots.
It is so very tempting to try and read a meaning into them.
But I really should know that long shots do happen. I would call them outliers if I was analysing the course of events that led up to this. A bunch of outlying events occurred. Triggered by conceiving twins which raised the chances of all the subsequent events happening.

There is the person who dies of lung cancer who never touched a cigarette.
It is all just a matter of risks, tipping the balance one way or another.
There are no certainties. But I can't help asking, why me? Why me? But why not me?
The outside bets have to happen to someone.
I just wish they hadn't happened to my Georgina, my sweet determined little child. My eldest child. My first born. My girl.
I'm not even sure how to describe what happened to her. Did she die? Or did I have a miscarriage? In my mind, she died. She was a very palpable little person, she moved, she looked around, she held my finger. She existed for a few days. And then she didn't.

But I want another child. There, I said it. I love being a mama, to both my girls. I used to have so many doubts, would I love them, would they love me, would I look after them properly, would I know what to do, would I be able to stop them crying, would I be bored sitting at home all day. All those doubts evaporated, the moment I saw them lying in their incubators.

I know that I can say I want another child a million times but it doesn't mean that it will happen. I want doesn't get, as my mother used to say. Everyone I know who hasn't lost a baby says, you are just trying to replace Georgina, you are just trying to fix it, you should enjoy Jessica.
Maybe I am. Maybe I should.

But it feels like do or die. I feel like I've never been pregnant, it was all over so quickly. I don't think they understand what fuels my desire for yet another child.

Will I ever fall pregnant again? How long will it take? Will I have another miscarriage? Will the 12 weeks ultrasound reveal twins again? Will I have to spend months in the NICU again? Will I have to agree to switching a ventilator off again?

I want certainty. If this, or some other horrible permutation of events, happens again. It will break me.

I suppose that I only really, really, really want another child when I'm prepared to take that chance. And would that just be foolish? Perhaps I should call it quits. I don't know.