"I obsessively planned for a third kid. I got it wrong."

No one can plan their life and their kids to a tee, I don’t know why I thought I’d be different.

Did you always know how many kids you wanted? I don’t think I ever thought about it that much. Until a very clear moment, about an hour after having my second baby – when a switch flicked inside of me. All of a sudden, I knew I needed a third baby. We were meant to have three children.

I told my husband about my revelation. He wasn’t too convinced. But as the months went on, I couldn’t let it go. I nagged and obsessed and read up on the logistics of having three kids.  Could we handle it? Could we afford it? Would we need a new car? I went over the details and figures until I made them work in favour of the third child. I’m a bit obsessive like that. Happily, I reported back to him that we could handle the addition. ‘We won’t even need a new car!’ I proclaimed. ‘Three seats can go in the back!’

Eventually I got my way and was up the duff for a third time. I was ecstatic. To my surprise, a bump appeared quite quickly, at around 9 weeks. This was weird, as it took months to show with my first two pregnancies. I put it down to the third-pregnancy thing. My stomach muscles were lax, I was out of shape. Maybe the baby was sitting differently. Even my doctor agreed.

Even so, I googled 'twin pregnancy'. I'd heard that showing early was a symptom. But apparently, so was excessive morning sickness. I had barely any of this. And we had no twins in either of our families. I breathed a sigh of relief and put the suspicions to rest. I mean, twins sounded fun in theory, but no way could I handle two babies with two other small children in tow.  The thought of trying to get two babies to sleep (it's the thing I'm worst at) sent me into shudders.

When our 12 week scan date finally arrived, I was chomping at the bit to meet our baby for the first time. I lay back on the bed, bared my tummy for the sonographer and squinted at the screen above us, waiting to catch the first image of our baby and signs of the heartbeat. As usual, all I saw was a blob. I stared, looking for a flicker, while the sonographer seemed to pause.

And then she just came out with it, with a little laugh in her voice:

'You've got twins!'

I drew my breath in sharply and choked out, 'What?'

She showed us. Ah, yes, there it was. I could see it now. Two heartbeats. Two sacs. One placenta. Identical twins - nothing to do with heredity and completely random. Google did NOT tell me twins could happen just like that, to anyone.

My reaction? I laughed. I laughed hysterically while tears poured down my face.

Touché, Mother Nature, I thought. I had that one coming, really.

While my poor husband stared at the screen in silence with his mouth agape, I went through the logistics again in my head. Wow, this was going to be hard. And maybe a tad overwhelming. When these babies arrived, we'd have four children under five years old.

No matter - we'd adjust. We'd make it work. I mean, this was something special, something brilliant. There was just one thing. Four car seats weren't going to fit into the hatchback. We'd need a new car after all.

I looked over at my husband, wondering if this was the time to bring it up, and then it hit me: four children, four car seats -  it was very possible that we were in People Mover territory...

Is the number of children in your family different to what you planned for?

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Never say THIS to someone having twins

She had two kids. And then she had THREE sets of twins