It’s a tough thing for any parent to admit, but one incredibly honest mum has voiced one of parenting’s biggest taboos.
Regret.
Irish mother Jeanne Measom already had four children when she discovered she was accidentally pregnant again.
Irish mother Jeanne Measom. Image via Instagram.
The unplanned pregnancy was even more of a shock when she found out she was having twins.
It was 2008 and the blogger was already 42 years of age and had assumed she had finished her family. Her children at the time ranged from 10-years-old to just 8 months. Her youngest, Charlie, was still being breastfed so she never expected to find out there were two more on the way.
In fact, Ms Measom thought she might be about to hit menopause as her own mum had gone through it quite young.
She told The Sun of her shock: “I stared and stared at the stick when it showed up positive. My husband was as shocked as I was. How on earth could this have happened?”
She says she turned to her husband, Guy, and demanded just how he thought they could cope with five children.
She says she cried through much of her pregnancy. Image via IStock.
Jeanne says her first thought was a termination.
“But first I had to see how far gone I was. A scan at the hospital showed I was six weeks pregnant. While it was early enough to terminate the pregnancy – I realised that I couldn’t go through with it.
“Guy agreed. His rationale was simple – 'what’s one more when you’ve already got four?'"
She says she cried through much of her pregnancy terrified of how she would cope.
“As hard as I tried I just couldn’t imagine how I was going to get the older kids to school with a toddler and baby twins in tow.”
Her twins were induced at 38 weeks after a difficult pregnancy, but nothing could prepare her for the next shock.
“I’d really been hoping for girls, but ended up with identical twin boys.
“It’s such a random, remote thing to have happened to us. Jude was 7 pounds and Rowan 6 pounds."
“I remember staring at them traumatised and utterly clueless as to how I’d cope with them.”
The busy mum then recalls how alone she felt after the birth and how she struggled to bond with her babies, saying what came so easily with her other children failed to materialise.
She ended up with identical twin boys. Image via IStock.
She says: “One night when they were 10 days old, I stood watching them both finally sleeping at the same time.”
“Instead of the warm fuzzy feeling of love and pride I’d felt with my other children, regret burnt inside me.”
"I asked myself what had I done. Had I made the wrong choice in not terminating the pregnancy? I felt guilty for even thinking it.”
She says that as they grew and she cared for them “utterly exhausted” she realised something was off.
“There was just no time for that same emotional attachment.”
"I didn’t even give them the luxury of a bath for the first year. I was so exhausted, a clean down with wet wipes sufficed."
The bereft mother tried her hardest to cope but says housework was forgotten and she found it difficult to attend to her older children.
With the house constantly filled with two crying babies the mother of six nearly broke down.
“When they started to become more mobile, I was so exhausted, I struggled to keep up with them.”
Finally, she reached breaking point on the twins first birthday. While listening to them crying she realised, “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Staring at them in the rear-view mirror dark thoughts rushed through my mind: I could give them up for adoption, or I could kill us all...They were just fleeting thoughts – thankfully. But I felt like I was drowning. I desperately needed help,” she tells The Sun.
She slowly pieced herself back together, finding solace as she enrolled the boys in crèche and finding more help for herself.
Still to this day she says she finds her large family hard to deal with at times but tells her story so that other mums get help early.
“I’m an honest mother". Image via Facebook.
“Rowan and Jude are eight now. I love them – of course I do. But there were days when they were younger that I honestly regretted having them.”
She refutes the suggestion she is a “bad mum” for admitting the truth or that she doesn’t love her children saying she adores them deeply.
“I’m an honest mother," she says. "No parent of multiples likes to admit is this: having twins is unrelentingly hard work.”
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