By Danielle Maroulis
I am the proud mother of two sets of twins, ages 12 years and 18 months. I am often asked if I took medication to get pregnant, and the answer is no, I did not. All natural. Both pregnancies were not planned. Just a pure blessing from God.
Raising twins, like any other child, has its ups and downs. When my first set of twins started kindergarten, I was torn between having them in the same class or separating them. They were in the same class for kindergarten, and then by the advice of the school, I separated them for grades 1, 2, and 3. My son, who was twin B, was having much more difficulty academically after being separated from his sister. Needless to say, I placed them together for 4th and 5th grade. This was not the answer to his problems after all. They were with each other way too much and not able to make their own friends. Now they are in 6th grade (middle school) and not in the same classes. My daughter is doing great; my son still is struggling. I now know that his struggling is because of focus issues and lack of self-confidence.
When I found out in March of 2006 that I was pregnant with a second set of twins, my husband and I were shocked beyond belief. We were not planning to have anymore children at the time. I was working nights and attending school full-time to become a nurse. I eventually had to leave work and school because I had become very sick with hyperemesis. Still, this was a very joyous happening for our family.
It seems like my husband and I are raising two families because of the age gap. Times are very, very trying. But as hard and as difficult as life can get, I truly feel that my family has been blessed with our four beautiful angels. I am now back in school full-time nights and am a stay-at-home mom. My husband and I decided it was not worth it for me to go back to work to put the babies in day care. So basically all of our finances depend on my husband right now. It is sometimes not easy, but I wouldn't trade this life for the world.
Twins run in our family, and I can't say that I didn't know I was going to have twins because my grandmother has told me since I can remember that I was going to have twins like she did. Out of all her granddaughters, she knew somehow that I would have twins. In our family, we all laugh about it because she was so right!
