We continue today with our multiple interviews and today we talk with Eva María Bernal, mother of twins born by donation of embryos that will tell us how I arrived at this decision and how this experience has changed his life and that is dedicated to helping families in their assisted reproduction processes through their project Creating a family.
How did you get to make the decision to have a twin pregnancy by donating embryos?
Well I came to a twin pregnancy for this assisted reproduction treatment, after a very complicated history, my particular odyssey as I call it, which had started three years before. I went through a multitude of treatments: from in vitro fertilization to egg donation and in each of them I transferred a single embryo because I already had a child, I had no partner and did not seek to be a large family (rather, on the contrary, it was already a “ I dared "go alone for the second) After many negatives and several abortions, I decided to take risks knowing that it could happen that the two embryos were implanted and also continued. I remember that as soon as I transferred them, the gynecologist regretted putting on two, and I told her; but don't worry, my problem is that I only have negatives or abortions, not that I get pregnant with two babies. Well, that treatment gave a great positive, which from the first moment made us assume that I was going to have a multiple pregnancy as confirmed in the first ultrasound.
How to organize to care for twins as a single mother?
Raising twins is complicated as a mother alone or as a couple, but it also already had a child that when his brothers were born he would be six years old. The truth is that the passage of one to three children, meant a total change on everything I had planned, and I had to adapt to forced marches. Being a very planned maternity, even surprising me with two children, I had enough time to spend with them before starting work, the person who was going to help me a few hours a day and my brother, the godfather of All my children would attend to my oldest son. While I did not work and with the help I had at the house of the person who was commenting on you, everything was going a lot, when creating my advice page for people in assisted reproduction, it is when the raising of so many children was complicated, work, and myself. There are very, very complicated days. The little ones are now two years old and very attached to me. Having no partner for me has been essential to have daily help. For my life, it doesn't make much sense to try to get all this out of my mind. When it happens to you due to life circumstances, of course it is pulled forward, but having it so organized, it makes no sense to get into the maelstrom that means an adult with three children so small.
Did you breastfeed the twins?
Yes, for me it was an unquestionable subject. The breastfeeding of my oldest son lasted three years and he had no special problems, so even being two children and knowing the challenge that meant I knew I could get it. I informed myself, I contacted the people that if necessary they would be able to help me and that means a lot of security. In addition, during the three years that my treatments lasted, I felt that one of the great gifts that a new son would bring me was to live a new lactation, because my life is something wonderful, and life gave me two lactations together! Of course, it is not idyllic. I have spent days and especially night very, very hard. But not so much for milk problems but for the demand of two children at the same time.
Are twins really so interconnected?
My children are now 25 months old, and I do see that the union between them is very great, despite what they fight and the stories they have between them. They are a boy and a girl and I think that will make a difference in their relationship, because it gives me the feeling that when the multiples are of the same sex they are more on the same wavelength.
It is very fun to see how they look for each other, how they give each other food or how they have their own dialogues. I was also very surprised how they play together since they were very young.
We thank Eva who has collaborated with Babies and more with this interview and we will continue this week with this series of interviews, inviting professionals and psychologists who will tell us more about the twins.
