My entry into the world was a little more dramatic than most.My mum was already a mother to my older brother and sister when she went into labour with me. Back then, ultrasounds weren’t routine, so when she cradled her new baby daughter in her arms, she thought the hard part was over.
Then the doctor calmly announced, “There’s another one in there.”
Mum, understandably shocked, replied, “Another what?”
Dad, who was a doctor himself, suddenly realised what was happening.
“Love… we’re having twins.”
And seven minutes later, out popped my twin sister to join me in this new world.
I often joke that those first seven minutes were the last moments of peace and quiet I ever had. Throughout our childhood I used those seven minutes to my advantage whenever possible. Pocket money, bedtimes or claiming seniority in an argument, I would always announce that technically, I am older.
But the most incredible part of this story isn’t that my twin sister and I were an unexpected surprise. It’s that my mum suddenly found herself raising four children under the age of four and somehow managed to do it with strength, grace and endless love.
From the very beginning, she demonstrated something that has shaped the way I try to live my own life: we don’t always choose the unexpected circumstances that arrive in our lives, but we do choose how we respond to them.
My mum chose, from day one, to be an extraordinary mother.