Becoming A Mother When Life Felt Uncertain

The moment I realized I was pregnant did not come with celebration or excitement. It came quietly, mixed with confusion, fear and uncertainty.

At that time, my boyfriend and I had only recently found our way back to each other after a difficult period in our relationship. Our families didn’t get along well, and our relationship had already gone through many arguments and emotional struggles. Life already felt complicated enough.

When I first suspected something was different with my body, I tried not to panic. I had taken emergency contraception, believing it would prevent pregnancy. But after a month passed and my period didn’t come, a quiet worry started growing inside me.

Eventually, I checked.

And the result was clear.

I was pregnant.

For a moment, everything inside me froze. I didn’t know whether to feel happy, scared or overwhelmed. It was my first pregnancy and deep down I felt completely unprepared.

I didn’t tell my mother immediately. At that time, she was preparing for an important religious commitment she was about to become a nun for a period of spiritual practice. I didn’t want to disturb her mind or make her worry about me. I didn’t want to pull her away from something that meant so much to her.

So I carried the news quietly inside my heart.

Inside, I felt like I needed someone to guide me. I didn’t know what to do or how to face this new reality. Abortion was something I could have chosen but in my heart I couldn’t do it. I knew that if I made that choice, I might regret it for the rest of my life.

So I decided to keep the pregnancy and face whatever would come.

When I finally told my boyfriend, we both sat in silence for a moment. Neither of us knew what to say. Our financial situation was already difficult and I had no savings at all. I was still supporting my family while trying to build a future for myself.

Becoming parents was not something we had planned for that moment.

But life rarely follows the plans we make.

Three months later, we went to the clinic for an ultrasound. I thought it would be a simple check just confirmation that everything was normal and healthy.

When the doctor placed the ultrasound probe on my stomach, I expected to see one tiny life on the screen.

My mind was already busy worrying about how we would raise one baby. I was thinking about money, responsibility and whether I was ready to become a mother.

Then the doctor paused and looked at the screen again.

And he said something that made the room suddenly quiet.

“You are carrying twins.”

For a moment, it felt like time stopped.

My boyfriend and I looked at each other without speaking. It was the kind of look that carried a thousand thoughts at once. Neither of us knew whether to laugh, cry or panic.

Inside my mind, everything started spinning.

Part of me felt something close to wonder. Twins. It sounded almost unreal. In my life, I had rarely heard about people having twins. It felt special, rare, almost like something that only happened in stories.

But at the same time, another feeling began rising in my chest fear.

If we were already struggling to prepare for one baby, how could we possibly prepare for two?

We didn’t even have enough savings to feel secure about the future. Some days we were already worrying about basic things like rent, food and daily expenses.

And now life was asking us to become parents to two small human beings.

I remember sitting there quietly, staring at the screen where two tiny shapes were moving inside me. Two small lives that didn’t know anything about our fears, our financial struggles or the complicated situation we were in.

They were simply there.

Growing.

Waiting for us.

At that moment, happiness and fear were mixed together in a way I had never experienced before. It was not the joyful, carefree happiness people usually imagine when they hear about pregnancy.

It was a quieter, heavier emotion.

A realization that life had already chosen a path for us.

When we left the clinic that day, we walked beside each other in silence for a while. Neither of us spoke immediately. It felt like we were both trying to process the same overwhelming truth.

Eventually we looked at each other again.

And without saying too many words, we both understood something.

No matter how difficult things might become, these two babies were already part of our lives.

"There was no turning back now"

After we found out we were having twins, something slowly began to change inside me. At first we were shocked. Our minds were full of questions about the future how we would survive financially, how we would raise two babies when we were already struggling ourselves. But after that first wave of fear passed, another kind of feeling began to grow.

A few months later, we discovered another surprise both babies were girls.

We started imagining the future.

Sometimes we would sit together and talk about the babies. We wondered what they would look like. Would they have his eyes? Would they look more like me? We started thinking about names, discussing different possibilities and laughing about which names sounded beautiful and which ones didn’t.

Those conversations made the future feel a little less frightening.

We started dreaming about the kind of life we wanted for our daughters. Even though we didn’t have much money, we kept telling ourselves that we would try our best to raise them well. We wanted them to grow up with love, with kindness and with opportunities that maybe we didn’t always have ourselves.

Pregnancy also began to change my body in ways I had never experienced before.

Before I was pregnant, I didn’t like drinking milk very much and I rarely ate fruit. But suddenly my body started craving different things. Every morning and night, I wanted to drink milk, and I began eating fruit especially oranges almost every day. It felt strange to notice how my body was changing, almost as if my body already knew what the babies needed.

As the months passed and the babies grew bigger, I began to feel them moving inside my stomach.

The first time I felt them kick, it surprised me. But after that, those little movements became some of the most special moments of my day.

Sometimes when they kicked, my boyfriend and I would laugh together. We would place our hands on my stomach and wait to feel the movement again.

Sometimes we could even see my belly moving from the outside when they turned or stretched inside.

Those moments felt magical.

There were times when I was alone at home while he was at work. During those quiet moments, I would sit or lie down and gently touch my stomach. I would talk to them softly, even though they could not answer me.

Sometimes I told them to "stay strong and grow healthy."

Sometimes I apologized.

I would whisper things like,

“I’m sorry if I cannot give you everything you deserve right away. But I promise I will try my best.”

Those conversations were private moments between me and the two little lives growing inside me.

And slowly, through those quiet days and nights, I started to feel something new.

I started to feel like a mother.

Even though life around us was uncertain, even though our future was still unclear, I began telling myself something again and again:

"No matter what happens, I will take care of you girls"

I will try my best to give you a better life than the one I had.

And from that moment, those two small girls became the center of my world even before they were born.

From that day forward, I kept repeating the same words to myself:

“I have to be strong.”

Life did not suddenly become easier after that.

My boyfriend and I had a small wedding ceremony following our traditions. It wasn’t a big celebration, just a simple ceremony at a monastery with our families. The gifts and money we received from relatives became the only financial support we had to begin our new life together.

With that money, we rented a small place and started living on our own.

It was the first time in my life that I was truly living with a partner, carrying two babies, and trying to build a family all at the same time.

Reality quickly reminded us how difficult life could be.

Some days we had enough money to eat comfortably. Other days we had to think carefully about every small expense. Sometimes we would sit quietly at night, wondering how we were going to manage everything.

There were nights when we cried together because we simply didn’t know what the future would look like.

Neither of our families could support us financially. Everyone had their own struggles and we had to learn to stand on our own feet.

Despite everything, I continued working.

Even while pregnant with twins, I went to work every day. My body was heavier and more tired but surprisingly I didn’t suffer from morning sickness or severe illness. I kept going, climbing stairs, traveling to work, and trying to fulfill my responsibilities.

But by the time my pregnancy reached seven months, my body was exhausted.

Eventually we realized we could no longer afford the rent where we were living. Our small savings had to be protected for the babies, for medical care, and for the moment they would be born.

So we made another difficult decision.

We moved back to my mother’s house.

I stopped working and finally allowed my body to rest.

Moving back to my mother’s house felt like both a relief and a quiet reminder of how fragile life can be. I was tired not just physically from carrying two babies, but emotionally from everything we had been through.

But every time I felt my daughters move inside me, I reminded myself that I could not give up. No matter how uncertain the future looked, I had already chosen this path. From that moment on, I wasn’t only living for myself anymore. I was living for the two little lives growing inside me and somehow that thought gave me the strength to keep going.

Looking back now, that moment in the clinic when the doctor told us we were expecting twins was the moment my life truly changed forever.

From that day forward, my life was no longer only about me.

Two small souls had already entered my journey.

And soon, they would arrive in this world.

→ Continue reading: The Night My Girls Entered The World