How Do You Do It?

In the middle December of 2014, my husband, Yuki, and I were going to talk to my parents about the decision that we had made to go through an adoption agency to adopt a child.

In March, earlier that year, we had found out that our baby had not made it. No real explanation really…it was the first trimester and the babies heart had stopped.

“The good news is that we know you can get pregnant,” the doctor had said. The baby stayed inside of me until October. Yup, you read that right. OCTOBER.

Finally, in October, I had finished miscarrying. So you see why we would be hesitant to try again.

All throughout December, I had felt funny. I told myself that it was because of the miscarriage. My body was trying to get back to normal. I don’t really know what drove me to take a pregnancy test…But I did and it turned out positive.

Then in January, I started to bleed again. “Oh no,” I thought, “here we go again.” I knew that there was nothing anyone could do if I was miscarrying again.

So, I went to the doctor the next day, prepared for the idea that I was losing another baby.

As the ultrasound technician did the ultrasound, I held my mother’s hand. The ultrasound tech, as she looked at the screen said, “Oh!” Then, the doctor said, “Oh! Don’t worry, everything is fine… But…”

My mind was racing, “BUT? BUT WHAT? and why are both of you saying ‘oh’!?” The doctor and the technician said at the same time, “there’s two.”

My twin boys were born in August of 2015. They were full term and healthy.

When they were delayed in their speech, we were told (and thought), “It’s because they are twins, they are being taught two languages, English and Japanese, and are boys.”

That was just the beginning.

We got regional center involved. We started getting them assessed. We started OT, ABA and ST. Then, we received the diagnosis.

Yuri, my older boy, got diagnosed first. Then, Aki, got diagnosed a month later. Both are “mild to moderate” but since they are so young, it’s “hard to tell.” They were recently qualified for Regional Center with Lanterman Services.

They just started school and are in autism classrooms (two separate classrooms), where they get ABA within a smaller, classroom setting.

When people hear that we have twins, we’re asked, “how do you do it?”

Then, they hear that both boys are on the spectrum, many of them say, “oh my goodness… HOW do you do it?”

We may be wrong, but for us, the fact that they are twins is a huge blessing. They have each other and they love to play together. Yes. there are fights. What siblings don’t fight, right?

They fight over toys, snacks and attention. Anything you can think of, they fight over! And they are so different too.

Yuri loves to organize things. He loves to play “5 little monkeys” where he takes two things and has them jump up and down on something, throws them on the floor and says “no more monkeys jumping on the bed” while he sings the song. He also does a similar play with “5 little ducks”.

Akira loves anything that spins! He loves cars! He plays with toy cars “appropriately’ as well but he also loves to spin the tires. He also loves the Dyson vacuum cleaner that we have, because the round part spins.

At the end of the day, though, they love each other. They seek each other out and imitate each other. When one learns a word, the other one learns it from him. When one does something (sometimes even for things that we don’t want them to do!) the other will do it too.

They are totally different in a lot of ways, but we would not change them for the world.

Every day, we see their growth. I do believe that because they are twins, they are making so much more progress, then they would if they didn’t have each other.

So, how do we do it? Easy, we just love them and acknowledge how lucky we are (and they are ) that they have each other.

It’s not easy, of course…But it’s worth every moment.

Written by, Chisato

Chisato is married to her best friend and is raising two beautiful, silly, funny and adorable three-year-old boys together. She is also a licensed marriage and family therapist and a licensed professional clinical counselor in Southern California. In both roles, she is passionate to help others in their journey called life.

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Finding Cooper’s Voice is a safe, humorous, caring and honest place where you can celebrate the unique challenges of parenting a special needs child. Because you’re never alone in the struggles you face. And once you find your people, your allies, your village….all the challenges and struggles will seem just a little bit easier. Welcome to our journey. You can also follow us on Facebook and subscribe to our newsletter.