As Mother of Twins Nears 50, Life Seems Doubly Enriched

For most of her adult life, Pat Tyler thought she could not have children. Both she and her husband had adopted children in their previous marriages and assumed they were infertile. But six years ago, at 43, Pat was astonished to learn not only that she was pregnant, but with twins.

The odds of twin births are 1 in 90, but only 0.1% of women giving birth for the first time are over 40. So the births made headlines.

In the ensuing years, life has continued throwing roller-coaster curves her way.

By the time the twins, Heather and Kelly, were 1, the Tylers had divorced.

“It was real tough, emotionally and financially,” said Pat, who first moved from the couple’s Lake Forest home into a five-bedroom Mission Viejo house with the twins and her two adopted children, Wendy and Brett, now 21 and 25.

Her former husband still lives in Orange County. While asking not to be identified, he said the divorce also brought a difficult period of adjustment for him.

“The twins have brought a great deal of joy to my life as have my other children. I see them as much as possible,” he said.

Pat said continual counseling has helped her accept her role as a single parent and admit to others when she needs help.

By forming a support system of a dozen people including her son, Brett, and her 76-year-old mother who lives in Leisure World Laguna Hills, Pat was able to resume her real estate career, working 12- and 14-hour days. She bought a two-bedroom home in Mission Viejo.

And last year, she said, she grossed $150,000 and was ranked among the top real estate agents at Century 21.

Pat, who will be 50 in December, is awed by the existence of Heather and Kelly as well as her business success. “If I put it all down (in a book), nobody would believe it,” she said.

“I believe God put the girls here for a reason,” said Pat who was raised a Catholic. “There’s no way God got me pregnant after all those years unless he wanted me to have them.”

She is often asked whether she is the twins’ grandmother to which she simply replies, “No, I’m their mom.” Pat is unfazed that she is from another generation than the mothers of the twins’ classmates. Because of her career, she doesn’t spend as much time with other mothers as she did with her first two children. The twins often play with the grandchildren, not the children, of their mother’s friends, she said.

She said the twins are growing up in a more adult-oriented environment than her first two. At 5 1/2, they put away groceries, fold their clothes and pack their suitcases for overnight visits to their father or grandmother.

Full of energy and affection, the identical twins are a “handful,” said Pat, who can tell them apart only by their freckles--a fact the twins have noted well. “When we get in trouble sometimes, we try to hide our faces,” Heather said.

Pat does not dwell on the fact that she’ll be 60 when they are 16. “You have to take it a year at a time and not project 10, 15 years down the road. The reality is, it will probably keep me young. I’ll have to keep up.”

And so will her next husband. The latest twist in her life is that Pat is engaged to Jack Stafford, a 56-year-old engineer from Placentia and a friend she has known for 30 years.

“She’s getting married,” Heather confided. “But she’s not getting a baby.”