I have great passion for this topic. I could write an entire book on the comments you are likely to entertain, the questions you are likely to be asked, and ways --- polite or otherwise --- you are likely to respond (depending on your hormone level, how tired you are of that question, and your niceness quotient). People can comment until the cows come home about how you should be doing this or should not be doing that, but when the day is done, they will go home (hopefully), and you will do things the way you see fit.
Clearly you need to be prepared for unsolicited questions and advice left and right until, certainly, your kids reach eighteen. I'm already prepared for, "Are they in the same class?" along with the questioner's unsolicited opinion on the pros and cons. Or, "Do they have different friends?" and on and on. I'll probably always be unprepared in the moment, but at least in hindsight, I hope to have some good responses to share with my friends.
- Criticism from Family
- Crazy Strangers
- Are They Twins?
- What Kind of Fertility Drugs Did You Take?
- Did You Know You Were Having Twins?
- Which Side of Your Family Do Twins Run On?
- Wow, I'm Sure Glad It's You and Not Me!
- How Do You Do It?
- You Aren't Going to Have Any More...Are You?
- You Sure Do Have Your Hands Full
- Which One is Smarter?
- All-Around General Strangeness
Some of the most problematic people from whom to receive unsolicited advice is family, yours or your husband's. In most cases, these folks are merely trying to help, but the reality is that their comments frequently leave you feeling inadequate, unprepared, and possibly angry. The best way to deal with this is to stay as calm as possible. The last thing you need at this time is a big hoopla over something that, in the end, no one has control over but you.
Many people's families are nothing but helpful after the babies are born. They cook, clean, wash clothes, shop, and do whatever else is needed. Some are even available in the middle of the night! Unfortunately, not everyone is lucky enough to have this experience. If you are one of those people, don't worry, we're going to get you through it.
When her mother-in-law suggested for the umpteenth time that she hold the babies while the new mom made lunch for everyone, one of my friends handled the situation brilliantly. She enthusiastically said, "Thanks, I've got it covered" (as she reached for the babies, biting her bottom lip and silently reminding herself, "I passed the test on whether I could handle twins when I proved I could handle you").
If the offenders won't back off, curtail visits (have your husband answer the phone) until they get it (not likely); until Dr. Phil is available for a house call to help them "get real" about what they are doing (again, not likely); or until you are better rested, more confident in your parenting, and otherwise better able to deal with them.
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Questions and comments from perfect strangers are a different ballgame. You won't believe how interested they can be, both in the babies' conception and your parenting. I couldn't believe how many people asked if our twins were conceived using fertility drugs. No one ever asked if my daughter was conceived using fertility drugs. Now, if I had been pregnant with nine babies, chances are high that I used infertility treatments (though I believe a woman in China recently gave birth to spontaneous sextuplets).
Twins are more and more common nowadays--not only because of the increased use and availability of infertility treatments, but because women are waiting until later in life to conceive, which increases the potential for them to drop more than one egg per cycle. It shocks me that so many people still believe you have to be on fertility drugs to conceive two babies at once.
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Barb and her husband, Tim, were asked on numerous occasions if their newborn girls were twins. Tim was dying to say, "No, this one is two weeks older."
Jack and Henry look so different from one another that I am constantly asked if they are both mine. When I answer "Yes," the inquirer inevitably asks how many months apart they are. I want to say, "You realize that there would have to be at least a nine month age difference between them for that question to get a genuine answer. Do they look like they were born nine months apart?" Different? Yes. Nine months different? No. I even had a woman inquire as to whether my boys were "those kinds of twins you hear about who have two different fathers." Lovely.
One day, Jenna's husband had had enough of strangers asking if his sons, identically dressed and clearly the same age, were twins. He responded to the next inquirer with, "No, Jakob is my son and Noah is my wife's. We met online."
Mollie was in the mall one day when a woman came up to her and asked if her boys were twins (although fraternal twins, they are each other's clone, so this question was semi-ridiculous to begin with). Mollie said "Yes," and the woman said she assumed that Tommy was the older one because he was bigger. Mollie commented that actually Kevin was older. The woman said, "Oh? By how many weeks?" Again, where do you even go with that?
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Never, never, will I understand how people feel comfortable asking others?especially perfect strangers?this question. I've decided that it's all in the name of insane curiosity about how others live their lives. Perhaps they are really bored, are unnaturally curious other people's personal lives, or are poorly affected by the way the stars and moon aligned the previous night. Never have I had someone actually going through infertility treatment ask me about my experiences with the challenge. Most people going through these personal and private procedures are just as reserved as I am on the topic, if not more so.
All that being analyzed and pointed out, the time comes to move on and attempt to find a comfortable response. Some moms are open and honest about the way they got pregnant, and want to share it with the world. (I don't know any of these moms, but they probably exist.) If you are such a person and some stranger on the street seems oh-so-interested in the "how" of your pregnancy, then by all means open up and give them every gory detail.
One of my favorite responses is to say, "Oh, are you having trouble getting pregnant?" People are usually not nearly as comfortable answering this question as they were in asking their initial one, so this often ends the whole discussion in a hurry.
Another option is to respond, while wearing the biggest smile you can muster, "Why do you want to know?" You would be positively amazed by how many questioners have no clue why they want to know and simply move on.
A final favorite response of mine is to smile and say, "Wow, that's a really personal question!" (then just keep walking). It's like saying, "None of your bleeping business!" with the nice tone that a mother of twins should use.
If your hormones are in overdrive, respond the way one hilarious friend of mine did. When asked by a cashier whether she had taken fertility drugs to conceive her twins, she responded, "No, we just had a lot of sex." That was the end of that!
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Nowadays, many parents of twins can't believe a woman can find out she is expecting twins at the time of delivery. Many women who've undergone infertility treatments learn of their double blessing early in their pregnancies. In other cases, the doctor may suspect a multiple pregnancy if a woman suffers from excessive morning sickness or has abnormally high hormone levels in her blood. Many parents receive the news of their multiple gestation at their twenty-week ultrasound when two babies are detected.
Tony and Rochelle, who live in Ohio, had quite a different experience. Rochelle had an internal ultrasound at the beginning of her pregnancy as well as a more thorough ultrasound at twenty weeks gestation. The only surprise news Tony and Rochelle received at the twenty-week ultrasound was the sex of one baby. They hadn't wanted to know, and the doctor inadvertently blurted it out. Somehow, in the midst of feeling flustered that he'd accidentally ruined the surprise, he "missed" the other baby.
When Rochelle inquired why she was getting so big, the doctor commented that she was simply carrying a big baby. Toward the end of her pregnancy, Rochelle often wondered how big her baby could be--it was simultaneously kicking her in the ribs and pelvic floor!
They were in for quite a shock. "At 37.5 weeks, my wife woke me up at 4:00 a.m. because she was experiencing severe back pain. She took a shower, and we waited until 5:00 to call our doctor. We were told to go to the hospital and be checked. As the nurse was hooking up the fetal heart monitor, she asked if we were expecting twins. We informed her that we were not. She told us that she thought she heard an echo of the baby's heartbeat. She left the room and returned with another monitor and told us that they should beat at about the same rate. They were a few beats off.
"To make a long story short, after a quick ultrasound and physical, we were informed that my wife was dilated to ten centimeters, having twins, scheduled for a C-section, and that things would move quickly. Within a half hour of being informed that Rochelle was pregnant with twins, our sons were born."
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This is usually a harmless question, and while you will become royally irritated by it, I find that most people who ask it are genuinely trying to make polite conversation. They are typically not the same people who ask what fertility drugs you took, or what fancy position you and your husband "did it" in to conceive multiples.
When people ask about twins running on one side or the other of our family, I usually comment that they run on neither side. Few people understand that twins only "run" on the mother's side, since only the mother passes the tendency to naturally release more than one egg to her daughter. Though I'm sure they'd love to claim otherwise, a man's sperm is not strong or appealing enough to force a woman's ovary to release another egg. Identical twins have nothing to do with genetics. An egg splitting is still considered a purely random act.
Another popular question along these same lines is, "Do twins run in your family?" In this day and age, the answer to this, even if you're willing, often requires more time than you'll have. Plus, if they "run in your family" because the person who had them did not have spontaneous twins, but instead relied upon infertility treatments, you may need diagrams for those who require visual explanations. The bottom line is that "Yes" or "No" is usually the best answer. Pick one. Pick a different one each day if you want. Or be creatively smart like Carole, a mom of triplets, and reply "They do now!"
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Hate this one! It's just so unnecessary, and as my mother always says, "If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all." Some people just feel they have to say something?I have no idea why?so they say something relatively stupid. Do not waste a moment on these folks. Here are two options: put on your best half-smile and keep walking, or comment as nicely (or as cynically) as you would like, "Me, too!"
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Okay?another one of my not-so-favorites. But here's what I've come to dissect from this comment. When people ask, "How do you do it?" they don't really want an answer; this is their translation for "I couldn't do it." And clearly they could not, or they'd have twins with them as well. Nevertheless, I'm willing to acknowledge that in all likelihood --- albeit subconsciously --- they are paying me a compliment. They are saying, "I could not do it. You are doing it. You are an amazing human being who I wish I had the fortitude to call my friend." Therefore, I've taken to accepting this statement simply as a poorly worded compliment. I usually respond (so I'm not totally rude to these kind, complimentary folks) with, "Oh, they make it easy."
If, however, you are having a particularly bad day, answer his or her question by going on and on, beginning with, "Well, I get up around 6:30 a.m., go downstairs and get breakfast ready for the troops, then fly like Mary Poppins back up the steps, and sneak silently into their room to pick out their coordinating outfits for the day. I subsequently slide down the banister and skip into the family room to ensure that all the videos, books, and other learning toys are lined up and ready to go…" By this point, the questioner is trying to get away from you.
But there was the day when nothing had gone right, and I was sure bedtime would never arrive. A woman with whom I was sharing an elevator sighed and said, as though just thinking about my day made her as tired as I already felt, "How on earth do you do it?" I looked at the woman, at the boys, and back at the woman to say, "You know what? I don't have any idea!"
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Jenna, mother of twin boys, could not believe it when people asked her if she and her husband planned to have more children--when the boys were only four and a half months old. She commented, "We usually shut them up with, 'Yeah, this time we're going to try for twin girls.' Sometimes we tell them that we'd like another set of twin boys so that we can field half a baseball team!"
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Again, a real original comment and one you're likely to receive at least seven times a week, depending on how frequently you get out. It's really just a not-so-clever combination of "How do you do it?" and "I'm glad it's you and not me." Folks who utter this are simply not comfortable with awkward silences. Just smile, and let your mood on a particular day determine how broadly or faintly you deliver that smile.
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I'm still speechless over that one, though I've only been asked it once!
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A woman approached me and my sons as we walked to their physical therapy appointment at the hospital one morning. She commented on how cute they were, and how big they were (my husband is 6' 6"). She asked how early they'd been born, how much they weighed at birth, you know, all the stuff people are fascinated with for reasons unbeknownst to mothers of multiples. She asked if they were breastfed and I said, "No." She looked at me and said, rather condescendingly, "They're not?" I said, "No, they're not." Nose up, eyes down, as if she were providing me with valuable information that would change the course of history, she said, "Well, you can breastfeed two, you know." I should have said, "Oh, how old are your twins?" but I'm simply never ready for these people at the moment they strike, so I just said, "Well, technically, you can, yes," and made a beeline for the therapy room.
Holly has triplet girls and, of course, has gotten numerous comments about funding three college educations and three weddings. But the strangest comment she ever got was from a woman who actually said, to Holly's husband, Paul, "Wow. Imagine how much you guys are going to be spending on tampons in twelve years!" That one left them both with their jaws on the floor.
The strangest question I ever got was from a man who didn't ask if my boys were identical (which they clearly are not), what their names were, or whether I had used infertility drugs, but, instead, inquired as to how many minutes apart they were at birth. I was struck by his question because no one had ever asked me anything quite like this. I actually had to say, "Excuse me?" I then told him they were twenty-eight minutes apart, and he wanted to know who was born first. I told him, and that was the end of that. Still intrigues me to this day.
Finally, there's Terri. Twenty-two weeks along with her twins, she was approached by a woman who thought she might like to know she was now a member of the group with the highest divorce rate. Really, people, what is the world coming to?
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