When you are pregnant people seem to be really nosy, even more so when your belly grows at a faster rate because you are pregnant with twins. The further along we got in our pregnancies, our bellies grew rapidly and so did the attention we seemed to get out in public.
Who can relate to the random stranger stopping you in the grocery store at the most inconvenient time…right when you felt like your bladder was going to pop?
As a pregnant mom of multiples, the interrogation process begins and you are bombarded with the craziest of questions and unsolicited advice.
During our twin pregnancies, our growing bellies led to endless questions from random strangers. We actually grew fond of these interactions that took place. So instead of becoming annoyed, we came up with some of the most ridiculous answers that came to mind, in our most hormonal states:
Ahhhh the most common question we received when a random person discovered that we were pregnant with twins:
Are they natural?
Our eyelashes are natural, maybe my hair color…but let’s get real here, what you are really asking. What you really want to know is if we did IVF.
No worries, we also love to ask perfect strangers about their deepest, most personal secrets!
Instead of going down memory lane and rehashing 4 emotional years of trying to have a families, our simple answer was:
Does it really matter?
Regardless of your personal situation, babies are babies no matter how they got here.
(TWIN MOM TIP: Smile gently at the person asking the awkward question and walk toward the checkout).
And at times, the hormones and emotions made it so we couldn’t hold our tongue….to which we’d respond about expecting twins, “we had sex, twice…really fast”!
If you need a good laugh, try that one, you are guaranteed awkward silence and the immediate retreat of said intrusive stranger.
Were you shocked to find out you were having twins?
Shocked was not the word to describe that news, we were both overjoyed and amazed!
YES mamas, we said it…moved to tears.
YES. Oprah…UGLY… CRY. HELL Yes!
We repeatedly injected our bellies for months to prep our bodies, and went through multiple surgeries hoping to be pregnant someday. When we anxiously waited for our first ultrasounds, we wanted nothing more than to hear a healthy heartbeat, let alone two!
Once again, instead of breaking into a song and dance about our personal lives…our fluent sarcasm usually superseded. So our response to that question became, “I’d be more shocked if they were triplets. Ha!”
Are they identical?
This one is such an endearing question.
People get all jazzed when they find out you’re having two babies and just want to probe you for all the deats!
No harm, no foul…they just want answers!
Most of the time we would respond, “No, they are fraternal.”
But occasionally, we just couldn’t help ourselves and this would slip out of our mouths, “Well geez I haven’t met them yet…soooo I am not sure.”
Are you going to try to have them naturally?
This IS the funniest question EVER. There are SO many factors to consider with a twin pregnancy.
We could only hope to carry our babies as long as our bodies would allow. It seems like people want hear some crazy birth plan, where you give birth without any meds, in a treehouse, just like you have always imagined a twin birth would be…wink, wink!
Our birth plans were decided upon with our medical professionals, based on our medical histories, which is why we’d respond by politely saying, “They will be joining us in August/September.”
I did respond one time, “I plan on having one before midnight and then the other the next day. That way, they won’t have to share a birthday!” You could see the wheels turning as she processed what I just said like, “no way! You can actually do that!”
The important thing is that two healthy humans are brought into this world, while keeping their mother healthy as well. So regardless of what some Nosey Nelly asks you at the grocery store, a polite, impersonal answer is all they deserve.
You look like you are going to pop! When are you due?
Our bellies grew to the the size of a full term singleton pregnancy by the end of our second trimesters.
This question always made us chuckle because people’s faces looked shocked and sympathetic to the large pregnant women driving electric carts around Target.
Who doesn’t love the flabbergasted look on a person’s face when you tell them (in your extra large state of pregnancy) that you have 12 weeks left before your due date!
It was a long pregnancy filled with hope and joy…backaches and pregnancy farts…but trust us when we say, wouldn’t have it any other way.
As our pregnancies progressed, our answers to the most ridiculous twin pregnancy related questions became equally as funny to us as they were shocking to strangers
When we felt like having a conversation, we would open up to a complete stranger.
And if we were hungry, tired and extraordinarily hormonal, we would slip up with something overly sarcastic or…eek…borderline offensive.
And that’s ok!
Through months of these random experiences with strangers, we realized people were just curious and being inquisitive about something they just don’t experience very often.
