Friday, November 8, 2013

"Do Twins Run In Your Family?"

As interfiles, we learn to deal with a lot of awkward conversations.  In the beginning, we were asked the common questions of "when are you going to have kids?" by people you know, or "do you have kids?" from people you don't know.

Those questions never really bothered me too much, although I know that others find those types of questions rather painful.  Even though I never got upset by those questions, it was still an awkward conversation to have at times.  You get lots of unsolicited advice, and I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I was asked if I'd ever considered adoption, or asked "why don't you just adopt?"

In fact, my MIL and another good friend of mine always felt the need to call me when they knew of a child in need of adoption.  They'd give me the whole story, tell me I should call so and so, and think that we could magically just adopt this child in need.  Little did they know that there is a whole entire process that has to take place.  Also, the child's extended family isn't able to just pick who they want to adopt their little one. The system unfortunately doesn't work that way.  I'd always get my hopes up and think well, maybe, what if, every time this would happen.  Another factor that people don't realize is that adoption is expensive!

Now, fast forward to our present situation.  We are finally pregnant after 16 years of being married and 14 years of trying for a family.  The questions have changed, especially now that I am obviously pregnant with my growing belly.

Remember I work in a fitness club with the public, so I see a lot of people on a daily basis at work.  When people find out I am having twins, it never fails that they ask "do twins run in your family?"  Actually, now that I think about it, I've been asked that by a few nurses as well!  Everyone just seems to jump to that question.

This is how the conversation typically goes down:

"Do twins run in your family?"

Me: "No."

"Oh, so it was a surprise then?  Were you and your husband shocked?"

Me:  "Nope.  We knew it was a possibility."

Then comes the befuddled look on the person's face.  Sometimes I will tell them that we had a lot of help from science, or we had to undergo fertility treatments to get pregnant.  I have not had ANYONE respond to that and the conversation usually ends there.  It's always awkward, but I really don't mind that either.

The one question that does get me a little bit though:  "is this your first baby(ies)?"

Yes.  And our last.

Even if we were only pregnant with one baby, this would still be our last.  I am 39 years old and Hubby will be 41 in January.  He's already a little freaked out that we are going to be (almost) 60 when these kids graduate from high school.

Besides that, it's not like we could just decide to have another baby even if we wanted to.  We are in debt up to our ears getting pregnant now, and it took us 14 years to get here.  It also required an egg donor. Yes, these will be our first babies, but they will also be our last.

We've decided there is one really great thing about all this infertility stuff.  Hubby doesn't ever have to worry about getting snipped!


26 comments:

  1. Laughing (the snip comment)!! Our infertility positive was being able to drink alcohol throughout as surrogacy was our only option. We always joke that not many mums-to-be get to celebrate with champagne for the entire pregnancy!! We too had the questions after the boys were born and my response was "IVF". We now get the "are you going to try again for a girl?" to which I respond no as we don't have a spare $100k. That definitely stops the conversation cold, haha. We're so blessed to have ANY children, and we know that. And advice I was given about being 40 with a baby (or babies)? Kids keep you young. That's now officially my motto.

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    1. You are SO right that we are blessed to have ANY children. Although, I'm still waiting for that day ours actually enter this world - they can still wait a few months! haha!

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  2. The snip comment makes me laugh and think about Tori and Dean and how they allegedly couldn't afford a vasectomy... Peoples' comments will forever be insensitive and will forever sting to me! xoxo

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    1. Like anybody would believe they couldn't afford ANYTHING! (eye roll)

      I think people mean well, they just have no idea how personal those questions are. xoxo right back at ya Aubrey :)

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  3. I know what you mean about the twin question. Since I'm a twin. I think I got asked that question 346,345,876,124,567 times in my life so far. The twin questions will just keep on coming, too. I've learned they'll never go away. Now that we're older and not out in public as much together, it's actually almost fun when people ask us twin questions.

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    1. I bet you get, or did when you were younger anyway, a LOT of questions since you and your sister are identical! I love that we are having twins and the questions can just keep on coming because it's something I will be eternally grateful for :)

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  4. LOL too funny! Unfortunately people so rarely consider how loaded the answers to these questions can be!

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    1. Exactly! Sometimes you don't know what you are walking into when you ask someone a question. I've been guilty of that before myself.

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  5. haha Andino and I joked about him not having to get snipped either! I guess there's one small bright side!

    We were really open about our treatment when going to Mexico but when we did treatment locally, most people didn't know. A lot of people said "so, is this a natural pregnancy then?" as if conceiving without assistance is more legit or something. It really bugs me. I usually respond by saying "no, but is that really important?"

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    1. You're right, it really isn't important. It's also not really anyone's business. What a personal question to ask somebody! It boils down to asking if you and Andino had sex, or did a doctor get you pregnant.

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  6. I'm just glad that you're telling people pretty openly about IVF, and if they feel awkward, well maybe they won't bother to ask that question of someone else, or think twice before they do. And yeah, I never considered the fact that M wouldn't need to be snipped...but I'm sure he'll be happy to hear it!

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    1. We are pretty open about our treatments, at least I am. Hubby is a bit more reserved. But yeah, as soon as I mention it, the conversation ALWAYS comes to a halt.

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  7. I'll tell you what I told Lentil - when I was pregnant with the twins, a coworker asked this same awkward question. Another coworker (and infertile who knows my entire story) piped up with, "No one runs in her family!" We laughed, it was great. But seriously... I think it just depends on the situation. Your responses seem totally perfect. And in this day and age, how can people NOT think of ART as a possible reason for multiples? Living under rocks, much??

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  8. I think people ask that question as a way to check in to see if you did fertility treatments. That being said, there is a guy on my swim team who has triplets, and I was tempted to ask him privately if it's the result of IVF. then I realised it's none of my buisness.

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    1. I think that may be true for some, but...I highly doubt it for some of the people that have been asking me. I know what you mean though, I always wonder and want to ask people too, especially now because I AM so aware. However, I've learned to just keep quiet.

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  9. Good for you for being open. People seem to get stupid when it comes to talking with pregnant women/new mothers. Maybe giving them blunt, honest answers will make them realize they need to think more.

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    1. I told my husband early on that I never realized how people get so weird around pregnant women, until now. They do turn a little...strange!

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  10. I'm thinking while reading this, I wish I could give Amber a hug! And always finding it interesting to see the other side of a story. But as always, there is your humor with your last paragraph!!!!! Got to love you!!! Auntie

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    1. Oh I don't really NEED a hug, but I'd always take one :) Love you too!

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  11. It's kind of funny...whenever I hear of twins, I automatically assume it was from infertility treatment, but then I realize (again and again) that the majority of the people are not infertile! My brother and sister-in-law are expecting twins in the spring and I had to catch myself from asking if this was a surprise!

    BTW, thanks for checking in! Things are moving along uneventfully...I'm 19 weeks tomorrow.

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    1. I am so happy to hear from you Shelley and So glad to know things are going well. Congrats on 19 weeks!

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  12. Surprisingly enough I hardly ever got the twins question, except from some elderly relatives - and in that case I decided that explaining all this newfangled sciency way of getting pregnant would be too difficult. I'm impressed you are so open about your treatments - I always thought I'd be more open about them than I was during this pregnancy. I think I just felt so vulnerable... maybe I'll be more open in the future. An awkward end to a conversation might be better than just one side (me) feeling awkward about it dragging on and on.

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    1. You are right! At least by talking about it, it makes it awkward for both sides :)

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  13. I had this same conversation pretty much every day once I was showing. I almost always said it was because of fertility treatments and that always ended the conversation. I know it's an awkward subject, but it would have been nice if someone would have acknowledged what I told them instead of changing the subject. It is surprising more people don't consider that to be a possible response to their question. Towards the end, I stopped volunteering that I was having twins just to avoid the questions. Of course, there is no avoiding it when you are out with two babies. I guess answering a few dumb questions is a small price to pay.

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    1. It is amazing how once you share it's bc of fertility treatments, the conversation comes to a complete halt. I find that when I don't volunteer that I'm having twins, people get just as quiet bc they think I'm awfully big for someone with a February due date! lol, we just can't win. Actually, that's not true. We DO win bc we have these babies!

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