A Quick Rant: Yes, They're Natural

"BIG at-work mistake!"  YOU, my dear, are hilarious!  Loved this.

That's one of my biggest annoyances with my twins. The other one is when people will argue with me when I tell them my boy/girl twins aren't identical.

The question I get all the time is "are there twins in your family?". I know they're really curious about IVF etc but I find very few people ask it directly.

It gets a bit boring answering the same questions all the time but I don't see any reason to get upset by it. People are just interested. You might call it being a "nosy nelly" but I think that's too harsh.

I'm sorry it makes you feel uncomfortable.

When I was pregnant with my first, I cannot TELL you how many people fumbled their way through asking the question, "How does a lesbian get pregnant?" (I guess they were smart enough to figure out that the "wild sex" answer would not apply!)

My pat answer became, "The strangest online shopping experience you can possibly imagine, and the rest is boringly medical."

Now that the children are 4 and 2, the variant we get is, "Did you have them yourself?" Or in a recent case, "How did you get your children?"

Liza Barry-Kessler
Personal: LizaWasHere ( http://www.lizawashere.com/ )
Professional: Privacy Counsel LLC ( http://www.privacycounsel.net/ )

i think doctors/families implant more than two because often NONE of them take and IVF is so expensive many couples only get one shot at conceiving a baby that way.

this is a great piece. well said. people just need to keep their noses out some (perhaps most!) of the time.

-----

so much shouting, so much laughter ( http://somuchshoutingsomuchlaughter.com/ ) | @ShoutLaughLove ( http://www.twitter.com/ShoutLaughLove )

I miscarried my first this March, after years of unprotected sex. Now, after almost another year of it, with everyone reassuring me "It'll happen right after the D&C (liars!)" and trying to tell me to hang in there, it'll work out (as they bitch about their 18 children 10 seconds later and tell me how lucky I really am to get to wait). I just want to smack someone.

Do they not know how much harder is is to get pregnant with medical assistance? That the miscarriage rate is higher when Mother Nature isn't the only helper? And what is an "un-natural" pregnancy? I mean, maybe if my husband came home knocked up or something...

And why, oh dear god why, do they feel the need to comment on anything related to those subjects?

Kudos to you for telling them how it is!

http://rosythoughts.com

Everything that happens on the planet earth is "natural" including medicine invented by people with carbon-based brains, ya know?
So there.
As for how many to transfer, I have a friend with ivf triplets who transferred three because the doctor strongly felt the odds were likely to give them one. They got three.

"All that you have is your soul." Tracy Chapman

Since the chances of conceiving triplets naturally are about one in 50 million the folks who are asking you this question are either just plain intrusive or maybe they have an ulterior motive such as they are thinking of IVF for themselves and are wondering about your experience.
I have twins and have never been asked point blank if they were conceived naturally though I am often asked "were you surprised?" Which I think is a round about way of asking the same question.
When I was pregnant and people learned I was carrying twins they often said very helpful things like, "oh, I'd shoot myself if I found out I was having twins."
Nice one.

I love your husband's answer!!

If he weren't married to you, I might make a play for him myself. And that woman deserved every bit of embarrassment she suffered.

Karen E. Lund

Circle of Ignorance ( http://circleofignorance.wordpress.com )

My LinkedIn Profile ( http://www.linkedin.com/in/karen5lund )

OK, I'm a little out of my depth here, as I've never had children, singly or in bunches. (I have twin cousins. Does that count for something?)

With me it's my hair. People ask me, "What's your *real* hair color?"

It's white.

"But what's the real color?"

It started turning white when I was 16. I sometimes forget it was anything else.

As a college friend used to say, "Genetics will screw you every time." But worse are the nosy people with nothing better to do than inquire about whether we color (or uncolor) our hair, conceive with a little help from medical science, or do any number of personal activities.

This hair color is what nature and my maternal gene pool gave me--a bit earlier than most, but completely "real" (whatever that means). You gave birth to triplets. How they were conceived is rather intimate, whether it was in a beachfront hotel in the Caribbean or a doctor's office (or, for some parents, by adoption). The point is you carried them to term and delivered them. Now you are raising them. They are yours. They are real kids.

If you wish to confide the details of infertility or multiple births to trusted friends, that's fine. Total strangers have no right to ask, and certainly no right to question whether they are "real" or "natural."

Karen E. Lund

Circle of Ignorance ( http://circleofignorance.wordpress.com )

My LinkedIn Profile ( http://www.linkedin.com/in/karen5lund )

I love that response. I have twins and am always asked, "Was it a surprise?" or "Do you have twins in your family?" and I usually answer yes to both. But lately I've started to get really annoyed for the very reason you said. Why am I giving in to their nosy way of asking about how I got pregnant? Recently I was talking to two other mothers of multiples and mentioned that my twin pregnancy had been a surprise. One of the mothers answered, "Well, that just doesn't seem fair." I was shocked. I think no one should be made to feel guilty or questioned or attacked. I would love my kids no matter where they came from. In fact, I often ask them where they were before they got here, and I think it might be another planet. They are odd ducks! :)

Check out my blog about life and motherhood and learning to be present.

www.freshmintings.blogspot.com  ( http://www.freshmintings.blogspot.com  )

...I have a friend who recently went through IVF. Two were transferred--pardon me. One was absorbed but the other split, so she would have had triplets. She is a perfect example as you describe.

Her case is very unique in that she had to use an egg donor and her children may not look like her. This brought up the dilemma of who do you tell, what do you tell? Will people ask? These are her concerns, not mine.

She's pregnant now. Her experience is very personal and of course she'll figure this out. But is also teachable. In my random sampling of moms I have learned alot from the ones willing to discuss their experiences. I've actually know quite of few who strangers who openly told me about their situation.

We are considering adoption. It inspires me to move forward when I hear that others have adopted as well.

Heather blogs about Motherhood & Other Offensive Situations at http://www.ultimateoutcasts.com.

I hear you! Not so much now that they are older, but when they were babies I got asked all kinds of questions. My favorite was a woman who asked me and my husband "how did you get pregnant?" Without skipping a beat my husband answered, "Lots of wild sex. Why do you ask?" She turned red, stammered and made a comment about what beautiful babies they were.

I like the robot comment too.

Now they are older and when people ask the inevitable - "are you twins?" they roll their eyes and in unison answer "what do you think?"

Having conceived without any "help" and still produced twins, I was always shocked and offended when people asked me if we had IVF to conceive. It blew my mind as to how much my pregnancy was apparently other people's business. I just told them that my (then) hubby "helped" and moved on.

On the flip side, my (then) hubby never got asked the same question when he told people we were expecting twins. Oh well! :)

A woman and her husband may decide to transfer more than 2 embryos (remember that there isn't medical science to actually "implant" them - that's kind of a central theme of the post) for multiple reasons, most likely because, with the guidance of their physicians, they believe it is the best path to conception. Realize, too, that often IVF triplets are a result of 2 embryos being transferred and on splitting, resulting in 2 identical "twin" triplets and one fraternal. Transferring 2 does not guarantee there will not be triplets. More triplet and higher order pregnancies result from IUI however.

And if you're just curious about statistics, simply ask Dr. Google, not a random small sampling of MoMs.

Sincerely,
Just a mom of a very natural, very real adopted child of "my own"

I just find it interesting the personal questions that people in general ask. I work in the ER, and all the time I overhear patients asking other patients, "Why are you here?"

I think I would be tempted to ask, "Why are you so nosy?" :)

I always get the same question. "Are they natural?" Or better yet, "Did you have help?"

Once I was stopped by a lady asking if I'd had help. I thought she must have been asking if I'd had help caring for the babies (my husband was in Iraq) so I told her that I didn't have any helpers or a nanny or anything. She said "No, did you have help with the conception?" (WHAT?!) I was shocked so I just laughed and said "Yes, my husband helped a little with that." And the lady gave me a dumb look and walked off.

I don't understand why people think other people's reproductive issues are their business. But I think that being a parent of multiples just opens you up for twenty questions.

Heather

Multiple Multiples Mama of 6-Two Pairs & Two Spares

http://www.itstwinsanity.blogspot.com

I admit I would wonder about multiples, but this isn't a question I would articulate and certainly not in this way(it seems pretty offensive). Everyone's road to conception is unique and filled with personal pains and joys. For some it is more of one than the other.

Thanks for sharing your rant. It's a good reminder that our own curiosities shouldn't get in the way of reasonable judgment IE Nobody at playgroup asked me how I ovulate, why in the hell would I ask them?

www.SaraInAkko.blogspot.com ( http://www.SaraInAkko.blogspot.com )

Life in the Middle East, with craft and spice

All of those feelings and emotions in one neat little package. Amazing feat...of course your beautiful babies are natural. And all yours.

...can I confess to being one of those people who did not ask but wanted to know.

My curiousity is that I wonder the frequency of triplets occuring without ART. It's kind of a statistical question.

And as a mom to a singleton, I wonder why someone would choose to implant more that two(if IVF was the method used) and experience the crying of all three at one time. I couldn't handle that. I would go completely nutty!

But, I don't ask.

I always say that moms of multiples are superhuman. I truly believe that!

Heather blogs about Motherhood & Other Offensive Situations at http://www.ultimateoutcasts.com.

Have you seen the "Moms of Multiples are Freaks of Nature" video on YouTube?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT-lgB_HGEE
The mother in that video answers the "natural" question this way:
"They are not robots and are made of organic matter."
It's a riot!

Look at your rant hanging out on the front page. I love it. The more who read this, the better.