There Must Be Something In The Water

If you've been paying attention, you've noticed that recent posts have branched out a bit from being super kid-focused and are touching on other subjects-- more mundane ones like panic and insanity. This is because I know that even though most of you dear readers are friends and family and you tune in really just to check up on us (read: make sure none of us has killed any of the others) because you're afraid to call at a "bad time" (trust me-- there is NO time that is worse than any other and yes, I will just let you go to voicemail when elbow-deep in poop, which is at least three times a day), I know that not everyone is as fascinated by my childrens' antics as Hubby and I. I can respect that, especially in light of recent events.

What recent events? Well, specifically, how about Viv & Knox? Or Max & Emme? Or how about Hazel & Phinnaeus, remember them? What about Dr. McDreamy's twins or Dennis Quaid's? And Marcia Cross, we can't forget her. Or there are the two that Rebecca Romjin is currently gestating and two more developing within Lisa Marie Presley. Those recent events.

Twins are trendy I guess (BTW, way to catch up Hollywood-- I SO did that last year). And I'm sick of hearing about the latest celebrity having them. Here's the deal: twins happen, and they happen to people from all walks of life. And they can happen for several different reasons, not just as a result of IVF (oh dear, it seems as though there's a full-fledged vent coming on). Everybody was all agog when Angelina went into the hospital for the final few weeks of her latest pregnancy. So freakin' what? Yes, yes, it seems like SUCH a big deal because the majority of births in the world are still, for the moment, singletons. Speaking from experience, a twin pregnancy is very little like a singleton pregnancy. In both cases, the mother is a woman and she's preganant. That's about as far as the similarities go. Complication rates jump significantly when the number of babies simultaneously gestating in one womb increases. Double the babies means double the potential complications. There are higher risks for everything that can possibly happen to both the babies and the mother-- and that's just physically. That doesn't even touch upon the tremendous physical and emotional toll a multiple pregnancy takes on the mother and her family.

I saw on the cover of the tabloids, all of which I refuse to purchase because I think they're all blatantly disrespectful of everyone's rights to privacy, that Angelina was going crazy and screaming at Brad while she was pregnant. What?!?!?! Oh, my God-- Are you SERIOUS?!?!?! A PREGNANT woman SCREAMING at her PARTNER?!?!?! What a SCANDAL!!!!!! What the tabloids didn't mention, I noticed, is that having double the babies ALSO means double the hormones. When I saw that headline I thought back to the endless, indescribable discomfort of my internal organs pressed up against my ribcage, leaving me short of breath while doing nothing at all. I remembered feeling contractions beginning while playing Frisbee with Katie and having to stop so I could drink a liter of water and lie on my left side on the downstairs sofa because I could only make it up and down the stairs once a day. I remembered how much it hurt to get up out of bed at night to go pee (again and again, and having to wake up Hubby to help me even sit up, then in and out of bed) and having my Great-Pumpkin-sized uterus and both of the babies in it shift down low and pull my skin out of shape and so tight I was numb between my navel and thighs. I remembered sitting in the movie theater with Biscuit watching Harry Potter in July the month before the Beans were born and feeling my ankles and feet suddenly swell with fluid, and for the remainder of my pregnancy, how much it hurt to walk around on those swollen-sausage feet. I remember not being able to read a book because I developed carpal tunnel syndrome and my forearms and hands, all the way to my fingertips, would go numb and I'd drop the book. I remember towards the end carrying my belly around with both my hands beneath it because it was so heavy it hurt just to stand. I remembered not sleeping at night because I was just too hot and no, Hubby, don't you dare touch that thermostat!!! And I remembered all the raging, uncontrollable hormones that turned reasonable, sensible, easygoing me into an unrecognizably bloated, screaming, sweating, panting pig of a madwoman who barricaded herself in the bedroom with the lights out so she could gnaw like a crazed rat on an entire block of sharp cheddar cheese, snarling at everyone to get the hell away and leave me alone and go clean the damn house and shut up you're bothering me and, by the way, I hate you.

... Anyway, I looked at that headline and thought (with a surprising amount of sympathy) that no matter how much money an expectant mom has, and no matter how many people she has around to help her, she has to do the pregnancy thing herself. It's worth it, don't get me wrong-- because afterward Mommy has two babies to love and cuddle and keep her up at night with their screams, but it isn't easy and there's no going back. What I think I'm really trying to get at (and this is just a guess, mind you) is that the whole multiple pregnancy thing has been glamourised (as the British would write) by the media-- and they've done it because of the public's fascination with it and its willingness to experience (or judge) it through whichever celebrity's suffering through it at the moment. I'm not going to get up on my philosophical high horse and spout off about my views on the crazy consumerism that drives pretty much everything we do in this country (I haven't the time today-- I'm taking the Beans to Aunt Niki's to get their pictures taken, and I'm sure that'll be an interesting, if not calmer, post), but I'll just say that the media has seemed to highlight all the pretty things about having twins (or higher-order multiples) in their pretty, glossy, well-lit, shiny-object photo spreads and sensationalized or elided everything else (see snarling raging beast description above), which is the "normal" experience and the hallmark-slash-badge-of-honor of having twins.

And one more point I'd like to make is that our culture of celebrity (sorry-- I tried not to go here, really I did) has begun to show its effects on all multiple moms. What is it that makes women stop us in Walgreen's and ask all kinds of highly personal questions regarding the conceptions of our children? Nobody asked me about the when I was just having one, but when there were two in there, and now when I cart them around and reluctantly admit that yes, they're twins (oh, yes, I do deny it on occasion-- sometimes I just want to get my business done and go home), now it's like my reproductive health and habits are suitable conversation topics for any woman or deranged man so inclined to discuss it. Sure, I'm fine discussing it with a close friend because she's my close friend, but why do people think it's okay or even better to discuss the subject because we're strangers? That's what the Internet is for!!! Go be anonymous there, not to my face. It's rude and you should be ashamed of yourself. And I just deleted a couple of nasty words from those last few sentences because now the mood swing is back up :)

So, next time you see a mother of twins on the street or in the doctor's office or in the grocery store and you see her twins being obnoxious or sweet or silly or throwing fits or crying or running away, please don't mention anything to her about celebrity twins, or about your niece or friend or daughter who wants to have twins. Look at what we've already been through just to get to this day, today, and think about the rest of what we have yet to endure until said kids are off to college. Sure, we would do it all again, but you'd be in dangerous territory to go there with us, and I'll tell you the secret why: Those hormones that kick in after the babies are born that make us love the little ones so much that even when they're screaming for going on the fifth consecutive hour we still won't flush them down the toilet or stick them in a box labeled "deliver to the fire department"-- you know, those hormones? Those hormones, while they're not nearly as ferocious as the other ones, still make us crazy, and are (OBVIOUSLY) still affecting me almost a whole year later and if you're at all in doubt of that fact you're obviously not a careful reader. We MoMs are all pretty much constantly about one-half of a catastrophe away from pulling all our hair out and committing ourselves to mental institutions, just so we can have a little break from the insanity we deal with moment after moment in our daily lives. If you or your loved ones want to wish THAT upon yourselves, please, go right ahead. Just don't try to take us along for the ride because we've already been there and I'm tellin' ya, when we laugh and smile and say, "That's nice, I hope you get just what you want", we mean it.