Having twins is  an amazing feat in itself with my wife enduring nine months of carrying the equivalent of 10-13lb. baby with a sore back, sore butt, and sore feet.  And  the constant feedings, diaper changes and chorus of crying in the middle of the night, you actually have a greater understanding why some people have their own reality shows as you start to lose your own grip on reality with the lack of sleep.

As a newly minted dad of twins, I often get asked a plethora of questions when strangers see me come through with my overly large stroller.

“Are they identical?”  “How old are they?” “Did you have I.V.F?”

Most of the time I don’t mind answering.

“No, one is a boy and the other is a girl, so, yeah, they are not identical.” Some people are really that clueless.

“They are only XX weeks old.” Which is usually followed up my a cultural reference to how long they keep kids indoors back in their country.  Just so you know… four weeks in Mexico and six months in China from 2 different sources.

“No, they were regular style. My wife has a history of twins in her family.”  I give this answer all the time and it doesn’t bother me, but what bothers me, is what if we did have I.V.F.  Why should this stranger think they should be privy to this information.  I.V.F. isn’t like getting your teeth whitened or having botox.

Every person that I know of who had I.V.F. had frustrating and saddening stories of trying for multiple years to get pregnant, then enduring miscarriage after miscarriage, and sleepless nights asking “Why me?  What did I do wrong? Why can’t I get pregnant?” Stories of finally getting I.V.F. and the eggs not implanting and the ridiculous amount of dollars needed for this type of therapy. Then terrifying stories of near death, huge blood loss or prematurely born babies six to eight months later, ours were scheduled for 37 weeks as a precautionary measure by our doc (ours ended up being 36 weeks and a few days). Most I.V.F. patients go much earlier after suffering multiple complications and months of bed rest.

So I guess what I am trying to say is… if you see someone with twins, triplets or quadruplets, congratulate them on making it to the finish line and having healthy babies to push around. It doesn’t matter how they got there, just that the babies are here now and the parents and children are a blessing anyway it was done.