You're MYTHing The Mark

People ask some dumb questions about multiples.  Or, I should say, questions that sound dumb to someone who's done a lot of reading and research on the subject.  But really, so many of the things people say make your eyes glaze over - it really is just a matter of common sense sometimes.  Here's some of the things I've noticed people don't seem to 'get' about multiples.

1)  So are the identical twins girls, boys or one of each??

What do you think 'identical' means?  A penis and a vagina are never, ever going to be identical.  Identical means they are the same, THE SAME.  That means the same eyes, same hair, same genitals.  Don't ask a multiple parent if their boy/girl twins are identical.  Please.  It's a really, really dumb question.  And pretty insulting to at least one of the babies.

2)  So are there lots of multiples in the dad's family?

I'm sorry, does daddy ovulate?  Because unless he does his family history of multiple births matters not.  Mom can definitely inherit the proclivity to ovulate more than one egg in a cycle, from EITHER of her parents, but when it comes to the chance of conceiving multiples dad's baby batter has no bearing.  Also making only the incidence of fraternal twins possibly genetic, because they are from two separate eggs fertilized by two separate sperm.  But anyone could spit out two eggs at random in one cycle, it's not strictly up to genetics.  That's why fertility drugs increase the odds of multiples so much.  The chance of conceiving identicals, one egg fertilized by one sperm, is what science refers to as 'a fluke', as far as I can tell.  In my case I DO have a genetic predisposition to hyper ovulate, there are a lot of twins in my dad's family, even one set of triplets.  So that may be why I ovulated two eggs in one cycle.  However when one decided to split that was pure coincidence.  Or as is my understanding, bear in mind I'm not a doctor.  

3)  OMG!  The government is going to give you a million kick backs and tax breaks!!

No, they don't.  In fact, here in our home and native land they give you jack shit for spitting out a litter of children.  You're entitled to the same child tax credits and things like that as you would be for three children born from three separate pregnancies.  You get the same maturity leave for the same amount of time as you would for one baby, and there is no help on baby items like car seats, cribs etc.  A lot of people seem to be under the impression that the government is going to shower us with benefits.  They are not.  Some COMPANIES do offer savings packages to parents of high order multiples, but it's really just things like one time coupons and almost always for things like diapers and formula.  Helpful and awesome, yes, shouldering much of the financial burden, no.  Unless you're octomom and plan to pimp those babies out, you aren't making off like a bandit from having multiples.    

4)  So who's the oldest?

No one, that's stupid.  Birth order matters not with multiples.  I guess you could be a weirdo about it and be all like 'little Steve is 2 minutes older than Frank and Gary so he's the big brother'.  Yeah, he's not.  Steve, Frank and Gary aren't an oldest, middle and youngest child - they're triplets.  It's a whole different ballgame.  Mine will be born by C section, I don't care who gets yanked out of there first, I just care that they all come out healthy.  Their personalities will in no way be influenced by the order in which they're removed from my person. 

That's just some of the myths that people propagate.  They're slightly annoying.  So don't say things like that.  Please.  And maybe don't ask if they're natural, that's potentially insulting too.  Even if they were conceived through in vitro or fertility treatments, they're still 'natural'.  What's an 'unnatural' triplet?

The Small Town Trap

We live in a relatively small town.  I mean, sure, we have a Walmart, lots of grocery stores, all the amenities we really need, but one thing we do not have is easy access to quality medical services.  This is posing one of the biggest challenges for us with this triplet business.  In most every other facet I quite enjoy living in a small town.  I find having too many choices to be daunting, I hate traffic, generally not a fan of people; so I am quite suited to living here.  Plus all of our family, friends and even a lot of our extended family are here.  I've never felt the need to 'escape' from this town.  But since we've joined to multiples crowd we've found out we're going to be doing a fair bit of traveling.  

We have to travel about 6 hours away for appointments with specialists and we will also have to have our babies there.  This is not particularly convenient but it's also not the end of the world.  However, we are quickly finding out that these highly qualified doctors and specialists simply do not give one shit about how far away we're coming from.  They also don't care if they screw up and make us book an appointment for a full anatomy scan 3 entire weeks before it's even possible to do one, basically resulting in making this long trek just to eat some New York Fries, Yogen Fruz and enjoy a delicious Second Cup (side note: almost worth it).  It's frustrating.  And they would rather roll over and die than admit maybe one of them made a mistake and booked an appointment way too early.  AND if you try to convey to them that you would really, really appreciate it if they could work with you and try to streamline all these appointments as much as possible so you can make as few trips as possible they act like you're saying 'fuck you, babies, I ain't making this long ass trip anymore'.  In short, some of them are dicks.  Dicks you have to drive a long way to see.

Another thing that has made me a little more cognizant of the small town trap is the grape vine suddenly becoming extremely annoying.  I've never really been bothered by small town gossip, and I now realize that's because I've never had anything happen to me that was actually worth gossiping about.  Apparently conceiving a litter of babies is quite gossip worthy.  My crowded uterus has been quite the hot topic.  And I kinda, sorta, really hate it a whole lot.  And even though we were quite careful about who we told in the beginning the news traveled steadily throughout Dodge.  I don't like attention, I don't like people nosing in on my business, and I especially don't like the idea of information getting all twisted up and turned around - which I'm sure will happen.  Maybe I'm weird, I don't know, but I just don't like being a spectacle.  Even when it's good news and people are all excited and happy for us it still bugs me.  I think maybe I'm just an asshole.  Sorry, children.

I'm almost 5 months along and that's really the only shitty thing about pregnancy for me.  I guess I shouldn't complain about it, huh?