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Multiple births

When do you start showing with twins? What is life with twins like? Join the conversation on our Multiple Births forum.

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Original poster

Stupid questions people ask...

33 replies

PrincessScrumpy · 16/03/2011 21:25

I am 13 wks pg with ID twins. The most ridiculous questions/statements I've heard so far are:

Ooooh identical twins, wouldn't a boy and a girl be fab?! Errrrr, no it would defy science.

OMG, how will you cope? What will you do? Oh well I was planning to pick my favourite and leave the other at the hospital! (clearly not really planning to do this, before anyone calls ss)

Do they run in the family? ID twins aren't hereditary, however, coincidentally, I had an ID twin (this answer always goes into a discussion about how my sister died when we were young but can't seem to avoid it as I don't want to deny her existence)

My favourite was a statement by a girl who has a fraternal twin. "No, you can't be. Twins cannot have twins!" Errrr, clearly they can. She replied: "No, it's definitely true, twins cannot have twins!" Nobody knew what to say - how do you reply to that?!

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Mandy21 · 17/03/2011 10:06

I've had the opposite - boy/girl twins - have been asked hundreds of times whether they are identical (most worryingly on one occasion by a midwife?!!!). I have had lots of women say "ooh, yes, we thought we'd have twins [non-identical] because my husband has twins in his family" and I always want to say it has absolutely nothing to do with your husbands family!!

I am also a twin [non-identical] who has had twins and I either get "oh, so you must have known you'd have twins then" well no, not really, and "ooh, twins are supposed to skip a generation aren't they" well clearly not in my case!!

The very worst situation I've had and it still makes me angry thinking about it was a man at a children's party asking me whether I was "devastated" when I found out I was having twins. I said no, I was thrilled to bits and he said "oh no, it would be my worst nightmare". Always wish I'd have come back with some suitable reply about its a good job then his wife only had one because he clearly wasn't cut out to be the type of father I'd want for my children.

restingkitty · 17/03/2011 12:32

Congratulations on your twins!

A midwife asked me yesterday whether my B/G twins are in the same sac with the same placenta...surely that's not possible?? My sister asked me when we would be able to tell whether they were ID or not - when I said "hopefully one will look like a boy and one will look like a girl", she persisted that they could still be identical

My husband is an ID twin, lots of people say "well obviously you were more likely to have twins, with your husband being a twin". I think this is a more reasonable error though!

Never heard the "twins can't have twins" line before!! Unfortunately have had the "oh I would hate to have twins..."

The twin questions are always the same....again and again...now I'm 27 weeks I've got my one sentence responses down

kingfix · 17/03/2011 13:05

a father of twins at at twin antenatal class suggested recording your responses to all these and more as he says 10 people will stop you on every trip to the supermarket and you will save time if you can just press 'play' or possibly give them a leaflet.

One mother of twins I know used to hide one under the table when she went out for a coffee so people woul dleave her alone.

I have been quite dispirited by the number of people who have reacted to the news of my twin pg as if it was a major house fire combined with a diagnosis of teminal illness. I keep saying very brightly 'well, we're delighted!' but I am beginning to sound insane / in denial as it gets more and more forced.

OpheliaBumps · 17/03/2011 14:33

I had a few 'poor you' type comments when I told people we were having twins.

I usually replied by telling them how lucky we were, given our first 2 ivf cycles had failed. That tended to shut them up!

roo1983 · 17/03/2011 16:15

I've been asked "Do twins run in the family?" godness knows how many times.

A midwife asked me "Did you know you were having twins before the scan?" How on Earth would I have known? The same midwife asked if they were conceived by IVF - er no they're identical!

Lots have commented on whether one could be a boy and the other a girl.

There are two brilliant clips on you tube about these sorts of questions.

Original poster

PrincessScrumpy · 17/03/2011 19:44

I've had lots of "sympathy" comments to start with and "you must be terrified!" TBH we were quite terrified at first but we were still delighted - I'd gone for the scan thinking it was ectopic!

OP posts:

oooggs · 17/03/2011 19:51

I went for a 6 week scan thinking I was having an eptopic and the sonographer said 'no your baby is fine and so is the other one!!!!'

Are they twins - yes, are they both yours?

It must be terrible having twins, no it can't be that bad we had another baby 21 mths later (planned)

and congratulation on your twin pregnacy, our are 4 this month and they are fantastic as are our other 2 single children!

strawberrie · 17/03/2011 19:56

A good friend who I met at antenatal group has B/G twins, and said the same as kingfix; when they were little she was tempted to get a little laminated card which said

A boy & girl
No, not identical
Yes, she is quite a bit bigger, how observant
No, no twins in the family. Yes, it was quite a surprise
Their names are xxx and xxx
No, I didn't have a C-Section
Yes, ha, ha, 'double trouble' that's very witty

But it was always a bit tongue in cheek, people clearly see twins as a little bit special and it's quite sweet really, even if it does get wearing.

harrygracejessica · 17/03/2011 20:06

I like the way people always seem to decide its thier business all of a sudden to ask if they were IVF or natural, c-sec birth or natural etc, they wouldnt ask if there was only 1!!!

Problem is we have been there once with twin girls and im pregnant with twins boys at the moment so going to go through it allllll again!!

roo1983 · 17/03/2011 20:59

I've just remembered some stupid women saying to me at the baby show - "I don't know why anyone would want twins!" as if we'd planned it.

The other comment which really gets me is the "2 for the price of 1" - Actually, have you seen the price of a twin pram? It's bloody expensive and we get no more maternity leave or extra funding!

"Oh you have a ready made family - no need for any more kids" - Thanks for making that decision for me, I can't imagine not being pregnant again and would love another baby in a few years time.

twinmumplus1inthetum · 18/03/2011 19:42

"Are you sure they are identical? That one is so much prettier"

Original poster

PrincessScrumpy · 18/03/2011 19:56

See, silly questions I can answer but that's plain rude - I would have said: "At least she's not as ugly as you!"

OP posts:

restingkitty · 19/03/2011 11:03

Hm, I still need a good response to "double trouble"! Although my facial expression probably says it all.

Oooggs that is exactly what happened to me re ectopic pregnancy/early scan! I get the feeling that's how many of us find out there are two in there...

oooggs · 19/03/2011 14:26

double the joy, double the kisses - sarky smile and walk off!!!!

AtLongLast · 20/03/2011 14:16

Congratulations :-)

I found I was quite tolerant of `double trouble' until my boys got to 6 months or so. People usually mean well but when you're knackered and have already heard it a few times, the fixed grin does feel a strain.

I've had lots of `so glad it's not me'. I always have to stop myself from saying how glad I am we don't just have one cos it must be so boring. I mean, what do you do all day? Just seems rude... I usually say they're fab & all babies should come in pairs. On the other hand, lots of people have said how they'd have loved to have had twins & loads of people are so excited to see them, which is lovely.

Funniest was probably my Dad. My parents knew we had had IVF and were pg. After our scan I told Mum on the phone it was twins. I heard her relay the message to Dad. He was sooo confused about where the twins were. Where are they? In her womb? Poor Dad must have been confuzzled by the science & had visions of our twins gestating in a petri dish for months. He was v happy when we helped him figure it all out LOL.

B/G would be perfect then you won't have to do it all agan. Eh?? When dp rang MIL from delivery room & said we'd had 2 boys. Her response: `Never mind' . Dp was only brave enough to tell me that one when the boys were 8months old!

Not strange, but we had the conception / delivery Qs too. You're not a twin are you? Nope. Your parents? Nope, Grandparents? Nope. Anyone in dp's family? Nope? Odd, I thought twins ran in families. We had IVF (tho didn't always admit that)!!! That tends to make them uncomfy enough to regret asking.

The weirdest was one lady who said she wished she'd had twins then she could have decided which to kill at birth. I'm not sure her friend quite knew what to make of that either.

thumbwitch · 20/03/2011 14:23

Ha.
My brother is a twin (fraternal) and has twins - but they are IVF. You would not believe the number of people who nodded knowingly about twins running in the family. Fraternal twins - NO chance. Any hereditary aspects would have to be maternal.

ID twins - not so sure - it could come down either genetic line, because it's a single egg that splits in two, and a friend of mine's father comes from a family that has several sets of ID twins (male) over a few generations.

I was an au pair in ITaly to a pair of fraternal boy twins - very different, one looked like his mum, the other was the spit of his dad. I used to walk them in the park most days adn the old ladies would talk to me - always the same - "oh they're twins?" yes. "are they yours?" no. "they don't look alike" no.
Then it got weirder:
"Are they fed different foods?" No, they look different because they have different gene sets from either parent.
but the weirdest was:
"Were they born in different places?"
I was pretty gobsmacked at that - told my boss, she PHSL at the idea that she was going to get up in the middle of labour and run down the road to another hospital to have the second one somewhere else.

OpheliaBumps · 21/03/2011 22:10

Atlonglast 'then she could have decided which to kill at birth' Had she been drinking, or was she suffering from dementia cos that's just completely bizarre!

holidays2010 · 22/03/2011 07:23

Wow congrats harrygracejessica!

Guess we'll never avoid these questions and crazy comments.
I was made to believe that having twins would completely trash me and i'd be so tired etc etc (sometimes even by other twin mums) but to be honest, im finding life with twins fine. Im on around 4 broken hours a night but feeling great and very happy :D

twinmumplus1inthetum · 22/03/2011 14:38

Oh..........I've just remembered a good one. A friend with twins did NCT and was the only twin mum in her group. She gave up going to the meet ups after one singleton mum said to her "whenever I'm having a really bad day, I just think about you and your twins, nothing could be worse than that. Then I feel better."

WassaAxolotl · 22/03/2011 16:06

An old lady looked at my twins sleeping in their pram and said knowingly, "Mummy and daddy got up to too much fun, didn't they?"

Wasn't sure how to react.

AtLongLast · 22/03/2011 20:08

lol Ophelia, totally bizarre. I was a bit too to ask too many Qs really but I think she was having problems with her grown-up children... or something.

Some people ask how we tell the difference between our non-id boys but others think they are very different (as do we). One old dear asked me the other week if I was sure ds2 is a boy (errr 10months in, yep....) cos he's too pretty for a boy. Apparently she could tell ds1 is a boy cos he's hard-faced. Poor boys

Wassa that reminds me of a visit to a stately home when the boys were 6wks old. There was some sort of fertility icon & the guy who owned the house eons ago had 17 children. Dp was jokingly shielded from the icon every time we passed since we are obviously so fertile. Ha, how ironic!

Original poster

PrincessScrumpy · 23/03/2011 18:47

wassa - I alway think it's funny when you tell people you're pg and they say well done. What do they mean? Well done for managing to figure out sex?!

OP posts:

JuliaGulia · 25/03/2011 13:29

Sometimes I purposely look away from people when we're out to avoid all the questions that come with twins.

However my b/g twins have just learnt to wave...so we're out at lunch, babies in their highchairs and they turn around and wave and smile constantly to anyone who looks at them. Then comes all the usual questions/comments...

WassaAxolotl · 27/03/2011 13:24

Oh, I also had a lady come up and swear blind that she was one of a set of healthy nonuplets, over sixty years ago. But she didn't have any contact with her eight same-age siblings.

Something about it didn't ring true...

TrillianAstra · 27/03/2011 13:45

It's not widely known that:
a) identical twins do not run in families
b) fraternal twins only run in the female line

(did I even get that right?)

Twins skipping a generation is a widely-known old wive's tale.

So I feel all of the above can be forgiven.

"Twins can't have twins" is clearly a bonkers thing to say if you just did.

Boys and girls being identical is also bonkers.

Most other comments just come under the daft-things-people-say-when-you-are-pregnant-or-have-a-baby banner. "Did you have UVF?" is the twin equivalent of "Was it planned?" - people don't reaise quite how much they are asking rude questions about your sex life :)

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