Clever Pregnancy Comebacks : Multiples Edition
My bud over at Stark. Raving. Mad. Mommy. knows a thing or two about being pregnant with twins and it sounds like you get some extra *special* questions and comments when you're carrying more than one baby.
Here are some sharp comebacks she came up with when you're in the "family way" with multiples!
"Wow. You're going to have your hands full."
- "Yes, I am. Here is the sign-up sheet so you can sign up to come over and help out. There are several slots open between two and three in the morning."
- Said wide-eyed and breathlessly, with hands clasped under chin: "Yes, full of looooooove." ::blink blink::
- "Congratulations on achieving your degree in Master of the Obvious."
"Better you than me." (Seriously, I got this one.)
- "Obviously."
"Wow. How are you going to breastfeed that many babies?" (Said to me by drunken, leering co-worker at a party.)
- ::roundhouse kick to skull::
- "My husband's taking some medications so he can help with that."
"Are they natural?" (This is code for, Did you use fertility treatments?)
- "No, latex."
"Do twins run in your family?" (Also code for, Did you use fertility treatments?)
- "Yep." (Total lie.)
"Did you do fertility treatments?"
- "No. My husband's sperm is just super-powerful."
- "No. I slept with two different men, and that's how this happened."
- "I did. Now let's discuss your menstrual cycle."
- "I did. Now let's discuss the most emotionally gut-wrenching time in your life."
- "Why do you ask?" This is the actual answer I always gave. If someone asks because they're struggling with infertility, I am more than happy to discuss it. If you're just being nosy, you can bite my huge pregnant ass.
"So, you're like Octomom?"
- "Totally. I'm selling my bras on e-bay right now."
"You should get a reality show like the Gosselins."
- "What a great idea! Because I'm totally about exploiting my children while allowing a national audience watch my marriage fall apart."
"My [insert distant relative] had twins and had the most horrible delivery. Let me tell you all about it..."
- ::Knocks other person out cold with handy copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting.::
"Aren't twins/triplets/higher-order multiples more likely to have developmental problems?"
- "Well, that can happen to any child. Case in point: you."
"Oh. Mah. Gawd. How are you going to lose all that weight?"
- "Your husband doesn't seem to mind."
33 Comments
Reader Comments (33)
As a mother of 5 year old twins, I have heard all of the questions above & a few more. The most shocking was "Which one is the smart one?" WHAT! Thats like asking which on is the dumb one? This is one of the few, that left me speechless. Most upsetting comment has been made several times, I know how to respond to this. "Bless your heart, I would kill myself if I had twins! My every time response...... "I HAVE killed people over making stupid comments to/about my twins!" That usually gets them to leave me alone.
I am blessed everyday for each of my children (I have 5) but the twins have brought something amazing to my family.
Hilarious. And yet not. Isn't it astounding what people let fly out of their mouths?
Always keeping me in stitches. Bwahaha! Love it. I want to conceive twins JUST TO GET TO USE THESE ON UNSUSPECTING MORONS!
@Tiffani -- Not only have I gotten "which one is smarter?" I also got "which one is the evil one?" My response: "We haven't figured that out yet. But now they both hate you and they're sneaky and you'll never see it coming.
I have 5 year old twins. I got all of those questions. I wish I had awesome comebacks when I was pregnant! I hate it when people say "Better you than me" it's just like, Really? Ya think!?
I'm a mom of 5 year old twin boys, and when they were about 18 months old we went out to eat and a waitress told us that with twins there is always an evil one and asked us which one was evil, seriously.
I took my 4 month old twins to see santa and the little elf ( lady taking the pics) told me to start with the baby then put her sister down next on santas lap, I just smiled and asked which one she ment.
My favorite question was "How do you tell them apart?" Um, yeah, I'm their mom, I LOOK at them. Our stock response was "We only had one circumcised."
The one about the awful birth...I think you get that whether you are having multiples or just one. Why do women need to tell me how awful their delivery was? Don't they see I still have to give mine.
When they see my horrified look, they do a reality check and say, "buy I'm sure yours will be just fine." Can I say eff off?
It's amazing the questions complete strangers have about your child bearing process or lack there of. My husband and I are in the process of adopting our third child. We were at the zoo when a lady asked me "Are all three of them both of yours?" in front of my children mind you. My wanted to be reply, "nope we're kidnappers....the oldest two we got from king Island last weekend, we just got this little guy today isn't he handsome. I mean reallly,not to make light of children that get abducted, but come on. Instead I smiled real big and said yes All THREE of them are our sons, how about yours do they all belong to you? And then I scooted away.
I'm pregnant with boy/girl twins and have heard a lot of these. When I get asked the fertility question next time I think I'm going to use the I slept with two different men comeback!
Also after I say they are boy/girl I keep getting 'oh good then you're done!' I need an answer for that one!
Expecting twins myself I wish I had a quarter for every time someone asked me who's family do they run in, mine or my husbands. This always kills me for 2 reasons; 1.) If the truth is going to make you uncomfortable (ie. we had fertility help) maybe you should have thought of that before you opened your mouth! 2.) If you knew anything about twins or have any common sense in general you would realize a man has absolutely no control over the woman's eggs, whether more than one gets dropped or one splits.
And I learned very early on to stop telling strangers I was carrying twins. All the "you're so small how can there be 2 in there" comments made me incredibly paranoid that I wasn't gaining enough weight or taking good enough care of them.
I can hardly wait for all the comments we'll receive once they are born!
Great comments! You should see the facial responses to people when I tell them I have two sets of twins. The girls are fraternal and the boys are identical. They mainly remain speechless at first, then a bit of terror seems to come over their faces, and finally they end with a smile as though they've worked through my experience on their own. Since the girls are fraternal, I receive a bunch of comments doubting the truth that they ars really twins, as if I would make something like this up!!! Yet, when they were babies, no one seemed to be able to tell them apart (meanwhile one is blond and one brunette). I always get the fertility code questions and I just say, "I have no idea why God wanted me to have two sets of twins". That seems to stop the interrogation. On a side note, having twins the second time around is much more fun!
I recall reacting in shock upon hearing moms say they have twins, back when I only had one kid. Then I got pregnant with twins. Guess I got mine.
There's an awesome YouTube video going around out there - Mothers of Twins are Freaks of Nature - it has some very witty combacks to all the stupid quesitons people ask.
As a MOM myself the one that always got me with my girl/boy twins was Are they Identical? No, one's a boy and ones a girl. Jeebuz people!!!
As for the You had a boy and a girl, you're done statement - the reply is Thank you for making that important life decision for me.
While I am currently not pregnant with multiples, I am surprised that I have been asked MORE THAN ONCE how I got pregnant. Uh.......I had sex with my husband. I understand that is code for "did you need any fertility treatments?" but after the 3rd person asked me that question I started telling them what position we were in when I was sure we conceived. What makes the whole thing worse is that they think I'm the asshole for my smart ass answer but not their uber personal question that is really none of their business.
As the mommy to triplets, I feel your pain! The mister and I weren't trying for kids, and I got pregnant. Then we learned that they were triplets. Identical, spontaneous triplets. I've never been more confused in my life. That was 7 years ago and the mister and I have added 3 more (all singles) to the mix. I love answering questions that I get 500 times a day like...
"You had to have been trying!" - No, we weren't. Oh wait, I forgot, trying to have a kid makes you 50x more likely to have multiples. Silly me.
"You had to have been undergoing fertility" - Oh gosh, I forgot.. you're right. I totally forgot that I was undergoing fertility treatments. That's where my insane lump of cash was going, I thought the bank was just stealing it. Silly me. I also totally forgot that I had $25,000 in the bank. No, genius. I conceived them au natural... no fertility, no kinky sex (weeeeelll, if you're asking.. ;)), no eating 2x the amount of dairy, a-u n-a-t-u-r-a-l.
"Wow, they are identical?!" - Yes. Crazy I know, I never heard of identical multiples either!
"Can you tell them apart?" - No, I don't know my own children. I just yell random names until one of them shows up.. it's worked for the past 7 years.
"Who is older?" - They are triplets. None are older. Triplets usually entail 3 babies in one day. Crazy I know
"I bet it's hard, I don't know how you do it! *annoying laugh*" - Vodka. Honestly what do you want me to say?! "I COULD have sent 2 of them away, but I didn't. The other 3 pregnancies were mistakes" Like.. whaaaaat? I just DO it, I don't know HOW I do it.
"Wait, you had triplets then singles? Impossible!" - Oh you caught me. Actually, I had triplets all 4 times I was pregnant. I kept the first set, but from the other 3 pregnancies I sent the other 2 babies away. You caught me!
"Honestly, do you love your triplets more than your singles? It's OK, I totally understand" - Oh yes. Love them so much more. I don't even know WHY I had the other kids, I just LOVE my triplets so much that I can't deny it! ...no, stupid. I love all my kids the same. I love my triplets, then my single, then my single, then my single.
And the best one
"I'm glad it's you and not me" - I'm glad too. Apparently you wouldn't give up your spare time to have these wonderful kiddos. Apparently you don't think they are worth working for.
^
FANTASTIC POST
I got the "oh good you are done" thing all the time, but once when my B/G twins were 2 a lady in line was asking lots of questions and when she got to the "Oh a boy and a girl in one go, how nice, now you can be done" I very slowly turned around to reveal my 8.5 month pregnant belly to the lady. She blushed like crazy and stopped talking to us...BAHAHAHAHA!
Once it was established that I had a boy and a girl not 2 of the same sex (since the over the top blue and pink outfits were not enough of a clue) I also got the "Are they identical" thing all the time, it drove me BONKERS!!! I always said "Nope one is a boy and one is a girl" Which was inevitably followed by "Well they look so much alike, (not at all as my son is very fair in skin and hair and my daughter is much darker toned and had black hair at the time) are you sure they aren't identical" I then would be so annoyed that I would usually blurt out "Nope they would both need a penis or both need a vagina to be identical and since there is one of each we are 100% positive that they are NOT IDENTICAL!!!"
When asked about the whole "Are they natural" thing I used to just say "yeah" but that always invited the rest of the lineup of questions of family history and what not, so I started telling folks the whole story in one breath "Yeah they are, see I miscarried and got pregnant like 10 days later so my doctor says that my body was soooo fertile that it was shooting eggs out of every oraface, especially since we have no twins in the family anywhere" Needless to say all questions stopped there! HA!
I hated to be so rude at times but I quickly learned to tell the difference between nosey nellies and well meaning folks and would vary my responses as needed.
I also the people that want me to compare my twins experience to my singleton experience as "it had to be soooooo much harder with twins, right?" They are always shocked when I say that I would have done twins every time if I could have chosen to. Or the well meaning friends that feel bad talking to me about the hardships of their singletons since I had it so much harder with twins.......it was all I knew at the time, my life was and is now with 4 kids, no harder than theirs, it is just different =}
When my boy-girl twins were babies I got so many questions about if they were identical or fraternal. It's amazing how stupid people are and obviously didn't do well in high school biology. My favorite response was "Only one of them has a penis."
I also got lots of comments on how I could be "done" now that I had one of each at once. What?! It was real fun when I had another one 17 months later. And then another 2 years after that.
I wish I had thought of these when pregnant with my twins! I still get asked about fertility treatments all the time, and the babes are a year old!
I got asked what the age gap was between my faternal boys was (one is and always has been about an inch taller than the other). I replied "hmmm, about an hour and a half"
She was surprised they were twins. To be fair tho, one is a slight build and blonde, his brother is a redhead, and a bit beefer. People often don't realise they are brothers.
The 2 statements I remember most from when I was pregnant "How exciting! I always wished I'd had twins" my reply "ok, here have these ones. You be excited over there, I'm in shock" - I cried for 3 months when we found out, they were babies #4 & 5, a surprise pregnancy; my husband didn't wanna talk about it for 6 months! But I wouldn't give them back for anything in the world.
The other response I got when I would tell people it was twins "you're kidding?!"
why? why oh why oh why would I kid about that??? if I was joking I would use more of a hyperbole than that! *facepalm*
Altho now, when I get the "boy you're a busy mum" when I'm out with my 3 preschoolers (yeah we had another one after the twins) I like to say in a cheery voice "oh this is easy! I have 3 more at school" That tends to stun people to silence. :OD
you all are right, people will let any old thing slide out their mouth, stick their nose in business that they have no right to, but *shrug* it ain't gonna change. :O)
The one I hated most, both before and after my twin girls were born, was people who said (usually in a smug, sing-song voice) 'Double Trouble!' as though that were the most clever, original thing anyone had ever come up with. What especially bothered me was that my kids have spent most of their toddlerhood hearing that they were 'trouble' from total strangers, even when they were being perfectly well-behaved. Seriously! What singletons have to put up with that?
Now, I don't worry about how to respond to dumb questions anymore; my 5-year-olds do it for me. When someone asks if they're twins, they take a deep breath and, in tandem, say 'We're identical twins we're 5 years old we're the same age we were born on the same day I was born first but we were both born around suppertime we're the same height and we weigh the same and our hair is the same color we're the same age we're both 5 we're identical twins...' and usually people start to back away before both of them run out of air. And inside my heart I smile a black, evil little smile, pat my girls on the head, and tell them how smart and wonderful they are.
Once at the post office, when my twin girls were 18months old, the line was really long...and after waiting forever in a hot lobby it was my turn at the counter. After making me sign for a package...the postal clerk looked at the girls then at me over her glasses and said "twins?" I replied, "Yes." ( my inner voice sreaming "you are a genius!") She then said to me... " You look tired." I had begun to turn and walk away.... but this stopped me and I simply replied..." You look bad in blue" and then walked away! I must admit.. that made me feel really good. So now I am fluent in sarcasm!