Musings of a Mother of Multiples

The other day Dear Abby had a letter from a woman in her mid-30s who was happily pregnant after she and her husband had struggled through two years of infertility.  She was asking how to deal with nosy folks who asked her if she'd used fertility methods to help conceive.

This is a common lament in the MoM world (that's the first thing you have to learn ... MoM means "Mother of Multiples).  The Triplet Mom groups I'm a member of regularly have some sort of posting to share the stupid or offensive questions you've heard.  The ones that apply to the infertility question range from the trying-to-be-subtle "Do triplets run in your family?" (Seriously! You'd be surprised how many times someone asked me that!) to the blunt "Did you do that fertility thing, what's it called, IV-something?" (more often than not followed by some Octo-mom reference) to the truly atrocious "Are they natural?" (another part of the MoM lexicon - all babies are "natural", none are synthetic, but the ones these people are asking about - higher order multiples conceived without the benefit of modern science - are referred to as "spontaneous").

When these conversations pop up in my MoM groups, I'm happy to chip in and add my own experiences to the conversation, but I've never found myself truly offended by any question anybody asked.  When we first found out we were having triplets and were grappling with the terrible choice of whether or not we would have to reduce any of the fetuses to protect the pregnancy, there was a point when I asked myself if I was really preparing to go through with this because the doctors said all indications were that we'd have a successful pregnancy, we could afford it and handle it, or was there just a little part of me that wanted to do it because it would make us "special" somehow.  Ultimately, the decision was made because we already loved all three of our silly babies, but there is no denying that it has made us "special", and I find I'm sometimes a little disappointed when people don't comment on the three of them when we go out.

When it comes to questions about fertility treatments, I find I'm happy to share our experience.  Maybe I'm more willing than others because ours was less painful than so many others' - we were successful (some might say more than successful) on our first attempt.  I have met people who went through as many as ten rounds of IUI and IVF without a successful term pregnancy and so many others who had major complications and scares during their pregnancies.  So we were lucky.  But I also was able to make it through the hormone shots and procedures and waiting because I have a friend who'd been through it three years earlier and who hadn't been shy about the fact that she was excusing herself from a meeting to go to the bathroom and inject herself.  She was there to answer all the questions I had as I lived through it, and I can't imagine not doing that for someone else.

Once we started telling people about our pregnancy, I was actually approached by five different people interested in IVF.  I talked to all of them and answered all their questions to the best of my ability.  Amazingly, given the percentages involved in fertility treatments, three of those couples got pregnant using IVF and another friend who was able to conceive with the last round of IUI just before they moved to IVF, and three of them have welcomed babies into their families in the past year,   I like to think that I helped them make the decision that brought them their children, and that's worth all the stupid, invasive questions from strangers and passing acquaintances.

In case you're wondering, here's the consensus on other things you shouldn't say to a MoM:

• "Wow! Looks like you have your hands full!"
• "Do you have a lot of help?"
• "Better you than me!" 
• "I don't know how you do it!" / "How do you do it?"
• "You must spend a fortune on diapers!" (The formula actually costs more than the diapers)
• "Were you trying for triplets?" (Can you believe people ask this???)
• "Are they identical?" (especially with mixed-gender groups - basic biology tells you boys and girls are not identical)

I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones that pop up most often.

Another nice thing about having triplets is knowing I'm done having babies.  Early on when I was pregnant, I read a blog by a mom who was incensed that strangers would see her mixed-gender triplets and proclaim, "So - two girls and a boy - I guess you're done, then!", livid that strangers felt they had the right to decide that just because she had covered both genders that meant she shouldn't have more children (or implying that if she'd had all boys it wouldn't have been enough and she should've tried for a girl).  In fact, you'd be amazed at how many triplet mommies have another one - there's a woman in one of these groups who has TWO SETS OF TRIPLETS.  But not me, I'm done.  I figure we spent $15K on them, and we got a bargain.  I even introduce them as "First, second, and last"!

But now that they're almost 18 months old, I think of all my friends who have kids spaced just around 2 years apart and I realize that means at this point in their older kid's life, they were already pregnant again.  I can't imagine that.  Or the ones who weren't pregnant yet at 18 months but were already starting to think about when they wanted another - not wanting them to be too close together, but also not wanting to wait too long.  It just seems like so much to deal with while you're chasing a toddler around.

Then again, maybe it's not as overwhelming if you're only chasing ONE toddler around...