Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Is it a Boy? A Girl? Or Twins?

I can't keep quiet any longer. Twin moms can damn me, but if I hear of one more Hollywood person that is expecting twins, I might scream.

Leave it to selfish, overpaid Hollywood stars to bring the occurrence of twin pregnancies to an absurd level.

Infants are meant to come one at a time, dammit.

I'll go so far as to say it has become an epidemic. Go ahead - I'll accept the backlash, but I will defend my opinion, experience and perspective like a mama grizzly bear.

This boston.com article is shockingly accurate to me, yet the seething comments suggest that many other moms fervently disagree.

The human uterus wasn't meant to carry 20+ pounds (if a full term newborn weighs 7 pounds that leaves 3 pounds for all the other goodies). My womb gave out when my daughters had barely reached 4 pounds each. My placenta, created to nourish my babies, could not sustain the development of these fragile beings.

Multiples are forced to share the womb, a sacred hotel designed for single occupancy, then jockey for space and essential, scarce resources - a process that can have heartbreaking and sometimes devasting outcomes.

This unhealthy competition continues throughout infancy, childhood and into adulthood.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of twin moms like me that had "natural" or "spontaneous" (moms of multiples looove these terms) twins and tons more women that legitimately opt to keep a twin pregnancy after expensive, grueling and exhausting infertility treatments.

Many of my closest friends fall into this category.

And let's face it, twins are fascinating. The news of one baby can send a entire extended family into a frenzy of anticipated excitement; two (or more) can be downright overwhelming!

During my pregnancy, I relished each opportunity to announce there were two in there; the reactions were so raw and human; most women carry one baby, while I unexpectedly conceived two.

After they were born, I was a sight to see, lugging my two infant carriers. It never failed to elicit a look or a comment.

Walking the promenade in Cabo San Lucas Mexico when they were 18 months old, my girls must have felt like celebrities - more than once, enthralled admirers rushed over to us to touch my duplicate daughters, with their pale skin and ringlet blonde curls.
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My little celebrities (September 2008) 

But I still have a hard time accepting this new "trend" among the rich and famous. Is this similar to the "too posh to push" that made c-sections practically mandatory in hospitals? Will we soon accept multiple pregnancies/births as simply a notch in our sociological evolution?

I believe that all women who want to become mothers should become mothers. But where do we draw the line?

1 comment:

  1. Nice post. My brothers are identical twins, and it's always been interesting to see how the world treats them. As adults they tend to avoid the term 'twin' and just say 'brother' when referring to one another, and then people are shocked when they see them together for the first time and figure out for themselves they are twins.

    Anyway, mostly just wanted to say that I've been checking in on your blog for some time, but I don't think I've ever left a comment. Good blog!

    ReplyDelete

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