Tangled Web

Yesterday, I told a man about my labour and birth experience with the twins. You know, the ones I adopted.

I know.

Here's what happened.

I'd had a pretty stonkingly bad morning. The babies had their MMR jabs a few days ago, and they have been feral ever since. They have been making their displeasure felt by throwing themselves around - arching their backs when picked up, then arching their backs even harder when put down. J and I call this 'silly bending' (as in: "baby L! No more silly bending!") and it's by far the toddleriest thing that they do. On a really bad day like yesterday (and today) they both do it at once, yelling at the top of their lungs, and sometimes add in an extra little crab-scuttle-move where they fling themselves backwards across the floor, balancing on just their head and toes. Fortunately, they aren't like this very often because when they are, nothing makes them happy. If they had their way, I would be simultaneously holding and not-holding both of them at once, using the magical octopus arms that they seem to think I possess. The closest I can come to this is to lie down on my back on the floor and let them clamber on and off me as they please. Yesterday, even that wasn't helping. I felt sad for them, obviously; they must have been feeling very messed up to be that cranky. However, I had given them food, sleep, hugs and drugs and what more can a mummy do to soothe their pain?

Mummy can go into town and get a coffee to soothe her own pain, that's what mummy can do. It wasn't totally selfish - they are usually happier once they are in the pram and moving, and that proved to be the case. We live really close to the centre of our town; it's only a ten minute walk and I invent excuses to do it most days. I was waiting to cross the road and a man approached me. As soon as he opened his mouth, I could tell he was not quite functioning on all cylinders. I think he was just a bit inebriated, although there may have been other substances involved. I don't know. He turned to talk to me. This happens all the time - the babies and I get a lot more than our fair share of attention, and a considerable portion of it seems to come from the disenfranchised.

"Are they twins?" he asked. This is a standard opener.
"Yes!" The obvious reply.
"And how old are they?" Another classic.
"Fourteen months", I said, expecting the next line would be something about how cute they were, and that he would then go on his way. Instead, he said:
"I have twins". Ahhh. This happens quite a bit too. People who either have twin children, or a twin sibling, go out of their way to tell me about it. I think I can understand this - it must be strange, having been at least partly defined by this twin-thing, to eventually leave it behind when your children or (sibling) go their own way. I sometimes find myself wondering if I will do this in twenty years time, stop people at a street crossing to tell them about my children, now gone. I was still thinking this conversation was about to end, and I just said "oh, how lovely" and left it at that.

"Is it a boy and a girl? I have a boy and a girl" he said.
"That's right - this is our little boy, and this is our girl," I said, pointing.
"Which one was born first?" he asked.

And I paused. This is the point in a conversation where I always, always say "well, we adopted them so I'm not sure because I wasn't there" and move right on. And no, I'm not really all that happy with that answer either, but I can't come up with a better one*. I think it must be something about twins - people seem compelled by some cosmic force to ask questions about the pregnancy and birth. Which one is older is the most common question, followed by how much did they weigh and how much time did they spend in the NICU. I think people do this to everyone with twins, I'm pretty sure it's not just me. But I do wonder sometimes whether this is a way that some people decide to probe the adoption issue without actually quite asking about adoption. And I always say they are adopted - well, they are - and some people do look a bit TOO surprised as if to say 'oh, I had no idea!' even though the babies are clearly a totally different colour from me. Surely it's not that much of a shock, Random Supermarket Stranger? But once, a few days ago, for the very first time, I didn't say it. I just said 'oh, our boy is older' to cut the conversation off. The person I was talking to was elderly, and a bit deaf, and a bit confused, and not somebody we were ever going to see again, and I just didn't want to get into it. And then yesterday, taking this man's strangeness into account, I did the same thing. And that's when it all started to go wrong.

"Oh!" he replied. "Our girl is older. Did you have yours in the hospital in this town?"
"No" I said, truthful but squirming a little. Can't he just leave now?
"My wife gave birth last week. They're all still in the hospital now" and my heart sank. For this man, obviously, and his wife and their tiny, tiny babies who turn out to be just over three pounds each. But also for me and my own stupidity - it became clear that this was not a conversation that I was going to be able to brush away. I should have told the truth, while I had the chance. I made the appropriate noises of sympathy, doing my best to make them sound like empathy. It didn't feel like any kind of fantasy or wish-fulfilment, me pretending I birthed those babies. It just felt like the most paralysingly awkward conversation I'd ever had in my life.

"In the end, she had to have a Caesarean section" he told me. "Did you have to have a Ceasarean section?"
"No!" I said, glad for another truthful answer.
"But she was in labour for quite a long time before that. How about you?"
"Oh no, I wasn't in labour for too long" I said, a bit wildly, thinking please oh please oh please don't ask me any questions about dilation. I don't want to have to make any stuff up about my cervix.

I still couldn't quite work out whether he has had too much to drink or taken something much stronger. It had become possible that he was just operating under a thick, thick blanket of stress and grief. He was desperately worried about his little family, and told me that his wife isn't coping at all, and just cries and cries. But he didn't seem like a normal man under pressure - there was something else going on, either mental or chemical, and I realised that I wouldn't be able to figure it out so there was little point trying. If he didn't seem quite so vulnerable, I like to think that I would have apologised for giving him the wrong impression, explained that we had adopted our twins, and wished him and his wife the best for the future. Instead, I decided not to retract it and give him what comfort I could. The conversation continued for the better part of ten minutes, with me trying to tell as few outright lies as possible. He concluded by telling me how he and his wife had 'left things a bit late', and had to take desperate measures.

"We had to do the thing - what's the thing called with the artificial insemination?"
"IVF?" I guessed, taking the twins as a clue.
"Yes! That's the one. We did the IVF. But it was all my own sperm" he said, proud.
"Well.... that's excellent!" I replied, which seemed to be the reaction he was hoping for.
"Oh, and then when we found out it was twins... we just couldn't believe it! How did YOU feel when YOU found out you were pregnant with twins?"
Well, that part of me felt entirely fictional, sir, I wanted to reply, but just told him "We were so happy" and he beamed.
"So were we!" he said. "So were we!"

A few minutes later, he left, taking my paralysingly awkward lies with him. I went on, wracked with guilt, to get my coffee. At least the babies didn't understand that, I thought. Yet. One day they will.

Why did I get myself into that mess?


I really feel like I should be learning something through experiences like this. I only wish - I wish I knew what that something was.


*And before anybody freaks out about how much I share, we have extreeeeeeemely strict rules about no sharing ANYTHING about the babies' personal story with anybody. At all. Even including extended family. I'm going to write about this no-sharing thing in more detail at some point. So no, we are most definitely not giving people any details at all about their adoption story, just the fact that they are adopted, if this is something that comes up. And it's the fact that we aren't going to share anything further, and have to be polite about it, that makes so many of these conversations so exhausting.