And part of the process is all of the questions that get thrown our way, often by total strangers. Some people are very respectful, and others... well... I'll chalk it up to curiosity getting the best of them. At least they give me some good laughs! I'm sure people pregnant with only one baby get a lot of the same questions, but some seem to be unique to being pregnant with multiples. To give you a taste, here's a list of the most common ones, along with my usual responses (or what I wish I had the courage to respond with)...
"Is this your first pregnancy?"
Yes, yes it is. First and only!
"Did you use fertility treatments?"
No, no we did not. Jason and I had always said that we were planning on having only one child, but we "reserved the right to ask for a second if we didn't mess the first one up too much." At most, we planned to replace ourselves. :)
"Do triplets run in your family?"
Nope, not so much. Jason's family apparently has a lower than average incidence of multiples in their family, and I have one set of cousins that are twins. Guess we're just lucky!
(at which point most people shake their heads as if "lucky" is the wrong term to use)
"What did you do to get triplets?"
I took my prenatal vitamins, and that was about it. Watch out for Whole Foods Market brand prenatal vitamins- there might be some special organic ingredient in there that might have done this to us!
(some people have even gone so far as to ask if there is a particular time of day or position that we could recommend to those wanting multiples... I draw the line at providing an answer to that!)
"Do you know what they are?"
Aliens. Three boys. All boys. Our house is going to smell like sweat socks and feet for 18 years. (usually when people find out they're all boys, they go wide-eyed and start mentally checking me in to a state hospital for the insane)
"Didn't you want any girls?"
It's not like we got to choose! We were going to be happy with whatever we got. The only combination that really scared me was three girls- I just pictured what life would look like with three hormonal adolescent girls under one roof.
"Do you know how hard it's going to be?"
Not really, but since it's our first pregnancy, we won't really know any different
(I think at this point they're usually picturing me crying my eyes out in a nursery knee-deep in dirty diapers and three babies/monkeys swinging from chandeliers on the ceiling)
"When are you due?" (this is the most common one now!)
Although it looks like I'm due yesterday, I'm actually not due for another couple of months. But when you're carrying triplets, you tend to grow big... fast!
(and this is usually the part where they tell me I look good while they're grimacing a little)
"Are they identical or fraternal?"
Not sure exactly. Because they are each in their own sac and have their own placenta, they are probably fraternal. But we won't know for absolutely sure until after they're born and if we choose to do genetic testing on them.
"What does your husband think?"
If anyone's been calm and accepting about our situation, it's been him far more so than me.
(I think some people see the husband as an accessory to a pregnancy and not a vital part of the process. But Jason and I have tackled this whole journey together as a team, so this question sometimes weirds me out. I'm sure people are just asking because he's not physically present at the time)
"Can you feel them all kick at the same time?"
Sometimes! It usually makes me giggle when I feel the kicks in different areas of my tummy at the same time, but sometimes it can actually be a little uncomfortable when they decide to do some major gymnastics moves all at the same time.
"Are you going to get fixed after they come out?"
Most definitely! We are apparently fertility gold, so we're not going to take our chances
(Snip, snip. Clip, clip. Tie, tie. Whatever will get the job done. We've done our part to carry on the Deen name, so we'll leave it up to others to populate the world and give our parents granddaughters...)
"Are you going to try to have more? What if you get more multiples?"
We still have some semblance of mental capacity between the two of us. So no, we will not be trying for anymore.
"What are you going to name them?"
Still working on that! We've got to come up with three different sets of names, so it's a little tough. For now we're just calling them Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
"Are you going to keep them all?"
(not exactly a common one, but more than a handful of times!)
Umm.... what's wrong with you?
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