Yesterday, I went to lunch with the same people I’d gone to lunch with on Monday.
Since one of them has a wife who is almost exactly as pregnant as I am — due with their first the day after Esmerelda Freugenspeigel is due — I regaled them with the story about being asked if I was having twins. They were appropriately amused and horrified.
When we got back to the office, the first person we saw loudly asked, “Are you having one, or two???” Naturally, she also followed it up with, “Are you sure?”
Had she not been someone from whom I need a favor, I can’t swear that I would have successfully managed a polite reaction.
And while commenters Stacey and Carrie are right, that’s a better question than being asked if you are pregnant when you’re not, it still isn’t good. The I-thought-it-was-cute sweater that I wore the day last year when someone asked “when are you due?” was, like Carrie’s dress, donated to Goodwill almost immediately.
Random baby update: More BH contractions, weight officially up 26.5 lbs from pre-preg as of 37w1d (meaning I remain confident in my total of 27-28 lbs estimate!), all other health related tests had good results, Esmerelda Freugenspeigel has a great heart rate, and it seems unlikely that she will decide to join us out in the world before her scheduled c-section date.
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I am speechless. Seriously. Which doesn’t exactly make for a good comment, but still… had to put it out there. Gah!
I’ve been gobsmacked many times by child/childbearing questions that are either personal or inappropriate from strangers (or other people for whom that information does not count among their beeswax). Particularly “Are they adopted?” as if I need to publicly account for my relationship with these kids, unlike “normal” parents. (The question also presumes that adoption is an ongoing and unending state, as opposed to a complicated legal process through which one becomes a parent, but don’t get me started.)
By the way: my current fave answer to the question “Are they twins?” is to say “Actually, they are triplets” and then keep walking.
Brian, “triplets” is the most awesome answer ever. I hope Noah and I are with you and your boys sometime when someone asks, so we can really mess with their heads. (Not that I hope people keep asking, but I have faith in the ongoing ignorance and rudeness of random strangers.)
V. good point about adoption as a state of being vs a legal proceeding with a decisive end point, after which the grown ups involved are parents.
I’ll bet the adoption question is almost exclusively asked of interracial families, whether or not the children are adopted. (Madelaine or Eric, want to weigh in?)
We’ve never gotten it, and in our case, there is obviously no way that we could both be the genetic parents. Of course, we do get the close cousin question in all degrees of polite and rude variation, “Which one of you is the biological mom?”
i have been amazed at how people comment on the size of a pregnant woman’s belly, small or large. i have a friend who got upset because everyone cried she was carrying small, it made her worry after a while (baby was just fine). and now that my boy is here, everyone comments that he’s so big, when he’s just exactly average. even that irritates me after a while. why would a stranger think i want to know what s/he thinks of my baby’s size? just tell me he’s adorable and move on.
Twins question ain’t better. They’re all equally rude.
Just like the people who think they can touch you.
Next time someone asks, whom you don’t need to ask a favor of, say: “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you, because I was so horrified that you’re wearing white socks with black shoes.” Or something like that.