odd questions and inappropriate answers
Jun. 16th, 2008 11:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pantryslutThere are two comments/questions that I get a lot on my pregnancy these days, My responses, I have noticed, tend to unsettle the questioner. Too bad! I am afraid I am just that kind of inappropriate person.
The first: "Do twins run in your family?"
My response: "No, they don't." I guess if I stopped here, everything would be OK. But I can hear the question behind the question, so I often add, "we were on a course of fertility drugs and hit the jackpot." Or some variation thereof. If I really want to make someone uncomfortable, I joke that we're going to make the kids' middle names "Clomid" and watch them squirm and blush. Folks are clearly unsettled by frank talk about fertility issues. And yet, why else would they ask? Maybe I'm just not supposed to guess at the hidden agenda that quickly...
The second: "Isn't it nice to get it all out of the way first?" (i.e. have all the kids you were going to have all at once instead of serially.)
My response: "Yes, except that we were only planning on one." Well, it's the truth! But apparently it's shocking to say out loud. It's not that I'm unhappy to be having twins -- far from it, I'm excited, and even more so, I am aware that the universe likes to joke around and throw people curveballs and there's only so far you can plan your life out anyway. I'm totally on board this ride. But apparently admitting this isn't the ride I thought I'd signed up for is a bit taboo. As I said, too bad!
The first: "Do twins run in your family?"
My response: "No, they don't." I guess if I stopped here, everything would be OK. But I can hear the question behind the question, so I often add, "we were on a course of fertility drugs and hit the jackpot." Or some variation thereof. If I really want to make someone uncomfortable, I joke that we're going to make the kids' middle names "Clomid" and watch them squirm and blush. Folks are clearly unsettled by frank talk about fertility issues. And yet, why else would they ask? Maybe I'm just not supposed to guess at the hidden agenda that quickly...
The second: "Isn't it nice to get it all out of the way first?" (i.e. have all the kids you were going to have all at once instead of serially.)
My response: "Yes, except that we were only planning on one." Well, it's the truth! But apparently it's shocking to say out loud. It's not that I'm unhappy to be having twins -- far from it, I'm excited, and even more so, I am aware that the universe likes to joke around and throw people curveballs and there's only so far you can plan your life out anyway. I'm totally on board this ride. But apparently admitting this isn't the ride I thought I'd signed up for is a bit taboo. As I said, too bad!
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Date: 2008-06-16 08:50 pm (UTC)I also wonder how much of it is socialized religious associations with conception and God's will such that anything that affects the conception process is "unnatural".