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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: For all the Twin parents... what an a$$
Im on the fence with this one. As a column article, I certainly think he's over dramatizing one aspect of having children for journalism sake and Im sure these are not his only thoughts. As a parent with a difficult first baby, I can empathize with his fears and concerns about what he got himself into, willingly pursuing another child that will certainly disrupt the relatively comfortable groove his family has finally found.
But making a conscious decision to expand your family of 3 when you live in a one bedroom apartment, and engaging in IVF with 2 embryos where twins are a much higher likelihood, and then being shocked and regretful about the outcome you purposely sought, makes me think he's a total idiot. Yeah its scary to approach any big change, yeah you might have days of thinking you were a total moron to think this was a good idea, yeah you may worry that getting what you ask for is not always a good thing! But he comes off as being very ungrateful, unprepared, and unwilling to accept the future he brought upon himself.
The only part of the article that really gets to me is the mention of hoping there was a solid reason to abort one of them. Woah Nelly thats harsh,even for entertainment journalism.
I have some thoughts about this I want to share because I myself visited the dark side, so maybe I can give some perspective. I read this the day it came out because it was posted on a twin facebook page I follow. I think it was right before I was admitted to the hospital last Monday.
Yes, I chose to put in two embryos. But when you struggle with infertility and you are in such a f*cked up state of mind, all you want is it to work. Especially with IVF. You're spending $15K+ to get a pregnancy that is not guaranteed. I know that he had other kids and my rational on round 2 or others will be different (I already know this based on having a high-risk pregnancy with a relatively bad outcome) but infertility can really eff you up in the head. We don't know what his wife was dealing with mentally and how that could change on a dime once she found out it was twins. Yes, you make a decision but are you ready to deal with the consequences? I make decisions every day that I'm not happy with and struggle (why did I eat that? why did I go to bed at 2am?) and I know you're saying, "Well this is human life" but honestly, we all make sh!tty decisions and have to deal with it.
My other thing is that even though I wanted to be pregnant more than anything and end the hurt and grief inside that I was feeling, at 24 weeks when I started dilating & effacing and there was very possible loss, I went through what I called "antepartum depression" which was really what felt like post-partum depression before they were even here. I had some really messed up thoughts that I actually voiced to my husband and he cried. I asked for psych at the hospital cause I knew I needed to talk to someone. Yes, I chose to put in two embryos, I KNEW I could have a hard pregnancy due to my weight, I KNEW twins increased my risk of pre-term labor, but all of that wasn't a part of my decision-making process because I needed to do everything and anything possible to have a baby. And anyone who judges me for that, shame on them. It wasn't fair the card I was dealt and I my decision was to do anything to get me pregnant, even though I had to accept the consquences. Did I regret putting in two embryos? In those days and minutes, absolutely.
I know that the story is written from a perspective that makes Dad @sshole of the year and it's really the tone that gets me, but I can identify with a lot of what he saying because of what he and his wife went through. When I was having complications, I thought "Why me? It's not fair" and same goes for him when he probably saw those heartbeats. Why them? The panic of twins hits everyone differently, but I truly can understand where they've been coming from. It's a dark place and I can't personally judge what he's going through. He made a decision he's regretting and unfortunately it makes him a sh!tty person right now to a lot of people.
Oh, and what if he put in 3 embryos and thought about reduction? Would we feel differently then? Triple Moms have to make that decision every day. And remember, people just don't put in embryos for the hell of it any more. Any legit, ethical fertility doctor will make a decision to put in a certain number based on 'grade' and if you have some embryos that aren't great, you could put in 3 and get 1. Get nothing. Or get all 3. That's why there is reduction, because you can make that choice if it ends up an outcome that you are not looking for.