Most parents only spend a day or two in the hospital, but I slept on a cot in my wife's room for the first nine days. Needless to say, I talked to a lot of nurses and doctors.
The first thing that inevitably comes up when people find out you have twins is if it runs in the family. After a few days, that question would trigger my wife's brain to turn off and her to stop listening. You see, I have been told that I enjoy talking. I often tell the same stories over and over.
Well, when the people are new, they haven't heard the story, so why bother coming up with new material when I have already mined the gold? So, I would say, "Actually, I am a twin." I have an identical twin brother. Without fail they would always reply that it was my fault that we had twins. With my wife in a catatonic state now, I go into my spiel.
I have researched twins quite a bit. Turns out, Identical twins are a complete fluke. They don't run in families. You could have a family history of multiple births, but not identical twins. Plus, if the mother is over 35 the chances of having multiples increases by 50%. So, in actuality it is her fault not mine. They laugh.
Now these medical professionals who are working in the birthing unit are all amazed at this information. How was I, a foolish layman able to glean this information with a cursory search of Wikipedia and they don't know it with years of study.
With my story finished, I have to snap my fingers a few times in front of my wife's face so she comes back to reality. I probably told that exact story 50 times during our stay in the hospital. So you can understand why she might find it a tad boring.
It never failed to grab the interest of the person asking though. So if you ask me again, I will probably tell it to you in the exact same way. You won't know the difference. Just don't expect my wife to pay attention to it.
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