The fictional autobiography of conjoined twin sisters Lily and Rose continues, as they juggle marriage, parenthood, and career ambitions while living in a world not designed for them.
Mature themes in Part 3 include mention of sexual intercourse and discussion of childbirth.
Part 3 includes the following chapters:
Chapter 10: Twins having twins
Chapter 7: Decisions
Before long, the three of us had $2.3 million dollars from the settlement. It was just like we’d won the lottery, except that we had to go through the trauma of being attacked to get it, and we didn’t have to pay taxes on it.
We were very much aware of the stories of how lottery winners often blew through their winnings within a few years and ended up worse off than if they’d never won in the first place. We were determined to not let that happen to us.
We hired a financial advisor, who explained to us that if we invested it wisely and were willing to accept some risk, we could expect the amount to increase by an average of 10% each year. That was $230,000 in growth in just the first year. If we didn’t take any money out, the growth would increase exponentially – it would be $253,000 the second year, $278,300 the third year, and so on. That didn’t account for taxes – the growth would be taxable, so the net amount of increase would be a bit less than that. But what’s the point of having all that money if we never touched it?
On the other hand, if we chose to, we could live quite well on the interest and never touch the principal. We could even all quit our jobs if we chose to. We could withdraw $230,000 each year and still have $2.3 million left when we died.
We decided the best strategy for us was to do something in between. We’d keep our jobs, and supplement our income with a more modest amount from our settlement – say $100,000 per year. That would enable the nest egg to grow each year, just not as much as if we never touched it.
Even that opened up all sorts of possibilities for us to consider. We could now easily afford a very nice house. We could easily afford to start a family. We could go to grad school and get master’s degrees to enable us to get better paying jobs. We could start a business. Maybe we couldn’t do all of those things all at once, but otherwise, it seemed like the sky was the limit. We just had to figure out what we really wanted and what was most important.
The three of us starting having those discussions. We asked each other, and ourselves, questions such as, If money were no object, what kind of jobs would we want? What kind of education would be required to get that job? How many kids would we want, and when? Would we want to stay home with them or put them in daycare so we could work? These were big questions with no easy answers.
We knew we definitely wanted to buy a house. We’d been living in Nick’s one-bedroom apartment ever since we moved in with him two years earlier. We were all pretty sure we wanted to have kids someday; we just adored our little niece Mia. But more than anything, I, Rose, especially, wanted to go to grad school and get a master’s degree. Ever since we were in high school and contemplating college, I aspired for us to become somebody – experts in our field, or the heads of a major organization, or something along those lines. I always wanted to be respected and admired rather than stared at. Bachelor’s degrees were a rung on the ladder, but they weren’t going to get us where I wanted us to be. The trick was going to be to get Lily on board.
One evening when the three of us were once again discussing our future, I, Rose, shared this. “I’ve been giving this some serious thought. I’ve decided that I really want to get my master’s degree in public administration. It’ll take three to five years if we go part-time, or two years full-time. It’s the logical next step to advance in our career. I enjoy being a policy analyst, but I don’t want to do it for the rest of my life.”
“Do I get a say in this?” I, Lily, responded.
“Of course, bodymate,” I, Rose, replied. “Why would you even ask me that? We always decide everything together.”
“You made it sound like it was already settled and wasn’t up for discussion, that’s all,” I, Lily said.
“You weren’t paying attention, dear sister,” I, Rose, replied. “I said I’ve decided that I want to get my master’s degree, not that I’ve decided to actually get it. I was merely expressing my desire. So what’s your opinion about it, Lily?”
“Knowing you as well as I do, I was expecting that this subject would come up before long,” I, Lily, said in response to Rose’s question. “So I’ve been thinking about it. I’m not as ambitious as you, and I probably would be content to continue doing policy analysis for the foreseeable future. However, I can’t be the one who holds you back from fulfilling your dreams, either. So, if that’s what you want to do, then I’ll do it with you.”
I, Rose, had recalled that it had taken quite a bit of convincing and negotiating to get Lily to agree to go to college. Frankly, I was fully expecting to have to go through that again, and possibly even have her adamantly refuse to go to grad school. Having her agree so readily, when it obviously wasn’t her preference, suddenly made me very emotional.
“Lily, I love you so much!” I said as tears started running down my cheeks. I reached across to give her a conjoined twin semi-hug, and she reciprocated. “Thank you so much for being willing to do that for me! You’re the best sister a girl could be attached to!” Lily and Nick both laughed as she began crying, too.
“I love you so much, too, Rose!” I, Lily replied through my tears. “It’s the least I could do for you. You’ve always been there for me. You’re always so calm and collected when I’m such a mess. You’re my rock!”
“Well, of course I’ve always been there for you! It’s not like I have a choice! Wherever I go, there you are!” I, Rose, replied, only half jesting, as we all had another laugh together.
“May I get a word in edgewise here?” asked Nick. We both gestured for him to proceed. Great minds think alike. “I’ve been seriously considering doing the exact same thing, going for a master’s in public administration. Rose, you’re not the only one in this relationship who’s ambitious and motivated.”
“How is that going to work, then?” I, Lily asked. “Would all three of us quit our jobs and go to grad school together?”
“That’s one possibility,” replied Nick, “but certainly not the only one. You two could go first, and I’ll keep earning an income and getting us state employee health insurance. Or I could go first and you could keep working. Or we could go part time and all keep working.”
“If we didn’t just get a $2 million windfall, we probably would have to all keep working, or at least not all stop working,” I, Rose, observed. “But now we’re completely free to all quit our jobs and go to school at the same time. The sooner we get our master’s degrees, the sooner we can get promoted into management. As far as health insurance goes, we can get that through whatever school or schools we attend.
“Which makes a nice segue into the next question to consider: Where would we attend? I assume we’d want to stay here in Capital City. Locally, both Capital Women’s College and State University offer MPA programs. There are probably other schools in other parts of the state that also do, but I’m not familiar with them.”
“Well, I can’t attend Capital,” Nick pointed out. “Would you want to attend State? But before you answer that, what are the pros and cons of all three of us going for the same degree at the same school at the same time?”
“I don’t think we can answer one question without also considering the other.” I, Lily, responded. “I’m personally partial to going back to Capital College. It was a safe place for us. We didn’t have to worry about people like Creepy Guy there. The only way I’d even consider State is if you were there with us, Nick. I mean all the time – we’d have to always be in the same classes. That’s hard enough for the two of us to work out; it would be even harder for three, especially if we wanted to have different concentrations.”
I, Rose, chimed in. “I’m with Lily on this one. Going back to Capital would be my strong preference, too, for the same reasons.”
“Okay, I guess that settles that. We’ll go to different schools, then,” replied Nick. “What about the timing? All at the same time, or staggered, and if staggered, which of us first?
I, Lily, responded to that. “I think we need to talk about if and when we want to have a baby as we consider that question. If we think we might want to do that within the next four or five years, it’s relevant. I think for Rose and me, pregnancy and childbirth and caring for an infant are not going to be compatible with grad school. It would almost certainly mean having to take at least a semester off.
“So if we think we want a child soon, then probably you should go ahead of us, Nick, and we’ll have the baby while we’re employed and can take maternity leave. Otherwise, if we think we want to hold off at least a few years, then either we can all go to school at the same time or the two of us will go first.”
“Excellent point, Lily,” I, Rose, replied. “I completely agree.”
“Keep in mind, too, that I’m three years older than you, and three years further along in my career than you,” Nick said. “I’d rather not have to wait two more years to start grad school.”
“That’s reasonable,” I, Rose, said in reply. “So Nick waiting for us is off the table. There is the health insurance thing to consider. If we all go to school at once, we’ll have to give up our state employee health insurance, which is partially subsidized by the state, and pay full price for whatever the school offers or whatever we can find on our own. It might get complicated, say, if we got pregnant right at the end of grad school and then had to change insurance again, and change doctors, in the middle of the pregnancy. If we stagger going to school, we can all stay on the state’s health insurance without interruption, either as employees or as dependents.”
Nick pointed out, “Remember that we’re multi-millionaires now. Having to pay full price for health insurance isn’t a big deal. But otherwise, what you said makes sense, Rose.” I, Rose, nodded my head to concede the point about the cost of insurance. We still hadn’t gotten used to being rich.
I, Lily, replied, “It does makes sense. I can wait two years to start grad school. The question is, Rose, can you?”
“I think so, yeah,” I, Rose, replied. “It wasn’t something I even had any immediate plans for until we got the settlement money. But I think I’d want to make the most of those two years not in school by going ahead and having that baby. That’s assuming the rest of you are on board with that.”
“Just keep in mind, if we have a baby while I’m in grad school, I’m going to be limited in how much I’ll be able to help,” Nick said. “I won’t get any paternity leave, and there’s no summer break between the two years. There’s a mandatory internship then, and there’s no guarantee it’ll even be local. If exams or the deadline for my thesis are coming up, I might have to give school my full attention just when you need it most.”
I, Lily, laughed at that. “What’s so funny?” Nick asked.
“We’re loaded with money, remember?” I replied. “If we need to hire help, we can afford it.”
Nick smacked and then shook his own head. He realized he was the one who just seconds ago had to remind Rose that we were rich. “Of course,” he replied. “I still have a hard time thinking that way.”
“So are we in agreement that Nick will go to grad school first, and we’ll plan on having a baby during that time, and then Lily and I will go to grad school after Nick finishes?” I, Rose, asked, trying to bring this discussion home.
“Agreed!” I, Lily, replied.
“Agreed!” Nick echoed.
We now had a plan.
Chapter 8: Iceland
By now it was early March, and Nick had no time to waste if he wanted to be admitted to grad school for the fall semester. He needed to get his application completed, get his undergraduate transcripts sent in, write an essay about his reasons for wanting the degree and his plans after graduation, obtain several letters of recommendation, etc., but most critically, study for and take the GRE exam, which is like the SAT for grad students. All of this had to be completed in a matter of several weeks.
We helped and encouraged Nick in every way we could, and he got everything finished and submitted in time, barely. In mid-May, he was notified that he’d been accepted into State University’s MPA program for the fall semester beginning in mid-August.
Meanwhile, knowing that we might not get another chance for at least a couple of years, we brainstormed possibilities for a blowout vacation. Money was no longer an object; we were limited only by the amount of vacation time we, Lily and Rose, had available and could take at one time. Vacation time wasn’t as much of an issue for Nick because he was quitting his job anyway.
We had three weeks available but were limited to taking two consecutive weeks. We discussed it amongst ourselves, and decided this was our opportunity to take that trip to Egypt we’d briefly considered for our honeymoon. But we did some more thorough research into how conjoined twins might be perceived and treated there, since we were completely unfamiliar with their culture. We didn’t want to inadvertently go to a place where we’d be considered evil omens or whatnot.
We didn’t really find anything conclusive about that, but we did stumble across something we didn’t realize – that even though Islam and Muslim countries allow polygamous marriages, they specifically forbid a man from being simultaneously married to women who are sisters to each other. The Muslim world was not going to be tolerant towards the three of us after all. Scratch Egypt.
As we’d already discovered, even in international waters, people are still subject to the laws of the country the where the ship is registered, to the laws of their own country, or even to the laws of some other country, depending on the circumstances. We also learned that visitors to Antarctica are subject to the law of their home country. There was apparently no place on the planet where our marriages would be considered valid, outside of our own home state. That was discouraging.
On the other hand, whether our marriages were valid or not in a given place meant very little unless we lived there. We weren’t going to be charged with polygamy while just passing through or visiting a place, at least not in modern, western countries. We decided we’d best stick to such places where we had a better understanding of the law and the culture. So we were back to square one. Where did we want to visit and what did we want to do on a two-week summer vacation?
“It was just as well that Egypt didn’t pan out,” admitted Nick. “Who in their right mind would go to the Sahara Desert in the middle of summer, anyway? Let’s go somewhere cold, like Alaska or Scandinavia or somewhere. We’ll save the hot places for winter vacations.” We couldn’t argue with his logic, and started looking into our options.
We quickly decided that while Alaska would certainly have breathtaking scenery, it would seem too familiar, still being in the United States. It came down to choosing between Iceland and Norway. We realized we couldn’t go wrong with either, and whichever one we didn’t go to this time would be high on the list for a future vacation destination. We read that Norway is a better place to take kids, and that decided it for us. We’d go to Iceland now, before we had kids.
Any vacation is more fun with friends along, so we tried to find another couple or two we could go with. Everyone we could think of had a reason why they couldn’t – new jobs, weddings, babies, conflicting plans, not enough vacay time, not enough money. We didn’t want to get started paying for our friends’ vacations; that would just make the relationships weird. We contacted the two couples we’d met on the transatlantic cruise, Austin and Megan in Pennsylvania and Liam and Chloe in England. Megan had gotten pregnant during the cruise and was expecting in July, so they couldn’t. However, Liam and Chloe were ready, willing, and able to meet us in Iceland and spend two weeks with us there.
Liam and Chloe had been to Iceland once before, but only for a long weekend where they didn’t venture far from Reykjavik, the capital. That trip was enough to whet their appetite for a much more extensive trip to see the entire island, so they were excited we’d suggested doing just that. They already knew a whole lot more than we did about what to see and how to get around the island. We worked out the dates with them, and left it up to them to plan the itinerary and make the on-island reservations for all of us. All we had to do was book our own flights there and back.
Come July, we were so excited about our upcoming trip we could hardly stand it. Liam and Chloe had been keeping us informed about everything they had planned for us. This was going to be so much more fun than that transatlantic cruise!
We first flew to New York to catch our connecting flight to Iceland. Of course, we had the same headaches and stares and trouble getting through security that’s we’d had on our honeymoon, but this time we expected it. We tried to tell the TSA agent that if we went through their body scanner we’d make it malfunction, but they had to find out for themselves the hard way. At least they didn’t make us go through it repeatedly this time.
We coordinated our arrival times in Iceland with our friends so that we’d meet in the airport and go to the rental car counter together. Liam and Nick planned to do all the driving, and they both had to present their driver’s licenses and sign the papers.
We then proceeded to spend nearly the next two weeks making the 800+ mile loop around the island, stopping to take in the sights and sample the food along the way. We saw numerous geysers and glaciers and volcanos and waterfalls and northern lights, ate many incredible seafood and lamb dinners during our time there, and spent a lot of time relaxing in the geothermal spas. It was an epic experience, and one we’ll never forget.
We’d thought we’d gotten to know our English friends pretty well on the cruise, but we quickly realized we’d only scratched the surface then, now that we were spending nearly every waking moment with them for two weeks. We never ran out of things to talk about the entire time. We especially enjoyed talking about the differences between our two countries; there were far more of them than any of us had realized, some trivial, and some pretty significant.
They never seemed to get tired of hearing about our life experiences as conjoined twins. In fact, Liam and Chloe were the ones who first put the idea in our heads that we should write our autobiography. Actually, they didn’t just suggest it; they repeatedly urged us to do it. They told us they first knew we had to tell our life story when they heard our comedy routine on the cruise ship. You have them to thank, or blame, for what you’ve been reading.
But we actually could, and did, talk about everything under the sun. In most ways, we found that we were kindred spirits with these two, and in the ways we weren’t, we respected each other’s perspectives. We shared with them our plans to have a baby before too long, and they were thrilled for us. They’d been thinking about the same thing themselves. It was a shame we lived on different continents.
In any case, we all agreed we should go on vacation together, or ‘on holiday’ as they said it, every other summer if we could possibly arrange it. Even if they, or we, couldn’t travel due to pregnancy, a new baby, or whatever else, the ones who could travel would come to the others’ city and vacation there. We began discussing where we should meet in two years.
Chapter 9: Expecting
Once back from Iceland, we settled into our new routine. Nick was now a full-time grad student, and we returned to our policy analyst job at the Human Rights Commission. Planning ahead, we’d decided that we’d like the baby to be at least a year old during the summer between Nick finishing and us starting grad school. That way, the baby would be old enough to stay with someone while we took our next extended vacation, and would be less of a distraction for us when we were grad students. That meant we needed to get pregnant not immediately, or we might give birth during Nick’s final exam week, but soon, within the next month or two if at all possible. So we figured out when we were next going to likely be fertile, and made sure to have Nick do us several times a day for a span of about a week covering that time and a bit on either side of it. Of course, Nick didn’t mind a bit, and neither did we.
Despite our efforts, we didn’t get pregnant that month. We weren’t exactly surprised, though, because it hadn’t been very long since we stopped taking birth control pills. So we tried again the following month, and this time we were successful. Our due date was in June the following year, which was about when we wanted it.
We realized that Nick’s one bedroom apartment wasn’t going to cut it for very long once the baby arrived, so we turned our attention to buying a house. Price wasn’t much of an object, but we needed to figure out what we needed and wanted in a house. Ideally, we’d find one where we could move in early January, while Nick was on his winter break. So we started looking at what was out there, and compiling a list of likes, dislikes, must-haves and dealbreakers. We spent a lot of discussing this between ourselves and with Nick until we had a solid understanding of what our ideal house would be.
Our ob/gyn Dr. Oakley wanted us to get an ultrasound earlier than normal simply because of our unusual anatomy, just as a precaution. Of course, she’d never had conjoined twins with a shared womb as patients before, and wanted to see for herself that everything inside was as it should be. It turned out that it was, but she informed us that we’d be having twins. She told us everything looked normal and the twins appeared to be completely healthy.
We had to ask out of curiosity whether she could tell if they were conjoined, and she replied that they definitely were not; that she could see the space between them. She let us see for ourselves on the monitor, and of course she was right. It was admittedly a little disappointing; hoping for a brief moment that they were conjoined, and then finding out that they were ordinary, garden variety twins.
But we quickly put that disappointment behind us. It was just as well that they weren’t conjoined, due to the high mortality rate, the short lifespans of those who did survive, and high likelihood that they would have a lifetime of very major and significant physical challenges. The two of us had been extremely lucky in that regard. Instead, we focused on being thrilled that we had two healthy babies growing inside us. It was way too early to tell if they were girls or boys or one of each, and if they were the same sex, we wouldn’t know until they were born whether they were identical or fraternal.
After a time, it began to occur to us how fortunate we were to be having twins. We would have had to share and take turns with a single child, like we have to do with Nick. But with two children, there would be one for each of us, like when we double-dated in high school. When we took them for a walk or were sitting with them, we’d each be able to have one of them right by our side.
In a subsequent ultrasound, we found out we were having a boy and a girl, so obviously two eggs were involved. Maybe we both ovulate every month; who knows? One of the twins was occupying the left side of our womb and the other was on the right. The ultrasound tech was about to tell us which was which when we abruptly cut her off. We didn’t want to know! We were afraid that if we knew, we would think of the baby on the right as Lily’s, and the one on the left as Rose’s. Neither of us wanted to be partial to or prefer one twin over the other. Neither did we want to have a reason to give into the pressure to only list one of us as the mother on each of their birth certificates. We both wanted to be mothers to both of them.
Together with Nick, we chose the names Thomas LeRoy and Cassandra Nicole. Thomas, because it literally means “twin”, and LeRoy because it has the capital letters L and R, just like Lily and Rose. Cassandra to honor our friend Cassie, whose real name is Cassandra and who arranged for Nick and us to meet, and Nicole, because it’s the feminine version of Nicholas, Nick’s real name. We agreed we’d call them Tommy and Sandy, but fully expect that someday, Tommy will want to go by the more adult-sounding Tom.
We discussed with Dr. Oakley about what would go on the babies’ birth certificates regarding the mother’s name. Of course she knew there was no way to determine which of us supplied the egg for each baby. She asked us what we wanted to be entered in the mother’s name box, and we told her we both wanted to be named as the mother for both children. She understood our reasoning but said she didn’t know if that would fly. The hospital was actually responsible for collecting the information and submitting it to the County Clerk, who would in turn forward it the state Bureau of Vital Statistics. She advised that we’d need to see if the hospital would fill out the certificate as we requested and whether the county and the state would accept it that way.
We tracked down the person in the hospital responsible for birth certificates and explained our situation as many ways as we could think of, but we couldn’t get her to understand. We asked if we could meet with her in person, saying that what we were trying to explain to her would then be immediately obvious. She was reluctant, as this was all highly unusual and her guard was up, but we wore her down.
Once we met with her, she was in complete agreement with our request, but didn’t think the County Clerk would accept the birth certificates that way. We asked her if Russell Pennington was still the County Clerk and she replied affirmatively. We both smiled. We explained that we’d previously dealt with Mr. Pennington regarding getting two marriage licenses so we could both marry the same man, and that we would contact him and see if we could work things out.
I, Rose, had been the one to contact Mr. Pennington about our marriage licenses, so it only made sense for me to reprise my role. This time, though, I’d be contacting him as a private citizen, as we had not yet gotten our employer, the state Human Rights Commission, involved. I called his office and simply identified myself as Rose Spencer and asked to speak with Mr. Pennington. I added that he knew me, but probably would more likely to remember me by my maiden name, Rose Barrett. The person answering the phone seemed to know the name Rose Barrett, and put me on hold.
A few moments later Mr. Pennington answered the phone. “Mrs. Rose Spencer!” he said. “I didn’t think I’d ever hear from you again after our last encounter. I trust your marriage… uh, your marriages are going well.”
“Hello, Mr. Pennington. Thanks for taking my call. If you recall, I only have one marriage, but if you’re also asking about my sister Lily’s marriage, then yes, both our marriages are going quite well, thank you.”
“What can I do for you today, Mrs. Spencer?” Pennington asked.
“Well, first, I’m calling strictly as a private citizen today, not in any official capacity. I’ll get right to the point. Lily and I are pregnant and expecting twins – normal twins – in June. We share a single womb and there’s no possible way to know which of us is the biological mother to either baby.
“We want their birth certificates to list both of us as the mother. We have the hospital birth registrar on board, but she didn’t think your office would accept the birth certificates if she submitted them that way. I’m calling to see if that will be a problem for you, and if so, what would be the best way to get it resolved.”
Pennington let out a deep sigh. “Well, first of all, congratulations to you both. I can’t convince you to list your name on one baby’s birth certificate and your sister’s name on the other?” he asked.
“Thank you. No, we don’t want to do that,” I replied. “While it would certainly be easier, we both want to be the mother of record for both children. Besides, next time we might have a single baby, and then what would we do? So, we’re wondering, is there any law or regulation that would prevent you from accepting birth certificates with two mothers listed?”
He paused for several seconds, apparently collecting his thoughts. “No, I don’t believe so. There’s definitely a regulation that prevents us from accepting a birth certificate with two fathers listed. If there’s any question who the father is, that box must be left blank until a DNA test establishes paternity. It probably never occurred to anyone that a baby could have two possible mothers. I guess in your case, a DNA test would be of no use anyway.”
He continued. “My office forwards birth certificates to the state Bureau of Vital Statistics. Even if I certified them with both of you listed, they’d likely kick them back to me for correction.”
“But you don’t know of any law or regulation that would require them to reject them, right? They’d just send them back assuming there was an error?” I asked.
“That’s right,” he replied.
“Could we impose on you to contact them proactively and see if you can work things out in advance for us?” I asked. “If need be, we could also talk to them or meet with them in person, but we assume you’d have more credibility with them than we would.
“If push comes to shove, we’ll go through the Human Rights Commission again to get what we want. It would be simpler for everyone involved if we didn’t have to do that. If there’s no law or regulation requiring them to reject birth certificates with two mothers listed, then we can avoid going through the Commission if they’ll cooperate. You can pass that on to them if you think it’ll help,” I said.
“Yes, I’ll talk to them and see what I can do,” Pennington replied.
“Thank you, Mr. Pennington,” I said sincerely. “Lily and I both really appreciate you doing that for us, as well as our husband Nick. I look forward to hearing back from you.”
A week later, Pennington let me know that he’d smoothed things out with the Bureau of Vital Statistics and that there’d be no problem including both of our names as the birth mother. I thanked him profusely, and we relayed that information back to the hospital birth registrar.
As the time drew near for the twins to be born, Dr. Oakley informed us that the hospital’s public relations department wanted our permission to issue a press release announcing that conjoined twins with a shared womb had delivered twins of their own. We quickly exchanged a glance and immediately knew we were of one accord. “Absolutely not,” we said in unison.
We made it perfectly clear that we wanted zero information about ourselves, our situation, or our babies made public. Our reproductive system was that of a normal, singleton woman, and there was nothing remarkable about such a reproductive system producing a baby or even twins. Calling attention to the fact that we were unique from the ribcage up amounted to nothing more than putting us on display to be gawked at in order to give the hospital some free publicity. Fortunately, due to HIPAA privacy laws, the hospital had no choice but to honor our wishes.
Chapter 10: Twins having twins
After that conversation with Dr. Oakley, it began to dawn on us how significant our babies’ upcoming births actually were. It was rather likely that never before in human history had twins jointly, together given birth to twins. When we thought about it, we were kind of in awe about it. Not in awe of ourselves or our babies, but more of the circumstances. How many people can say they were the very first in history to do something? Alexander Graham Bell, Orville Wright, Neil Armstrong. Certainly the list was much longer than that, but it was still quite an exclusive club. Of course, there was no way to know for sure if we would be the very first ever, but we could almost certainly make the claim that we’d be the first in recorded history.
Despite that, it didn’t sway us in the least about the hospital announcing it to the world. We’ve always deliberately avoided becoming a public curiosity as much as possible. Our purpose in life has never been, and never will be, to be a spectacle for the amusement of others. Admittedly, we’d done stand-up comedy a couple of times, but that was different. The audiences were small and we were trying to entertain them with our wit more than with our anatomy. If we ever chose to make our existence known to the world at large, it would have to be on our terms.
Anyway, Nick completed his first year of grad school in early May and began his mandatory summer internship in mid-May. His internship was with the Capital City sanitation department. They’d deliberately avoided assigning him to a state government agency since he’d already been a state employee for several years; they were trying to expose him to how another level of government functions so he’d be more well-rounded. They knew he was going to be a daddy times two very soon and would need to miss a day or two to be there as his twins were born. He didn’t let on that he had two wives; there was no reason to spread that information around when he’d only be there a few months anyway.
The day came in early June when we began having regular contractions early one morning, before Nick left for the day. We called Dr. Oakley and she told us to come to the hospital. We called our supervisor and told him we were on maternity leave effective immediately. Nick called in to his office and told them it looked like today might be the day, and he drove us there. Not everyone in the maternity ward had been forewarned that conjoined twins would soon be having their babies there, so we got the usual wide-eyed looks from many of the nurses there. The one assigned to us joked that she was glad she hadn’t been out drinking the night before, because otherwise she’d think she was still drunk and seeing double.
Both of the babies were in the head-down position as they should be, and so Dr. Oakley intended to deliver them vaginally unless there were complications. She also didn’t want to give us an epidural – a nerve blocker injected into the spine so the mother doesn’t feel as much pain – because in our case, she’d have to give us two, since we have separate spines, and there was really no precedent for what the dosage should be. Half a dose each might not be enough to block the pain, but a full dose each might be too much.
Throughout our pregnancy, one of the babies had occupied the left side of the womb and the other occupied the right. We each tried hard not to think of one of them as ‘mine’ and the other one as ‘hers’, but we ended up referring to them that way simply because it was easier to say. But we really, really didn’t want to favor one over the other once they were born.
If everything went according to plan, we’d certainly be able to feel which of our two babies was being born first, left baby or right baby. In fact, Dr. Oakley told us that right baby – the one on Lily’s side – was better positioned to be the first one out. Therefore we told her, the nurse, Nick, and everyone else who came into to the delivery room, that we didn’t want to know whether the boy or the girl was born first, so they were not to announce the babies’ sexes as they were born or even what time each of them was born. Also, we didn’t want to see either baby until after they were both born, so we couldn’t recognize either of them as having been born first. We could only hope they wouldn’t have distinctive cries, at least not yet.
We left it up to Nick to decide whether he wanted to know which baby was born first, but if he did, he was never to tell us or even hint at it; he was to take that secret to his grave.
We discovered there was an advantage to being conjoined when it came to delivering twins. The baby on Lily’s side was born first, and so she did the majority of the pushing and was rather worn out after that. But then it was Rose’s turn to push her baby out, and she was still pretty fresh. Lily could rest while Rose did most of the work giving birth to baby number two.
Everyone in the delivery room respected our wishes and kept to themselves which baby was born first. After they’d gotten the second one cleaned up, the nurses presented the babies to us to briefly hold before they went off to the nursery. First they gave Tommy to Lily and Sandy to Rose; then after a few minutes, they switched them. Nick took pics of the four of us both ways. We were both overcome with emotion as we introduced ourselves to our children and told them how much we loved them. Then Nick got to hold both babies at once as one of the nurses took their photo with Nick’s phone.
The next morning, a women we hadn’t met yet, dressed in street clothes and carrying a tablet, entered our room, and had the usual reaction of someone seeing us for the first time. As her brain tried in vain to process what her eyes were seeing, she stopped dead in her tracks and just stared at us for several seconds. In her case, apparently her brain told her to flee, and she backed out of the room without saying a word, never taking her eyes off us. We exchanged a glance and shrugged and said in unison to each other, “She’ll be back.” She’d obviously come for some purpose which she’d failed to accomplish.
Ten minutes later, our nurse entered the room with tablet lady right behind her, looking very uncomfortable. “Lily, Rose, this is Mrs. Hollis. She’s here to get some information from you in order to complete your babies’ birth certificates. Mrs. Hollis, this is Lily Spencer on your left, and Rose Spencer on your right. I’ll leave you now to do what you need to do.” The nurse left the room.
Mrs. Hollis looked simultaneously terrified and about to cry. She managed to stammer out, “I don’t even know how I’m supposed to do this…” and just sort of trailed off.
I, Rose, feeling sorry for the poor woman, invited her to sit down, which she did. I asked her, “What happened to the other lady who does this? Mrs. Whittaker, I think her name is.”
“She had a death in the family and is out this week,” she replied. “I cover for her when she’s gone.”
“Please give her our condolences when you see her. Okay, so you’re experienced doing this, right?” I asked.
“Yes, but…” she said, again trailing off.
“But you’ve never had to interview a mother with two heads before, is that it?” I, Lily, asked impatiently.
Mrs. Hollis nodded her head, and said “I’m sorry…” while again trailing off.
“Lily, you’re not helping any,” I, Rose, said to her rather sternly. I addressed Mrs. Hollis much more patiently. “We’re not actually a woman with two heads. We’re conjoined twins.”
“I know,” she said, “The nurse explained it to me, but that doesn’t help any. It would actually be easier if you were a woman with two heads.”
I, Lily, replied. “I’m sorry for being sarcastic. We already had this all worked out with Mrs. Whittaker. I’m sure we can help you complete the forms. Why don’t you just ask the questions like you usually would? We won’t take offense.”
“Thank you; that would be helpful. Now, you had twins, right? A boy and a girl?” she asked. We replied affirmatively. “Okay, I’m going to try to fill these both out at the same time so I don’t have to ask the same questions multiple times. Have you chosen names for both babies?” We again replied affirmatively. “Let me get the boy’s name first, then.”
I, Rose, said, “Thomas LeRoy Spencer.” I explained how we wanted ‘LeRoy’ to appear, with no space and a capital R.
“And the girl’s name?”
I, Lily, replied, “Cassandra Nicole Spencer”.
“Okay, now here’s where I don’t have the slightest idea what I’m supposed to do,” Mrs. Hollis said. “I need the mother’s current full legal name. Is one of you the mother to Thomas and the other the mother to Cassandra, or… I don’t even know what else.”
I, Rose, leapt on this question before Lily could say something that would upset Mrs. Hollis. “This is the hard part, but we worked it out in advance. We honestly don’t know which of us is the mother to either baby. We each have our own ovary but share a single womb, so there’s no possible way to know. Therefore, we want to both be listed as the mother for both children. We’ve been assured that there’ll be no problem doing that.”
“I don’t think I’m allowed to do that,” she admitted.
I, Lily, replied, “We understand why you’d say that, but hear us out. We knew this was likely going to be an issue, so we went up the chain of command ahead of time. Mrs. Whittaker thought the same thing, so we talked to the County Clerk, and he talked to the Bureau of Vital Statistics at the state, and we got everyone on board with it. They all said there’s no reason why two names can’t be entered for the mother; there was just never a reason to do it before now. They’re all expecting our babies’ birth certificates to have both of us as the mother.”
“I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it,” said Mrs. Hollis. “So what exactly do I put in the mother’s current name box?”
I, Rose, said, “Let me see the form.” She handed me the tablet and showed me the name box. “Put ‘Lily Grace Spencer and Rose Hannah Spencer’.” She asked whether that would all fit. “I don’t know; try it and see,” I replied. She did, and it did. The tablet automatically reduced the font so it wouldn’t be truncated.
“Mother’s legal name prior to first marriage?” she asked.
“Lily Grace Barrett and Rose Hannah Barrett,” I replied.
“Wait, so you both married the same man? Or did you marry brothers?” she asked.
I, Lily, replied, “We both married the same man, legally. It required an exemption to the state polygamy law, but we got one.”
Mrs. Hollis remarked, “It sounds like you two know your way around the bureaucracy.”
“We’ve had to, out of necessity,” I, Rose, said. “It also helps that we’re policy analysts for the state government.”
“I guess it goes without saying that the rest of the information they want about the mother would be the same for both of you. Date of birth, birthplace, residential address, and so on,” Mrs. Hollis said rhetorically.
“Unless they want our Social Security numbers or driver’s license numbers, probably so,” I, Lily replied anyway.
After that, the rest of the questions were straightforward and Mrs. Hollis had everything she needed.