My parents adopted 2 schnauzers from the same litter in May - they were twins, though not identical. And they shared a birthday with me. So we blamed them and indirectly my parents for bringing their twin juju too near.
The hubs tried to blame me for having some crazy-distant cousin whose name I don't know, nor have I ever met, who allegedly has triplets, though I cannot verify this with 100% certainty. And we have no idea how this nameless person got them - was it with the assistance of fertility enhancements, or not?
I tried to blame the hubs and his long hyped-up discussion of how "super" his sperm were. They were obviously so super they could make one egg become two. Someone even suggested to us that it's the shape of the mail sperm and a hook on the sperm's tail that creates twins. I can find no research that supports this claim, though. But, boy did I try!
Then the hubs tried to blame the hotel where the twins were conceived - a Robbinsville, North Carolina Microtel with mirrors near the bed. His argument that seeing double leads to conceiving double wasn't sound to me. We were there for bike week, and as friends have lovingly joked, it seems that the motorcycle wasn't the only thing we were riding during our stay. Hardy-har-har. They're only laughing because it's not happening to them. They had mirrors in their rooms, too, and they're not doubly knocked up, so that argument isn't sound either.
I blamed a dragon statue that the hubs stood near for a photo opp during our motorcycle adventure. Dragons are, after all, a symbol of virility. And we'd only just finished riding "the dragon" a few hours earlier - a route on Hwy 129 in Deals Gap, North Carolina that is renowned among riders for its hairpin turns. 318 turns in 11 miles to be exact.
Incidentally, this picture was taken at a Harley Davidson shop in Maryville, Tennessee just near the North Carolina border. We named one of our girls Mary not making the connection at the time. And the other we named Charlotte, one of North Carolina's biggest cities - also without making the connection. We chose these names based on family connections, but the coincidence is rather odd. Also, funny is the fact that we lovingly call the girls "little dragons" when they cry.
And, of course the hubs tried to blame me some more since my jacked-up uterus was responsible for all kinds of weirdness in the past, so why wouldn't this just be another example. He would eyeball me when outsiders would ask us "Which one of you has twins in the family?"
Turns out neither of us do. But even if we did, it wouldn't explain why our twins came to be.
Fraternal twins are the only ones that have a genetic link. There is a higher incidence of fraternal twins coming to mothers whose family has other sets of fraternal twins, as well as mothers over the age of 35, and those who are overweight. These factors can lead to the uterus releasing more than one egg for fertilization.
But our girls weren't fraternal. Though they were not yet born to prove it, we knew they were identical. They had to be. They shared a placenta, which is not possible for fraternal twins to do.
The research that I've done says that there is no medical explanation for the cause of identical twins. We know that the egg spontaneously splits in two, but there's been no cause for this split discovered.
It was only after they were 2 months old that we learned the true origin of our twins.
A phone call from our niece revealed that a gift we'd purchased for her during our trip to New Orleans in April 2012, could be to blame for our twins.
At the time of our trip, we were just recovering from 2 surgeries after previous miscarriage and decided to get away for a bit to celebrate his birthday, which conveniently fell during a scheduled break from my work. We had such a good time while we were there, eating, sight-seeing, even running into a couple from Ohio we befriended while on our honeymoon in Jamaica three years earlier. We also got a little shopping done.
A little too much shopping it would seem........
Myrtle, as in Fertile Myrtle, was the name for a souvenir doll that we had purchased for our niece as a gag gift. We were looking for a fertility broom but couldn't find one anywhere. What we did find was a fertility doll in Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo on Bourbon Street. It was too cute to pass up!
Though neither of us are voodoo believers, we thought there was no harm in purchasing a little extra juju for our loved one who was trying to have a little loved one of her own.
As it turns out, the voodoo explains that the purchaser, not necessarily the possessor, of the doll is the one to benefit from its magic.
Well, we benefitted alright. We benefitted a whole lot.
That doggone voodoo priestess, Marie Laveau!
Marie Laveau is notorious in New Orleans for creating troubles for men encountering scorned women. She's worshipped by many voodoo believers, with baubles left on her grave in St. Louis #1, and she's apparently still working her charm on the living.
Marie (which is French for Mary, ahem.......the weird coincidences continue) and Myrtle have some strange tales to tell, and our new girls will have some interesting stories to hear one day.
But with each level of the "blame game" I'm sure we'll be certain to thank the guilty party, whoever that may be, because they've doubly blessed us with two little dragons that we wouldn't trade for the world.
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