In Australia, it’s common for doctors to offer women birth control after having their babies. We’ve seen a lot of studies showing that being pregnant and having children close together can often — not always, but often! — cause issues for the person giving birth, and that’s something we’d like to avoid.

I’m an obstetrician, and we have an adorable couple in their twenties come through us for their prenatal care. They have a three-year-old, as well, who came once to an appointment and was cute as a button and insanely well-behaved for a toddler. The parents said that everyone in their life was joking that their easy oldest child had lulled them into a false sense of security and their next child was sure to be a tornado who didn’t sleep and committed arson. They laughed about it and said they were prepared for anything, though they both did look a little stunned when the ultrasound showed two healthy little babies swimming around in there. They took it in stride and were very excited for their children’s arrival. 

They came to us at showtime, and they delivered two beautifully healthy baby girls. It was a DREAM birth, no complications whatsoever, a miracle in itself with multiples. The twins needed no interventions besides some UV therapy for a bit of jaundice — a couple of quick bakes in the little fish tank and they were good to go.

On the final day in the unit, we offered the mother the same options we offer everyone for birth control. She was a bit overwhelmed — understandably, her hormones were going haywire and she was exhausted — and asked if maybe she could revisit it with her primary care doctor in a couple of weeks when she’d done some research. That was a pretty normal response. We stressed to her that she was very fertile currently and we wouldn’t recommend any activity until she was on some form of birth control. She said it was the last thing on her mind, laughing, and we all said the same thing: “We’ve heard that before!” 

About ten months later, my coworker comes to grab me and points at the appointment list for the day. I grin and walk into the room to find my patient looking rather sheepish.

Me: “Last thing on your mind’, eh?” 

Patient: “It was for a while! Then, I just kept putting off going to the doctor, the next thing I knew, six months had passed, and I still kept putting it off, and now…”

Me: “Honestly, it happens all the time. Maybe this time we can do some research together beforehand so we’re good to go after birth? I’m not judging you at all; I’m only concerned that your pelvic floor might quit and move to Cancun…”

Patient: “Unnecessary. [Husband] isn’t here today because he’s off getting the snip.”

Me: “Oh, that’ll work! You guys decided four is the magic number for you?”

She grins and hands me an ultrasound from our imaging department.

Patient: “Actually, five might be the magic number. It’s twins again.”

Please, birthing humans, think of your bodies! We love babies, and we love to help you have as many as you want, but your body needs the rest to heal.

I’ve been a housekeeper at various hotels for many years. I don’t have children, but anyone who has ever been a child, met a child, or had to clean up after a child knows that their messes can get pretty destructive. I can instantly tell when a child has been in any hotel room I’ve had to clean — fruit gummies, cracker pieces, snack crumbs, and questionable sticky smears all over the floors and usually every other surface, etc.

One day, I’m at work and I have a lot of rooms to do, and they are pretty bad today. A hockey team has just come through and booked most of the hotel, and the hockey crowd is usually pretty messy. 

I’m in one of the rooms cleaning up the ungodly mess when I see a little boy, maybe eight years old, exit the room across the hall from the room I’m in. He just stands there all bundled up for the winter, presumably waiting for his parents to follow him out of the room. Pretty soon, the room door opens, and out follow his parents along with two younger siblings:  another boy about six years old and a little girl who is around three or four.

They leave with their luggage — which housekeepers always keep an eye on because when waiting for rooms to free up for cleaning, there’s not a moment to lose — so I pop my head out and check the room number they’ve left from. I reference my list of rooms to see if it’s assigned to me or a different housekeeper. It’s my room. 

I groan internally, anticipating the enormous mess I’ll have to deal with from three young children once I get into that room. I finish the room I’m currently working on, close the door, and take a deep breath before letting myself into the next room — the one I know will be trashed by the three young children.

I open the door, bracing myself for a bloodbath of piles of trash, scattered food, sticky messes, and other forms of chaos children on vacation leave in their wake. To my absolute shock, the room is one of the tidiest and cleanest I have ever stepped foot in, in all my years of housekeeping.

There is zero trash anywhere other than a few discarded items in the provided trash bins, surfaces are crystal clean, there are zero floor crumbs, and there is not one gummy candy, fish cracker, or juice box to be found. They even tidied both beds to where they almost looked freshly made. They used only a couple of towels and stacked them neatly next to the bathroom door. (Most families use every single provided towel and washcloth and leave them in a giant sopping wet pile inside the bathtub, which is a nightmare to pick up, because it’s extremely heavy, not to mention kind of gross.)

I’m flabbergasted, to say the least. It takes me record time to thoroughly clean and sanitize the room for the next guest(s), and I’m very grateful to the family for being so conscientious and for the immaculate state they left their room. If I hadn’t seen the family with three young children in tow physically leaving the room with my own eyes, no amount of convincing would have gotten me to believe that there had been anyone in that room other than one single neat-freak adult.

Thank you, random family, for making my otherwise rough day that much easier. You rock.

Back in the mid-1980s, my mom was very, very pregnant with me. It was a week and a half past the due date, and especially with having to chase my toddler older brother around, she was quite ready for me to be born. She was talking to her grandmother, a prim and proper lady, and brought it up.

Mom: “I hope this baby comes soon! [Brother] had already been born by this point.”

Great-Grandmother: “It must be a girl.”

Mom: “…what?”

Great-Grandmother: “It takes longer to make a buttonhole than a string.”

Mom: “What?!”

Great-Grandmother: “You heard me.”

She then deftly changed the subject. I was finally born fifteen days late, and I am indeed a girl.

When I was eight, my family lived overseas due to my dad being in the military. We were on a tiny island near Portugal where you could see the ocean from every direction. When my mom got pregnant with my brother, she absolutely refused to give birth because she didn’t trust the healthcare provided, so she and I traveled back home to the United States so she could give birth. Dad would meet us up there a few months later around the due date.

My brother was an incredibly sensitive baby who would not. Stop. Crying. (We came to find out that he’s autistic.) My mom had some serious postpartum anxiety as a result. When my brother was around five or six months old, we were on our very long flight back home, and due to some mishaps, I had to sit separately from my parents on the other side of the plane. Luckily, I had gotten a portable DVD player to keep me entertained. (This was before smartphones.)

I was told how the flight went once we landed; my mom looked completely pissed.

I could hear my poor brother’s screams for almost the entire flight. There was one particular flight attendant who made it her mission to let my parents know how miserable she was, constantly walking over to ask them to get him to stop crying, asking what his problem was, etc. My mom kept getting more and more irritated, and my dad kept trying to keep her calm.

And then, this flight attendant came back with this gem.

Flight Attendant: “I see you’re military, sir. We happen to have a seat open in first class. Would you like to take it free of charge?”

My mom sat there, flabbergasted, pointedly looking between this moronic woman and her screaming baby. My dad luckily managed to speak before she could.

Dad: “Thank you, but as you can see, I’m with my family right now. But I do have my daughter sitting in [seat number]. She would love to sit up in first class since she’s away from us anyway.”

The attendant made a twisted expression.

Flight Attendant: “I’m sorry, we can’t do that. This offer is for service members only.”

Mom: “Are you stupid? Do you not see that we’re kind of struggling here? And you have the audacity to ask my husband to leave me?! Go the f*** away!”

The flight attendant gave another dirty look before leaving. Apparently, she also switched with the other attendant there because she stopped bothering my parents.

Luckily, my brother cried himself to sleep and stayed asleep for most of the flight.

I just found out that I am going to have another baby boy. I share the news during a family dinner.

Mother-In-Law: “Ah, congratulations! I thought you would get a girl now.”

Me: “Me, too, actually, but it’s fine, and now I don’t have to buy a whole new set of clothes!”

Mother-In-Law: “What?! No! You have to buy new clothes!”

Me: “Why? I still have three boxes full of perfectly good baby clothes.”

Mother-In-Law: “You can’t let your kid wear hand-me-downs!”

My husband jumps to my defense.

Husband: “Why? He won’t even know what he’s wearing, and he’ll just vomit all over it in five minutes, anyway.”

Mother-In-Law: *Scoffing* “He still needs new clothes.”

Husband: “Feel free to buy him new clothes if you want!”

[Mother-In-Law] just ate in silence instead.