My first daughter was only 2 when I learned I was having twins, and so I still remembered clearly how giddy people were when I was pregnant with her. They’d gleefully tell me tales of 30-hour labors, leaky bladders, struggling marriages. Not so with multiples. From the beginning, people reacted badly to the news. It was as if I had the plague and were coughing in their living room. One friend was openly angry. Some wanted to know exactly what to do to avoid this happening to them. Others just wrinkled their noses as if I’d stepped into a dog-deposited mess. “No,” they said. “Really?”

“Yes. Really.”

“Better you than me.” And I would agree. Because even when a good friend e-mailed to remind me that my uterus is not a clown car, I still felt as if I’d won the lottery.

Medically, I was treated differently as well. Multiples are now considered high-risk pregnancies, so I got to spend 20 minutes once a month watching the babies on an ultrasound and listening to their tandem, Cuban-dance-party heartbeats. I learned how to turn up the volume on the fetal monitor when the tech left the room. It was bliss to be alone, just the three of us, until the doctor barged in and stuck a wand between my legs.

“Girls,” he said. “You’re having two girls. Tell your husband he’s allowed to buy an HDTV.”

I had no idea what that meant.

“Are you having any other problems?” he asked.

“The skin of my belly is killing me. Is there anything I can do?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“What?”

“Have one baby at a time.”

I worked until the day before they were born, knowing I wouldn’t be able to get much done for a while. It was almost impossible to move at that point. Squeezing three bodies — enough for a good hand of Go Fish — into a space where there is really only room for one is a bit like stuffing a sofa into a trash bag. I had to rest, dizzy, after half a flight of stairs. When I investigated whether mothers pregnant with multiples might be allowed to park in handicapped zones, I found a spring of Web hatred: “The fat [expletive] should walk!”