My Adult Twins May Be Identical, but They Don’t Want to Know for Sure

When my baby bump began growing at an alarming rate, I persuaded myself that pregnant women are always bigger the third time around. It was a stretch — literally. At 11 weeks, my belly looked five months, and my nausea was nonstop. My doctor suggested an ultrasound to clarify my due date. I stuck to the script in my head: Your body’s been here before. It’s just doing what it knows how to do.

“Can you see this?” the technician asked.

I stared at the screen above my burgeoning belly, and various shades of grey bobbed in and out of focus.

“That’s a head,” she said, smiling. I exhaled, reassured there was indeed a human growing in my body.

“Now, do you see that?” She pointed to a second shape-shifting bulge.

“Is that the baby’s bum?” my husband asked.

“No,” she said, taking a beat. “That’s… another head.”

Like a pinball, my eyes darted from the alien image to her blank face, to my husband’s bulging eyes, and back again.

“Twins,” she said, softly touching my arm. “You’re having twins.“

They were born at 34 weeks

Most parents of multiples have lived some version of this story. The shock, the terror, the thrill, the uncertainty. And in my case, the desperation — to control what cannot be controlled.

At 34 weeks and exactly five pounds each, Lucas and Callum arrived healthy, albeit drowsy, and remarkably alike. We believed they were fraternal, thanks to multiple scans that showed two fetuses, each with its own placenta — the telltale sign.

I didn’t question it.

It was not until a recent Google search turned up that one-third of identical twins can separate within a few days of conception, each embryo developing its own placenta, that I was shocked. Not to mention that up to 20% of all twin births are misidentified. That’s when it clicked in a way it hadn’t before.

Everyone confused them

What I saw then was a pair of preemies yet to come into their own. They looked exactly like their two older brothers had at birth, and I trusted their unique characteristics would begin to emerge over time.

Except, they never did. Not really. Sure, there were subtle differences in the shape of their faces and the fullness of their cheeks, but for anyone who didn’t see them daily, it appeared next to impossible to tell them apart. A small birthmark on Lucas’ right arm was a godsend, minimizing the number of times they had to endure the question they loathed: “Which one are you?”

What I couldn’t get over were the similarities that went beyond facial features — the way Lucas seemed like an extension of Callum and vice versa. I marvelled at how they reached for each other, clasping hands while they nursed side by side, how easily they settled if they slept in the same crib, how they answered nature’s call simultaneously every morning — between 8:25 and 8:30. As teenagers, they were an unbeatable Charades team, accurately deciphering clues within seconds. I had no answer when people asked how their personalities differed. I’d mumble they were still finding themselves.

Consistently within an inch and a pound of each other at annual checkups, they were more intertwined than I’d ever imagined they could be.

They refused a DNA test to find out if they are identical

Still, despite all the evidence, I clung to the fact that they were fraternal. There was a simplicity in knowing. Siblings, with two distinct DNAs, who just happened to be born 45 minutes apart. To us, they were simply The Littles, their older brothers, The Bigs.

Now, at 23, they’re no longer so little. Standing 6′ tall, they have differing interests, friend groups, and life pursuits, yet people constantly confuse them. Callum believes they resemble one another more now than they ever did as kids. So when I asked him if he would consider a $119 cheek swab to determine if he was indeed a fraternal twin, he laughed.

“No, I don’t really care,” he said. “It hasn’t crossed my mind at all.”

“Does it really matter?” asked Lucas.

“Yeah, what difference would it make?” Callum added.

“I think wanting to know is more for you than it is for us,” offered Lucas.

Out of the mouth of twin babes. It was more for me. In fact, it was all for me. It seems I’m still trying to put my twosome into a tidy little box. To label, to identify: You are this and not that. As if that would somehow unlock a deeper meaning, a revelation about them we’d somehow missed. The question revealed more about me than any answer could reveal about them.

The truth is, raising twins is hard. It’s also one of the greatest privileges.

With a label or without one.

So I’m taking my cue from my boys, who seem to be living their lives just fine. I won’t push for answers they don’t want. And now, when someone wonders, “Which one are you?” they finally have an easy answer, and it speaks for itself.

Lucas has the mustache.

Angela Yazbek is a first-generation Lebanese-Canadian writer and former CBC-TV journalist based in Toronto. You can find her on Instagram.