Someone Else's Twin: the story of an identical twin mistakenly switched at birth

Certain identical twin behaviors are unmistakably genetic.
For instance, just as soon as Matthew and Jonathan learned to walk, we noticed a funky run they do when they are between activities, trying to decide what to tackle next. They put their heads down and their arms to their sides with their hands slightly behind them.
Then they run from one side of the room to the other and back again along the same paths, continuing until they have decided on their next moves. They always criss-cross if they happen to run at the same time.
They never run together.
It's clearly a subconscious thing. Their minds are elsewhere while they run and they seem unaware that they are doing anything at all. Just for fun, we'll join them once in a while. They'll stop, give us puzzled looks and then put their heads down and go at it again.
With their identical DNA, monozygotic twins have long been subjects of study in the debate of nature verses nurture. It's hard not to wonder about nature's influence when, as parents, we see our twins cock their heads the same way or sleep in the same positions or present the same expressions when they taste food they don't like.
That's why I find the subject of Nancy Segal's latest book so intriguing.
I ordered her book, Someone Else's Twin, moments ago after reading this review from The Wall Street Journal.
Segal is a twin herself and an academic psychologist who specializes in twins. In Someone Else's Twin, she relates the story of  identical twins from the Canary Islands who found each other at 28 years old after one was mistakenly switched with another in the hospital at birth.
Like Matthew and Jonathan, the girls each had her own sac and placenta. The mother never suspected the girls had been switched because she assumed her babies were fraternal. They united only because a clerk at store they both frequented insisted they looked exactly alike and that the should meet.
According to the review, Segal manages an engaging narrative while also drawing sound conclusions about the women and commonalities between them that extend beyond the physical. ("The two of them realized that they push their food away when eating with a fork or spoon and fold their lips over their teeth when they get anxious.")
Other books have been written about twins separated at birth, but with Segal's expertise, Someone Else's Twin is likely to be the best among them.
It should arrive in a few days.
I should be immersed in it soon after.
I'll let you know.

First day of pre-kindergarten

Matthew (in yellow) and Jonathan couldn't wait to get inside their new classroom on Thursday.
It's hard to believe that next year they'll be heading into kindergarten.
And, no, Matthew is not taller than Jonathan.
Matthew is slightly elevated, though I'm sure he'll try to use these photos as proof during one of their "I'm taller than you are" arguments.

Raising the curtain on dramatic play



The goofy guys! Jonthan on left; Matthew on right

 I was walking past Matthew and Jonathan's bedroom the other day when I heard this:
"Get out of my room, you two! I said, get out now!"
"But we just want to play."
"Get out!"
I paused just outside the doorway and peeked in.
They were playing with the dollhouse their older sister had given them. Apparently, identical train engines Bill and Ben were invading their sister's bedroom. Their sister, a soft lavender engine, named Rosie, was livid. The engines whimpered away, muttering "Bossy boiler."
Hmmm.
That plot sounded familiar.
Matthew and Jonathan have been acting out many familiar scenarios lately and they've spent even more time coming up with new ones. Sometimes they are at a huge splash park and each room is a different pool or slide or ride.
Other times, they are airplanes and they are flying to visit various relatives with a particular interest in the relatives' dogs.
Quite often, superheros, game show hosts and the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote make appearances in our household as well.
Dramatic play rules these days and it's a mixed blessing.
It is fantastic to watch them play. Their games are seamless, each twin's actions and dialogue perfectly following the other's. They'll stick with one imaginative scenario for an hour or more and I can go happily about my housework or writing.
These guys click.
They really click.
But when it falls apart, the explosion is equally intense.
It is advisable to take shelter.
I have learned that trains can fly.
I have learned that there is a price to pay for my free time.
I have learned that disciplining identical twins and mediating their arguments is a huge time and energy drain, stealing back all those gains I might have made earlier in the day. Their level of engagement with each other is so intense that they have a long way to fall when they let each other go.
The cool thing, though, is that they always recover fully.
Their older brother and sister played together well, too, at their ages. Riley would pull out his dinosaurs and Kiersten would bring her Polly Pockets into the living room. Together, they would build huge cities that would remain sprawled across on the floor for days on end, providing hours worth of entertainment.
But as they have grown, their differences have grown too.
Riley and Kiersten are still close at ages 10 and 11.
Just not in the same way.
But this thing with Jonathan and Matthew is a little bit different.
Riley and Kiersten had to talk about what they were going to do. They had to plan, bargain, negotiate, agree. They did it well, but the need was still there. They negotiated endings too, each telling the other a few minutes beforehand that he or she was going to quit (at mom's insistence after many an argument).
Not so for Jonathan and Matthew.
When they start an imaginative game, it just happens and it flows naturally, smoothly, without guiding words. When they decide to move on to something else, it just happens too. They either play another game without missing a beat or each wanders off on his own.
Watching Matthew and Jonathan play together can be exhausting and exhilarating at the same time, particularly with their high energy levels. The anticipation of the potential explosion -- often caused by one claiming the other's coveted train engine -- can be stressful, very stressful, enough to undo all the work I've done to bring my blood pressure down.
But like anything else that is exciting, dangerous and beautiful all at the same time, it is worth it.
It is so worth it.

Fraternal verses identical: the attention factor

It's rare, but it happens.
Most often, parents of fraternal twins find the fact that Matthew and Jonathan are identical interesting, but it ends there. Raising identical twins has its unique challenges, but parents of any category of twins have so much in common that further discussion of their zygosity needn't come up.
But every now and then, I'll get that immediate snub from a fraternal-twin parent, that kind of look that I'd expect to see on a middle school playground from the girl who is envious of the other girl for reasons that are all in her own head.
I know what that look means because I am a curious person. I've explored it before. I've pushed past the snub and pursued conversations. It means that this parent is a little envious because she believes my twins get more attention than hers.
The hard part is that she is probably right.
The harder part is that it shouldn't matter.
The people we meet don't mean to upset anybody and it certainly doesn't mean that fraternal twins are any less valued.
It's just that identical twins are more obvious.
They attract attention.
But, as we were often taught during sensitivity training in my former career as a journalist, intention is pretty much meaningless. Perception is what counts. Reporter Dionne Searcey of The Wall Street Journal does a wonderful job of capturing that perception and the dynamic behind it at the annual Twins Days festival in Twinsburg, Ohio, last weekend.
Click this link for her story: At a Convention Full of Them, It's Apparent Not All Twins are Created Equal.

Who was born first?

Matthew and Jonathan are competitive.
Very competitive.
For that reason, there is one question I dread more than any other.
One question that has not yet occurred to them.
One question that will, inevitably, come up.
Who was born first?
I have an answer, a clever one.
"It doesn't matter who was born first," I will say, "because you were conceived at precisely the same moment."
No doubt about it.
Jonathan and Matthew started life as one and then became two simultaneously.
They have existed for precisely the same amount of time.
So why should it matter who hung out in my uterus for an extra 20 minutes or so, doing the breath stroke, a little freestyle and maybe even the butterfly?
One got a little more experience with the outside world while the other experienced freedom in the womb, something his twin will never know.
Even Steven.
Logical, right?
I can see their reactions now.
Silence.
For a moment.
A placid look, one of contemplation.
The one time when they truly look identical.
Then their faces will scrunch up and the nature of that scrunch will change quickly, from cute to annoyed to angry, expressions greatly affected by the amount of padding in each twins' cheeks, the slightly narrower bone structure of one twin's face and the different ways in which they have trained their facial muscles over the years.
It will be one of those times when I truly wonder whether the DNA tests were right, whether they really are identical.
And when I see those expressions, I can think of only one way to react.
The only reasonable solution.
My salvation.
"Go ask dad," I'll say.
"Just go ask dad."

Battle of the heights: an unwinnable game

We had an all-out brawl in our household the other day.
Fists were flying.
Legs were kicking.
Bodies were thrown to the floor.
It started when I noticed that Matthew and Jonathan had grown.
I stood them up against a kitchen wall and marked their heights with a pen.
My mistake?
"Look," I said, pointing to the lines on the wall. "You are exactly the same height again."
The reaction was simultaneous.
"I'm taller," they announced.
"No, I'm taller," they growled together.
"I am the winner," they screamed into each other's faces with fists balled at their sides.
I tried to speak.
I tried to intervene.
But, within seconds, the verbal battle had turned physical -- intensely physical.
And each time I tried to break it up, I simply got pummelled by both.
In my panic, in my frustration, in my anger, I screamed:
"Stop! Now! You are identical twins! You were born the same height. You will always, forever and ever, be the same height!"
First, they stared at me -- stopped and stared.
Then those wide eyes, both sets of them, filled with tears.
Finally, the tears fell and sobs shook their very tall bodies.
I got down on my knees and pulled them both close, hugging one with each arm.
I explained to them, or tried to, that their shared height, foot size and hand size were among the things that made them extra special.
They weren't buying it.
So I took another tact.
"You are both huge," I said. "When somebody tries to pick on a little kid and the two of you stand in front of him, cross your arms over your chest (I stood and demonstrated.) and tell him to leave that kid alone, what do you think he's going to do."
"Go away," Jonathan yelled.
"Say, 'sorry'," said Matthew.
"Together, you're pretty scary," I assured them.
With that, our talk disintegrated -- into a game of monsters.
Their shared-height crisis was, at least for the moment, forgotten.

Nurturing the identical twin dynamic despite the eye rolls

Matthew and Jonathan no longer attend preschool.
The decision to pull them was difficult, but the people who matter were supportive.
Fortunately, I'm learning to ignore the people who do not matter.
You know, the ones who roll their eyes when you try to explain. The ones who exchange glances with another person in the room, thinking you don't see. The people who come right out and say you expect too much or you coddle your children too much or maybe you ought to just discipline them more harshly.
These are often the people who refuse to acknowledge the identical-twin dynamic or believe they understand it better than we do. The dynamic is real and its impact is deep. To deny that, is to deny a huge part of Matthew and Jonathan's identities.
In this case, the twin relationship was only part of the problem.
But it was, I believe, the part that pushed Jonathan over the psychological edge.
Their former preschool is a day care that began offering half-day preschool a few years ago, fullfilling a desperate need in this area. The boys learned a lot and made great friends. The teachers are loving, creative and caring.
But playtime there is like day-care playtime. It is unstructured. There are no centers that children are rotated among. If there is a theme for the week, the more outgoing children get the goods and the others have to wait for a teacher to notice that they haven't had a turn.
Jonathan already has to share most everything with his twin brother at home. He already has to fight for a turn when we're not in the room or not paying attention. And it's not just the material stuff. He has to share looks, height and even foot size with Matthew.
It seems that he'd simply had enough.
At first, preschool was new and that was a great distraction. Each day, he and Matthew would debate the letter of the week, recite words that started with the letter and badger the teachers until they got the appropriate letter up there on that wall.
When that excitement wore off, new friends he made were his motivation and Matthew's too. Every day was a "Jack" day or an "Adam" day or a "Jared" day. They couldn't wait to get there and see them, and they would be furious if a particular child was absent.
But the novelty finally wore off.
Matthew started acting out when it was time to leave for school.
We noticed that.
What we didn't notice was Jonathan's behavior.
He'd been digging his heels in at bedtime, refusing to go upstairs and he was becoming more aggressive after school, but we never associated that with school.
Until he lost it in the classroom.
One day, he ripped covers off three books when a boy wouldn't share.
Another day, he flipped over a chair in response to a similar incident.
The director informed me that such aggressive behaviors had been escalating for the previous two weeks, just before problems had started at home. He'd also been refusing to follow directions, like coming to sit in circle time. She offered to work with him at school, but I could see the pain in his eyes. I could see that this was more than just a phase.
He was angry and frustrated.
He needed out.
So we pulled them both.
It took about one week, but suddenly I noticed that an entire day had gone by with none of those particular behaviors. Then another day. Then three and four and five days. It's been almost three weeks now since they left school and I can honestly say that my happy boys are back.
They will return to preschool in the fall, but they will go elsewhere.
Not because the one they attended was inadequate, but because they are identical twins who need more. They need the kind of social instruction that a facility dedicated only to preschool provides.
They still have play dates with their friends and they spend four hours a week with a sitter across the road who has four other children in her care (because -- let's face it -- I have to get something done). Another set of twins will join them for the summer.
But, for now, they are spending more time with me and I am focusing harder on those social skills that will make their experience better the next time around. It's not easy. They are not easy (Have I ever mentioned how active, strong, curious, independent and stubborn they are?).
But already, it's worth it.
I am getting to know each of them better as individuals and both of them better as identical twins.
Despite what others might think, that shared part of them requires special attention.
And, sometimes, special action.