Here is part III of my interview with Judith Newman.
MT : How are the boys now? Henry was born healthy and Gus was “scrawny” did I get that right?
JN : Actually, it wasn’t quite like that…Gus was the bigger at birth, but he had problems keeping food down, so he very quickly became the smaller – and has remained the shrimp. They look about as much like twins as Danny Devito and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie of the same name. And at four Gus, unfortunately for him, still has some of the problems associated with pre-maturity: language and motor delays in particular. On the other hand, he can sing shockingly well, and he can read very well too; he just can’t carry on a normal conversation or put on his pants. Of course, Henry is such a dominating person that he hasn’t had to talk or get dressed since birth; Henry does these things for him. Let’s just say that I’m very glad they’ll be in separate classes next year. Henry, the athlete and drama queen, will be taking swimming, soccer and acting classes; Gus, the gentle Boy Soprano (Dad’s an opera singer) will be in a chorus. I feel lucky they are so utterly different –and seem to know it: there’s more love, less competition.
MT: You recount the hilarious tale of buying an apartment upstairs from the one you were living in and the delays in getting it renovated. Did you ever finish that upstairs apartment?
JN: NO! The contractors never came back. And by the way, we have been renovating the downstairs for eight months (supposed to take 6 weeks), with NO KITCHEN, and no end in sight. Of course, the sad thing for me was realizing, what with my domestic inclinations, living without a kitchen was really not that different than living with a kitchen. Take-out is the main reason I stay in NY.
MT: You don’t sugar coat a lot of things in the book, in fact you start out by saying , “I don’t like children very much. Which is how I became the mother of twins.” Have you gotten any bad reviews or angry letters from readers who didn’t like the things you wrote about?
JN: Many, many many. I’ve had people who said they would pray for me, and people who said they had thought about calling Child Protective Services. On the other hand – and this is what makes writing the book worthwhile – I’ve had a number of people write me who said, Well, I’d tried IVF twice and given up…and then I read about you doing it four times…and I thought, Let’s give it another shot’ and now I’m pregnant!” I got perhaps a dozen of those letters. Which made me so, so happy. Not that everyone should do IVF endlessly, but that those who didn’t think they could face it one more time, did – and got lucky.
Part IV to follow.