entertainment

And here they are. Cute. Must say I’m surprised to hear they weren’t IVF…..

Interview excerpt after the jump. In it, Jennifer (part of her rumoured $6m paycheque from People included their promise to STOP referring to her as J-Lo, y’hear?) insists that she and Marc did NOT conceive their fraternal twins via IVF as so many people presume. Me included.
The fact it took them so long to have kids, her age….sometimes these things would point to assisted reproduction. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m just a big fan of honesty in these situations so that non-famous people have a realistic idea about conception and how hard it can be sometimes.

This is from Celebrity Baby Blog:

On the time it took to get pregnant:

Jennifer was asked specifically to “set the record straight about how challenging it was to conceive.”

J:
It was natural. We didn’t do in vitro, which I know was reported.
Everyone assumed that because we had twins. I wanted to have a baby,
but I’ve always said exactly what I said all those years they asked us
since we’ve been married: “Well, when are you guys gonna have some
kids?” “When it happens naturally, I guess!” And that’s when it
happened. It was a surprise to us.

You start getting older, you think to yourself, maybe [having
kids] isn’t meant for me. I knew there was nothing wrong with me. I
knew that I could. Deep down, I really wanted it badly.

M: It never even entered my mind that it would not happen.

J: Really?! Even after one year, two years, three years … You know, you start thinking to yourself, “Well, maybe…”

M: No! When you think about it, you only have a
small amount of time each month when you can. So you try, and you have
twelve shots a year.

On finding out that she was, in fact, expecting:

J: I was in Portugal, performing and dancing my ass off…

M: We were on the phone, and I said, “Baby, I have a sense!”

J: I said, “You think I am?” because it had
been so long. When I came back, I took a test. I couldn’t believe it! I
was like, “Can we get another test, please?”

I think I really got to a point where I was like, “This is not
going to happen for me.” [But the third test I took,] it was right
there in my face. At that point I looked and I said, “Marc, could this
be me?” I had tears in my eyes.

On finding out they were expecting two bundles of joy:

J: I was in denial until I went to
the doctor [for a sonogram several weeks later] and she said, “Oh my
God! There’s one baby, see the heart beating? And there’s the other
one!” Marc started crying again, and I started giggling.

M: One person said, “Everything with you is a production!”

J: I knew twins ran in my family, and we always
joked, “Who do you think is going to have the twins?” So, of course,
all my sisters were like, “It’s you, it’s you!”

M: My grandfather was a twin, too.

On her pregnancy experience:

J: No [morning sickness].

M: No cravings.

J: I had one of the best pregnancies ever. And,
I have to say, one of the best husbands, who helped me through every
emotional moment. Because you’re very hormonal! Even though I feel I
behaved pretty well through the whole thing.

M: Read my book! Just kidding. It was splendid.

J: I told Marc, I don’t know if this will happen again. I want us to share this together. And we went on tour until I was 6½ months.

Why they didn’t make an announcement until that point:

J: We
didn’t confirm it because I didn’t want people coming to our show and
having everything be about that. I just didn’t want that to be a focus.

M: My philosophy was, when you release a statement, who are you talking to? Our families know. Our friends…

J: People were like, “You’re keeping a secret!” We’re like, “Everybody knows. We just haven’t confirmed it in the press.”

On the birth:

M: I kept a video diary, and we filmed everything.

J: No complications. [The c-section] went very
fast. There’s this intense fear and intense anticipation. [Then] they
showed us the babies. We look to the right, and there’s Emme, screaming
with her arms up. They’re holding her around her chest.

M: One minute later…

J: There’s Max! To me, they both looked like
Marc. I think that’s the first thing I said, “She looks like you! He
looks like you too!” The doctor said, “Did Jennifer get a gene in here
or what?”

M: And from that moment, the love affair started.

J: All I could say was, “Thank you, God.” I kept saying it over and over and over.

On no longer being pregnant:

J:
I miss feeling them inside of me. It’s funny — when their little
umbilical cords fell off, I cried. That was the last attachment we had
where it was just us.

On motherhood:

J:
You hear people say this all the time, but it’s not until you
experience it yourself that you can put it into your own words. Your
heart is connected to them. It feels like there’s a string from my
chest to theirs.

Absolutely, [this is the happiest time of my life right now].
Having children is the biggest thing that can happen, I think, to a
woman. You win an Oscar, get nominated for a Golden Globe — you know,
whatever things you think are big — I can’t even think of anything
that can match the actual miracle of giving birth and having your own
child. It’s beyond anything you could ever imagine.

On the change parenthood has brought:

J: I
knew I’d be protective. I knew I’d love them intensely and passionately
enough to stay up for the first three days after giving birth, because
I just wanted to keep staring at them.

I’ve been very career-oriented my whole life and very focused
on my own world and my own life, and all of a sudden the focus just
shifts. It’s like, “Whoosh!” I want to do everything for them.

I think I’ve had a pretty great life so far, but there are
moments of magic in your life. And I think this is always going to be
remembered by me as the most magical time. With all the things that
Marc and I have done and accomplished in our lives, this is the biggest
thing that will ever be.

On her decision not to nurse the twins:

J: My mom didn’t breastfeed, and I think that was the thing for me. You read and figure out what’s the best thing for them.

On bottle and diaper duty:

The couple have two round-the-clock baby nurses, but they say they like to do the grunt work themselves.

M: It’ll be 3 in the morning, and we’ll be like, ‘Next feeding in 30 minutes! Okay, cool!’

J: I [get up]. Marc does too.

M: I don’t go to sleep!

J: We don’t go to sleep until 6 a.m. now. We’re still in the first month, of course!

He’s the best [at diaper duty]. He puts the help that we have to
shame. [He tells me what to do.] I have no ego about learning, I never
have.

M: [We’re having trouble with] the quick draw
when Max needs to pee! I was like, when a little boy gets a little
shiver, he might do a little squirt action. So you keep the Pamper on
until you get the other one under, then you do the little flap.

J: I haven’t mastered that one yet.

M: He [only squirted] her!

On each other as parents:

M: She’s a phenomenal mom.

J: He’s such a natural with the babies.

On the twins’ personalities and physical features:

J: Max was very tranquil right from the start. Emme just wouldn’t sleep after being born.

Emme is a total girl. You take off her clothes and she covers
up, and her hands are very feminine. And she has more hair than him.
And he is like a tank, with these little arms…

On if they’ll be baptized:

J: Yes — for sure.

On her weight gain and nesting:

J: I
gained a good amount of weight, which I was focused on because twins
can sometimes have low birth weight. I gained 45-50 lbs, a lot for my
frame, but for twins it’s right on. [After they’re born,] you lose so
much. It’s amazing how your stomach just goes, “Boop,” and it’s this
jiggly mass. It’s funny!

Right now, [I don’t care about getting my old shape back]. I
even play with my little leftover belly, you know? I had to lie in bed
towards the end, every day for four hours a day to put my feet up. But
I was very active through the pregnancy.

M: An hour before we go to the hospital, she’s
decorating the bedroom downstairs, making sure the carpet is in,
rearranging the furniture. I said, “Honey, you’re going to give birth in about two hours.” And she’s like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that chair in the corner…” I said, “Baby, we have to go!”

J: That’s my way. Even when I was doing that, I
was thinking, “What could I do this year to give me a great feeling of
accomplishment?” I want my babies to be proud of me. “Maybe I’ll do a
triathlon.”

M: An underachiever over here. “Oh, maybe I’ll do a triathlon because I’ve never done that before!”

J: I want the babies to be proud of their mom. Probably in October. September, October.

On adoption possibilities:

J: You
know, I have three stepchildren too. We were really enjoying our lives,
and we have Marc’s kids that we get to enjoy. They’re angels. But I
would never rule out adoption.

Private vs. public school:

J:
We haven’t decided yet. We have a few years before they have to be in
school all the time. If we’re traveling a lot, then obviously I’m not
going to want to be away from them. They’ll have to be homeschooled. If
we’re in one place and doing something different and we can be in one
place…

M: We can do both.

J: It’s decisions that we’ll make depending on
our lifestyle so that the family unit is always together. I think that
is the most important thing to me.

On the nursery:

Although they have an expansive (and expensive!) nursery, Marc and Jennifer often take the twins to bed with them instead.

J: Their room is right next to ours.

On gifts:

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes gave Bonpoint outfits. Eva Longoria Parker and Ken Paves gave a pair of Silver Cross prams. Dolce & Gabbana gave custom-made fur wraps.

J: It just made me feel so good that my children were being welcomed into the world.

And as the interview winds down, Marc makes it clear that Max and Emme are all he’s thinking about lately. He tells journalist Peter Castro,

No offense, but I’m dying to get back to the kids.

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Top Comments

Twins are beautiful 17 years ago

Well, I am mum to three month old twins and I both had a natural birth (as in, no C-section, but lotsa epidural!) and breast fed both. Simultaneously! And no, my son and daughter were not conceived via IVF! So there you have it.


lu 17 years ago

A twin pregnancy is considered high risk so a c-section is often the most sensible way to have them. Also breasfeeding twins is nothing like breastfeeding one baby. Unless you've tried it yourself you have no right to judge. As for the IVF thing, I think its only fair to other women if we are honest about our fertility. On that note, older women are more likely to conceive fraternal twins naturally, which Jennifers are, so who knows ?