If the following list makes you uncomfortable, good. For the last 115 days my husband and I have been REGULARLY accosted with this and it needs to stop. 1. SIDS- Please, seriously, we are begging you... STOP ASKING US ABOUT IT. If you have questions, please, please, please do your own research. We have been bombarded with this as our potential reality for the next year. Yes. Despite everything you think or hope, this is real. Please stop twisting that knife in deeper because you can't be bothered to open GOOGLE. 2. "They look like normal babies!" - yeah, well, you look like the piss-boy. This is not a complement. This is a reminder that our babies came out looking wrong. 24 week gestation babies are not exciting. It's fucking scary. 3. "You should put up pics on Facebook"- please see #2. We love our daughters. We appreciate your enthusiasm and anticipation to see/meet them. HOWEVER, we are not comfortable in broadcasting our own personal hell all over the internet. Please take into consideration how horrible it is to constantly see our children in the state they are in. The pictures taken are incredibly personal. Please just drop it. 4. "When are the coming home?/ Are they being sent home with monitors?" -I assure you, if we have a date it will be shouted from the roof tops. Since you haven't heard joyous yelling, we don't know. We don't have a clue. And since we have no reference for when they are coming home, we have no idea what they will be sent home with. To ask every time we speak just kills us because we can't answer. 5. "Well, they will be home soon enough."- oh? Really? 115 days and counting is totally nothing... There is no such thing as 'soon' anymore. This isn't like waiting for your amazon delivery. 6. "Why were they so early?/ What did you do?" - After injecting myself with a cocktail of household cleaners, I let my husband punch me in the gut. Contrary to popular belief, the parents aren't always at fault for premature babies. I did nothing, and yet my cervix didn't work. Thank you. I feel horrible. I tried my damnedest to prevent this and it happened anyway and the guilt has me in a chokehold. Thank you. 7. "At least you can sleep while they are away." Yes, lying awake hoping a complete stranger will take care of my daughters, being assaulted by horrifying nightmares, panicking every time the phone rings = sleeping. 8. "Just be positive..." - please stop taking the behavior of 'hope for the best prep for the worst' as negativity. It's called being realistic. Acting like everything is sunshine and rainbows doesn't actually help anything. If I put on pants, that's me being positive. 9. "Could you imagine still being pregnant? / You dodged a bullet with early delivery." I can easily imagine still being pregnant. The thought keeps me up at night sobbing because that didn't happen. I would happily go into week long labor without an epidural if it meant they had stayed in longer. Hell, I would have let a doctor take a leg and a kidney of it would have helped. 10. "Just give it up to God/ God doesn't give you more than you can handle." OK first off, my children need care 24/7 and god doesn't work on Sundays. I choose science. Thanks. And if God gave me this...then yes...I got waaaaaaaaay more than I can handle. Way. More. 11. "My sister's friend's cousin gave birth a month early 10 years ago and her kid is fine"... I am glad everything worked out. Doesn't help. Doesn't bring peace of mind. No we don't want to talk to some stranger. 12. " oh they weigh how much? Surely they will can come home now! What's the hold up?" Weight does not a healthy baby make. There are a ton of problems with preemies. Our girls are "chronic lung babies". Yes they are both great weights now, but their lungs are in shitty shape and part of it is an unavoidable result of the horribly necessary breathing support they have been on. 13. "Just wait, you'll be praying for the quiet once they are home. " No we won't be. Every scream, cry, wail, burble, hiccup, and coo will be cherished more than you can possibly imagine. We will be more thankful for the nights spent awake trying to calm our upset daughters down because we will finally be the ones doing that. 14. "You should come put and..." Yeah..um.. About that. My husband can go out, and probably should do so. For me, it isn't easy. I have a 2 hour window to work with thanks to pumping breast milk. As much as the task annoys me, I will not sacrifice the most valuable nutrition to my children cause you want me to come out. If I hang I need a place to sit uninterrupted to pump for a half hour. I need to be able to store my milk in a cold place. And its really awkward to sit in a room alone while a large group of people are on the other side of a door. Nothing like feeling left out. Sorry if I don't jump right on that. 15. "They just couldn't wait/ They must have been ready." Just...no. All of the no forever. 16. "You don't even look like you had twins!" Again, not the complement you think it is. It's not an accomplishment I am happy about. My body failed and it's really hard to deal with. 17. "It's like they are in daycare!" Show me your day care bill, I'll show you mine. Also traditionally, one takes heir children home from day care, my children have yet to come home. Thanks again for the reminder. 18. "I haven't heard from you.." Honestly, we are sorry, but anything other than babies and doctors kind of doesn't occur to us right now. Hit us up. We will talk, usually. But please don't take it personally when we don't respond immediately, or remember possible plans or to call back. This is like life-tunnel vision. And sorry, but nothing else is nearly as important. 19. "I wish there was something I could do." There is. There are a few things, but its not always easy for us to say. So here is my stab at it. One read this list and understand it. This has been building up for a while and sadly some of this has had to be spelled out despite being explained before. Another thing is home cooked meals. Hospital food and pb&js are my staple. I am too exhausted to handle anything more complicated. Ask how my husband and I are, Don't ask how we are. Meaning don't forget to ask about us. We are falling apart at the seams but aren't going to bring it up to just anyone because... Don't ask if you aren't ready for a shitty answer. We have both been asked and the minute we start to explain and let it out, people suddenly get distracted or start telling us to be positive. If hearing sad things makes you uncomfortable, its ok. We don't think less of you. We don't like sad shit either, but this is what we got at the moment...sooo..yeah... Don't put us all in an uncomfortable spot. There. It's off our chests. We are incredibly grateful for the support from everyone. And understand that everyone has their own way of showing it. Without it, we'd be way more lost than we are. It's amazing to see the love and care our little family has in our time of need. But these things listed are so very hard for us to deal with daily and we just can't keep doing it.