Surprise Multiple Birth

Three for the price of one.^note Photograph by Keystone-France, 1946.

"Today, I went to the hospital in labor expecting a baby boy. I ended the day with identical twins, a baffled doctor, and a husband convinced that our sons can clone themselves."

— This story from FMyLife.com

A Sub-Trope of Surprise Pregnancy in which the surprise is not the pregnancy itself, but the number of children involved. This is often used to wring one last twist out of a pregnancy storyline — "Surprise, you're actually giving birth to twins!" Of course, it doesn't have to be twins — any amount that's more than one qualifies for the trope, provided the parents were only expecting one child.

This tends to be played in one of two ways:

• The mother goes into labour expecting to only give birth to one child, only to find herself giving birth to multiple. This one tends to be more Played for Drama.
• The Panicky Expectant Father walks into the maternity ward expecting to find one bundle of joy, only to find multiple. This one tends to be more Played for Laughs and often results in the father fainting.

This was very much Truth in Television until the advent of ultrasound scans, which can tell you in advance if you're going to have more than one baby. While it's now quite rare in real life, it still pops up in fictional works from time to time.

A common cause of Too Many Babies, and potentially One Twin Must Die. Compare Late Pregnancy Realization, where the mother doesn't realise she's pregnant at all until she goes into labour. May overlap with Unto Us a Son and Daughter Are Born depending on the number and genders of the resulting babies.

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Examples:

Advertising

• In this 2015 commercial for the Dutch insurance company Interpolis, a couple who already have a young daughter and a dog are expecting another child, then find out the wife is going to have triplets. While their daughter is amused by the idea, the father is clearly in shock over this reveal, mainly because their home is too small for 3 extra children and will need a lot of renovation.

Comic Books

• In Fables Snow gives birth to an entire litter, seeing as the father is The Big Bad Wolf. She's quite distressed to have it happen six times in quick succession after a 42-hour labor. It's an even bigger surprise since they actually had seven children. The youngest child, later named Ghost, is an invisible wind spirit known as a zephyr.
• A variant in Transformers (2019), where as part of drastic energy-saving steps taken after the devastating War of the Threefold Spark, new forgings (the Transformer equivalent on births) are dramatically reduced to the point a new forging is treated as a major celebration. There's a big ceremony when Bumblebee is forged, but unexpectedly Cliffjumper steps out of the Pyramid (the forging facility) some time after, long after everyone has left. Autobot leader Sentinel Prime expresses surprise and annoyance at Cliffjumper's emergence.

Fan Works

• Date A Re:Live: At the end of the series, Shido, who was married to Tohka, thought she was just having one child. However, it turned out she was having two children.
• Extended Stay: Mistress and Warden have no idea what they're having or even how many they're having. Warden, for the most part, is convinced that they're only expecting one baby. It isn't until Mistress gives birth on their wedding day in Chapter 13 that they find out they were expecting twins the whole time.
• Eyes on Me: In Happily Ever After, Garnet is set to adopt a baby from a fourteen-year-old transmasculine person called Malachite. Up until Malachite gives birth in Chapter 6, pretty much everyone (including Malachite's grandfather Van) is convinced that they're only expecting one baby. When Malachite finally does goes in labor, however, Van is shocked to find that they've actually had twins. Everyone else is taken aback when Garnet informs them of the news.
• In Same Difference, the fact that Tang Shen gives birth to quadruplet sons comes as a total shock to the Hamato Family.
• The Discworld tale Strandpiel, by A.A. Pessimal, sees Witch Olga Romanoff getting pregnant. In a moment of exasperation, a fellow Witch wishes a multiple birth on her so she can see what it feels like, in that democratic state where all women are equal regardless of social status. ^note Olga is from a noble family. Several months later, she has twins.

Film — Animated

• Downplayed in 101 Dalmatians. Dogs usually have large litters, so Perdita giving birth to multiple puppies isn't a surprise to her owners. Perdita giving birth to fifteen puppies, however, is a surprise to everyone present.
• In Babar: King Of The Elephants, Babar knew that he and Celeste are expecting a baby, but to his surprise and happiness, became the proud father of triplets: Pom, Flora, and Alexander.
• In Encanto, Pedro is shown playing this up by pretending to faint dramatically when Alma reveals she's having triplets.
• Every Dog's Guide to the Playground ends with a very pregnant Honey going into labor, causing her husband Bernard to faint. The family dog, Wally, then packs everyone into a child's wagon and wheels them to a hospital. There, a waiting Bernard is surprised when he receives his wailing children, all 32 of them, fresh from the delivery room.
• In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf - Moon Castle: The Space Adventure, Wolnie spends most of the film pregnant. Near the end, when she gives birth, Wolffy helps her deliver the baby and then notices there are more than one, counting to four on his hand and screaming "How is this possible?!".

Film — Live-Action

• In Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Liz discovers she's pregnant by Hellboy. In the end, Hellboy says they should move to the countryside which will be "great for the baby", only for Liz to state "babies" and hold up two fingers, revealing she's expecting twins.
• In Me, Myself & Irene, Charlie and his wife Layla are at the hospital, where, fresh out of being confronted with proof that Layla had an affair with a black man, they are shocked when Layla starts contracting again, delivering not one more child of her affair, but two, ending up with triplets. Doesn't stop Charlie from loving her and the triplets though.
• The titular miracle in The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944) involves Betty Hutton's character giving birth to sextuplets.
• In Noah (2014), the formerly-barren Ila becomes pregnant with her and Shem's first child after being cured magically of the wounds causing her infertility. After the birth of their first child, Ila begins to scream and her contractions start up once again, leading Shem and his equally surprised mother to realize that she is delivering twins.
• Revenge of the Sith provides an example where the audience knows twins are expected, as it's a prequel, but the characters don't. Padmé is pregnant with Luke and Leia but no one, including her, knows she's carrying twins, so she and Anakin refer to "the baby" throughout the film. The protagonists don't find out she's having twins until she's about to give birth and a medical droid informs them of this fact. Anakin, who at this point has become Darth Vader, never finds out Padmé was pregnant with twins, thus explaining why he was surprised to learn Luke had a twin sister in Return of the Jedi. Justified because Anakin and Padmé's forbidden relationship meant that they had to keep the pregnancy a secret, preventing her from getting any scans that would alert her that she was having two.

Literature

• In the kids' book The Big Surprise, the surprise is that the protagonist's mother has given birth to twins instead of one baby like the family was expecting.
• In A Building on Sand by Arkady Averchenko, a young married couple are happily in love and expecting their first baby... right until the wife gives birth to a set of triplets. In the last paragraph, the husband is cursing his wife, the children, and the financial ruin he is sure he's now facing.
• At the start of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Roger Button asks Doctor Keene if his wife’s had triplets upon seeing Keene’s bad mood after the delivery. The truth is an even bigger shock.
• In Dune Messiah, Paul Atreides foresees that Chani would be giving birth to a daughter. But towards the end of the story, Chani has given birth to twins. Paul is surprised by this but he realizes that the reason he foresees only having a daughter is because his son would inherit his prescient abilities.
• In Little Women, after Meg gives birth to her twins, they surprise Laurie when he arrives by making him close his eyes and then put two babies in his arms. The trope is more understandable in this case given that this is 1868 and sonograms don't exist yet.
• The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey: Reynie reads letters that had been written by Mr. Benedict's parents before his birth, in which they make references to their "baby" in the singular. The readers already know that Mr. Benedict has a twin brother, Mr. Curtain.
• The Revenge of the Sith example is justified in the Star Wars Legends novelization by Matt Stover. Padme tells her medical droid to keep her baby's sex a surprise, and the robot evidently was Literal-Minded about it.
• In The Shepherd's Crown, the young witch Tiffany helps deliver a woman's babies: two boys, which thrills the family, and an unexpected girl, which does not. Seeing the beginnings of The Un-Favourite, Tiffany plans regular visits to ensure the daughter won't be neglected.
• Split Heirs opens with the Queen of Hydrangea giving birth to triplets. This is a problem, because her husband believes that multiple births implies multiple fathers, and the penalty for infidelity is rather gruesome. She tries to conceal this by secretly sending one boy and the girl into fosterage, but the maid sent to do this accidentally takes both boys, leaving the queen to raise her daughter as a son. It gets more complicated from there.
• The Vazula Chronicles: Laura spends most of A Kingdom Threatened heavily pregnant. The doctor says she'll have only one child, but late in the book she has twins, Jacqueline and Germain. Jacqueline turns out to have concealment magic, which is why the doctor couldn't detect her.
• Rather unusually compared to most works, Warrior Cats occasionally features an inversion of the trope: Since the characters are cats, they typically expect to give birth to several kits at once, so it can be a surprise when there's just one. One example of this is in Bluestar's Prophecy; multiple characters express their surprise that Snowfur only has one kit; even the medicine cat thought there was more than one at first when the labor started.
• This trope provides major plot in Whispers, by Dean Koontz. Katherine's cover story for her pregnancy, which is the result of rape by her father, has her supposedly adopting the child of a (fictitious) college classmate who allegedly Died In Childbirth. Huge problem when Katherine stated before leaving town to give birth that she'd be bringing back one baby and she delivered twins.

Live-Action TV

• The Brittas Empire: A plot point in Series 2 revolves around Carole being pregnant. "New Generations" has her give birth and to everyone's surprise, it turns out to be twins. Justified in that Carole hadn't had any further check-ups with her doctor since the initial announcement, with the hope that the pregnancy would terminate naturally.
• Happens on occasion on Call the Midwife, justified in that the show is set in 1950s/60s-era London, and the most advanced piece of equipment the midwives have for knowing what's going on inside the womb is a pinard, used to detect a heartbeat. In one of her early episodes, Ms. Higgins, Dr. Turner's acerbic new secretary, congratulates an expectant twin mother and comments that it's lucky she knows she's expecting twins, as doctors generally fail to diagnose it.
• The Sid Caesar sketch "Expectant Father" begins with a father talking about how he believes his soon-to-be-born son's life will go when he is interrupted by a nurse telling him he has a son...and a daughter...and another son...and another daughter...and a fifth kid whose gender is cut off by the sketch ending.
• The Cosby Show:
  • Discussed in one episode where Cliff is at work and tells his assistant about one of their regulars who had been in the delivery room eight times before.
    Dr. Eckerd: She has eight children?
    Cliff: Nine. The last time she had twins.
  • When Sondra gets pregnant, the extended family and audience are led to believe she's only carrying one. It isn't until the birth episode that their doctor drops this line on the grandparents (and audience): "I'm happy to announce that you are the grandparents of a healthy boy! Beat And a girl!"
  • It happens to Cliff himself when he gets pregnant in "The Day the Spores Landed" and initially gives birth to an enormous hoagie. A few seconds later, he feels more labor pains and follows up by delivering a bottle of soda.
• In the finale of Friends, Chandler and Monica discover that Erica, the woman whose child they are set to adopt, has actually had twins. Erica notes that twins run in her family. The doctor was aware it was twins the whole time, but Erica isn't the brightest spark and thought her OBGYN talking about "both heartbeats" meant hers and the baby's.
• Good Luck Charlie: The season when Amy Duncan is pregnant with Toby, Bob wants to know the baby's gender and sends Gabe to the clinic to get the disc of her ultrasound. They are horrified to see the ultrasound containing triplets. Averted as it turns out Gabe took the wrong disc with an earlier scene showing the nurse talking to the doctor that the missing disc is for another pregnant mother named Angela Duncan.
• In the I Love Lucy where Lucy gives birth to Little Ricky, Ricky and Fred chat with a man who is expecting his seventh child, with all six of the previous ones being girls. After his wife gives birth and the nurse tells him, "We have a surprise for you this time," he's ecstatic about finally having a boy, only to approach the window and learn his wife gave birth to triplets! All girls.
  Fred: Hey, at least you can start your own girl's softball team!
• In Little House on the Prairie, Nellie gives birth to twins after she and her husband Percy spent most of the episode thinking they were only expecting one. In addition, they'd decided on raising the baby as Jewish if it were a boy and as a Christian if it were a girl; and both sets of grandparents were eager to see what religion the baby would be raised as. Justified, as this takes place well before the advent of sonograms.
• During the second season of The Mothers In Law, there was a pregnancy storyline where the titular mothers would bicker over whether the baby would be a boy or girl depending on the sex of their child. Naturally, they had one of each to keep the family peace.
• In WandaVision Wanda has just given birth and Vision leans in for a congratulatory kiss, only for Wanda to start screaming as contractions start up again for the second baby.
• In Welcome Back, Kotter, Season 3, episodes 2-3, Mrs. Kotter gives birth to surprise twins. (Alan Oppenheimer plays Dr. Mel Melmann, who had been Kotter's doctor ever since delivering him.)

Theatre

• In the third act of Abie's Irish Rose, Solomon and Patrick, though still angry at each other, are eager to see Abie and Rose Mary's new baby. Solomon wants it to be a boy like his son Abie, and Patrick is eager for it to be a girl like his daughter Rose Mary. It conveniently turns out to be both, so the feud can easily be settled.
• The premise of Blood Brothers is that Mrs. Johnstone is pregnant and can barely afford to take care of one more child, so when she finds out she's having twins, she gives one to her wealthy, childless neighbour.

Video Games

• Life: the Game: When the player character's wife gives birth to quintuplets, the text on the screen reads, "It's a boy. Twins. Triplets. Quadru—wait, what?! Hmm..." indicating that the father is shocked and unsure at having that many.
• Rune Factory 5: This happens after the twins' birth. Ares (or the bachelors if you're playing as Alice) will be surprised to hear the mother use the plural term and notice there are two babies. Funny and heartwarming to note is that the first child wanted and predicted their mother would birth both a boy and a girl.
  Ares: We have TWO?!
• Twins in The Sims 2 are this in normal gameplay, as there is no mechanic for determining if a pregnancy is a twin pregnancy. Note the "normal gameplay", as a cheat exists ("forcetwins") to force a twin pregnancy. The Open For Business expansion pack added a cheesecake that (somehow) increases the chance of twins if eaten by a pregnant Sim, while the Freetime expansion pack adds an aspiration benefit for Family-aspiration Sims that also increases the chance of twins.
• Story of Seasons (2014) has this happen to the player and their spouse. The couple's informed about the pregnancy, but only learn that it's twins during the birth with the husband being shooed away while the second comes out. They're a boy and girl.

Western Animation

• Big Mouth: Parodied. The climax of "Poop Madness" plays out like Andrew is giving birth to the poop he's been holding in all summer, complete with him doing breathing exercises, Nick wrapping the poop in his shirt like a blanket, and Maury and Connie walking onto the scene with an "It's a Shit!" balloon to celebrate. And then Andrew poops again, remarking that they're having twins.
• Gravity Falls: The reason Stanley and Stanford got their names is because their father was not expecting twins and was not very creative, so he just named them both Stan.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "Baby Cakes", Mrs. Cake gives birth to a son (Pound) and a daughter (Pumpkin). While Mr. Cake takes it in stride, his employee Pinkie Pie and her best friends, who have come to meet the babies, are surprised that the Cakes have had twins.
• In one episode of Peppa Pig, Mrs. Rabbit becomes pregnant and the kids spend the episode wondering if the baby is going to be a boy or a girl. At the end of the episode, it's revealed that Mrs. Rabbit had twins, one boy and one girl, instead of the expected one baby.
• Exaggerated and Played for Laughs in The Simpsons episode "Eight Misbehavin". Apu believes Manjula has given birth to one child, only for it to be revealed they have octuplets, much to his shock. It's explained that Manjula secretly took fertility drugs because they were struggling to conceive and that other characters also slipped her fertility drugs in an attempt to help. The rest of the episode focuses on the couple trying to cope with caring for eight babies when they only expected one.
  Manjula: Oh, my sweet husband, say hello to your firstborn child.
  Apu: You shall be the jewel of our lives.
  Dr. Hibbert: Aww. Now say hello to your other seven children! [opens doctor's coat to reveal more babies]
  Apu: My...whaaa?!
• South Park: In "Jakovasaurus", when Joum Joum is finally impregnated, the whole town shows up for the birth of her child. She gives birth to a baby... and then another... and another... suffice it to say she has LOADS of kids.
• In Young Justice, the time-traveling Bart Allen goes up to Iris West and takes a moment to say hi to his future father and aunt Dawn. Iris (who only learned she was pregnant that morning) is shocked to find out they're having twins.
  Bart: Whoops, spoilers.

Real Life

• A famous photo from 1946 shows a father having passed out after seeing his triplets for the first time. According to Snopes article, though, the father is only pretending to Faint in Shock for the sillies.
• This happened to the parents of Jonathan and Drew Scott of the Property Brothers. While ultrasounds were around when their mother was pregnant, they weren't normally done unless the doctor thought there was a problem, and the brothers' heartbeats happened to be in synch during prenatal exams. The doctor delivered Jonathan, headed out toward the waiting room with the "It's a boy" news, and was chased down by the nurse because Drew was on his way out.
• Downplayed in the case of the Arby family in Mali. Doctors originally thought that the mother, Halima Cissé, was carrying seven babies. When the Arby family traveled to Morocco to have the babies, it was discovered that she had actually been carrying nine. The Arby nonuplets went on to break the Guinness World Record for most babies delivered at a single birth to survive.

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