Double times eight: More twins than ever, and even more in Connecticut

Helen and Constance Sharp look so much alike that it's hard to believe they're not identical.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!" the twins, kindergarteners at Lyme Consolidated School, reply in union.

"We're really sure," Constance adds.

They share tricks on how to tell them apart. "My face was always longer," Constance, 6, says. Helen pulls up her sleeve to reveal a pale birthmark on her right arm that she says helps people distinguish her from her sister in the summertime, when she's more apt to wear short sleeves.

The Sharp sisters' best friends, Beatrice and Aggie - also twins, also kindergarteners at Lyme School - join in on the game.

"Helen was always funnier," Aggie says.

"And I was always smilier," Constance says for good measure.

Helen and Constance, and Beatrice and Aggie, are two of eight sets of twins at the elementary school this year. Four of the sets are in kindergarten, though in separate classes.

The high number of twins in one year is an unusual occurrence in any school but is especially pronounced in this small school of 156 students. The twins make up 10 percent of the student population.

The Lyme School is a microcosm of a national trend that shows the number of twins born in the United States over the past 30 years has skyrocketed. A report released in January by the National Center for Health Statistics states that the number of twin births in the country doubled between 1980 and 2009; in 2009, 1 in every 30 babies born in this country was a twin.

Big increase in Connecticut

Connecticut is one of five states that has seen its twin birth rate - the number of twin births per 1,000 total births - increase by more than 100 percent since 1980, according to the NCHS.

There are two main reasons: a rise in the use of fertility drugs and a rise in women who are having children in their 30s and early 40s, the report says.

Dr. Jonathan Levine, chairman of the obstetrics department at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital, says infertility treatments accounted for 70 percent of the increase in the birth of multiples between 1980 and 2004.

The mother's age plays a factor in about one-third of the increase in the birth of multiples, Levine says.

In the school setting, an increase in the number of twins has posed some interesting challenges.

A recent redistricting of elementary schools in the Lyme-Old Lyme school district led to the creation of two kindergarten classes for the first time in recent memory, Principal James Cavalieri says.

The parents of all four sets of twins elected to split up their twins into different classrooms, Cavalieri says. It's not an option they would have had just a year ago.

"I think it gives their kids some independence from one another," he says.

The Sharp twins' mom agrees.

"I was very happy to hear that we were going to have two classes," Liza Sharp says. "So that they can each kind of shine on their own talents and not be compared to their sister."

The first-grade class, however, was too small to break up into two classrooms. That means identical twins Calvin and Caden Monte and fraternal twins Archer and Phoebe Evans are all in Brenda McNamara's first-grade classroom.

Both sets of twins are close, McNamara said; if given the option, the siblings would sit together, eat together, walk in line together.

McNamara splits them up into different work tables so they'll distract each other less and develop some independence from one another. That's especially important because "with both sets of twins, one tends to be the leader and one tends to be the follower," she says.

McNamara, who has been teaching for five years, says this is the first time she's had any twins in her class. Telling Calvin and Caden apart can at times be challenging - "If they were to try to trick me, they probably would get away with it for a while," McNamara admits - but she's learned to quickly make a mental note of what each boy is wearing that day.

Anyway, each twin's distinct personality and classroom behavior sets them apart, she says.

The other students in class enjoy having twins in the class, McNamara says. In fact, one girl, Gretchen Burgess, is Phoebe and Archer's cousin and often dresses identically to Phoebe, just for fun.

But there are also instances in which the students themselves mix up the twins.

"If the twins are having maybe some discussion or little first-grade problem ... they don't know by name which (twin) it was," McNamara says.

'They're the best of friends'

Caring for two babies at once did wear on Liza Sharp, especially when it came time to travel.

As toddlers, Helen and Constance wouldn't stay in their seats, and plane rides were miserable, she says. Sharp remembers a woman on a plane with 6-year-old twins telling her that it would get better. Sharp remembers saying, "Really? You promise me?"

It did. Just back last month from another trip that required a plane ride, Sharp, of Lyme, says the girls were perfectly behaved.

"My girls sit there, they're the best of friends for the most part, they sit there and they're quiet," Sharp says. "They have their own way of playing with each other, which is truly amazing."

Sharp says the twins were an unexpected, but welcome, surprise.

"It provides enormous entertainment," Sharp, herself an only child, says. "With the girls, what I find to be the most amazing is to watch their imagination at work. When they delve into a world of play, the world they create for themselves to play in, is incredible. ... I got all that from reading a book. But they can create an imaginary world by playing with themselves."

Unlike Sharp, Groton resident May Ulrich wasn't a new mother when her twins came along; she already had a 4-year-old daughter.

"We thought that she was an easy baby, until we had twins," Ulrich, a certified lactation counselor who provides labor, delivery and postpartum care at L&M, says. "They comfort each other."

Even as newborns, Bobby and Charlie would squirm in their crib until they were right next to each other, Ulrich says. If one starts crying, the other stops what he's doing to figure out why his brother is upset, she says.

"They're just really fun to be around," Ulrich says. "I still have that new mom thing. ... I'm still in awe. Everything is so interesting and fascinating, the way they do it. The way they help each other, the way they interact with each other."

j.cho@theday.com