All is Revealed

We were both relieved the 12 week ultrasound date had finally arrived. Glenn had spent his sleepless nights researching the 12 week nuchal translucency test and knew precisely what was going to happen. I had researched it, but not nearly as in-depth as he had. The ultrasound appointment was first. I wasn’t feeling great, but I was very ready to see you guys and make sure all was well. I knew I had probably lost weight rather than gained and I worried about your development. Plus, I had read about vanishing twin syndrome and I wasn’t sure what was worse, one baby that had it’s twin disappear, or two babies stuck in the same sack. We went into the ultrasound room and I lay down on the table. The tech pulled out the wand and squirted jelly on my tummy (which was nice and warm) and got the machine all ready. She put the wand on my belly and then she pulled the wand away and said something like “are we looking for more than one baby?” Glenn said “There’s two?” I swatted at Glenn and said “Yes, it is twins.”, so relieved that there were still two babies. She looked back at our chart and got very flustered. I imagine she has probably accidentally told a couple or two that they were having twins and obviously, she didn’t want to be the one to break that news. But, she was also upset as the appointment had not been made for twins, so we hadn’t scheduled enough time to scan both babies adequately. She went into a set-up screen and changed the number of fetus option from 1 to 2 and we were off!


They refer to the baby closest to the cervix (or presenting baby), as Baby A. We looked at Baby A first, checking the fluid on the back of the neck (the nuchal translucency) and it was well within the range so as not to indicate Down’s syndrome. We heard your little heart beating, saw you batting your arms and kicking your legs. Saw the fingers on one hand. The little zipper-like spine was easy to spot and at one point, you flipped all the way over. I thought the technician had flipped the picture somehow, but she said “No, that baby just turned over.” Glenn and I held hands, and he kept asking if I could feel you moving. I couldn’t. It amazed me how much you were moving and I felt nothing. In the background behind you, we caught glimpses of Baby B. Then, we switched over to Baby B and did all the measurements and checks again. Again, good heart rate, and the nuchal translucency was good. We were relieved to find out you were both healthy, but we really wanted to know about the membrane. Had she seen it? We couldn’t see it at all, but Glenn asked just as we were wrapping up and the tech said that yes, she had seen a hair like membrane between you. We walked out of that room on cloud 9.

Now you look much more like a real baby.  Although I can't remember which one this was.  What a bad mommy I am.

Glenn was very animated and excited as we moved to the doctor’s office and awaited a visit from the doctor. I was very happy, but I was also feeling very crummy. When the doctor walked in to me sitting over the trash can, he said, “Well, this won’t do.” Thankfully he prescribed me two drugs to help manage the nausea. He confirmed that everything had looked good at the ultrasound and that we were in fact having mono-chorionic/di-amniotic twins! Praise the Lord!

Glenn and I headed to Chick-Fil-A again after the appointment, but I couldn’t eat much of it. I was anxious to go fill my prescription and try these anti-nausea drugs. And we were both anxious to tell people. We had been keeping this secret (although I think most of my co-workers had figured out that me looking like death and puking in the bathroom meant I was pregnant) and it was so fun to be able to tell people.

Waiting with Bated Breath

For your grandmother, it seems that being sworn to secrecy was the hardest part. She had been waiting so long to be a grandma that she just was fit to burst. She insisted that on our way back from Bertram we stop in Georgetown and tell my grandparents. She HAD to have someone to talk to about this. I couldn’t leave her all week with my Dad back in Lubbock and no one to talk to about it. So, although we were both exhausted, we headed to Grandma & Grandpa’s house to share the news. My Mom met us there. I guess she couldn’t wait to see the looks on their faces. We came in and G&G were settled in their den for the evening, Grandpa in his chair, Grandma on the couch. I told them we had some news and told them we were expecting in May. They seemed very happy, but not really overly excited. I mean, they already had quite a few great-grandchildren by this point. But, when I said it was twins, they got pretty excited. We briefly mentioned the mo-mo possibility, but breezed right over it. We asked them to pray for the babies to be healthy and every time I saw them after that, they told us they prayed for the twins each night before bed. I am sure they asked for more details from my mom later that week, but I imagine she glossed over it just as my dad had done with her. It really was too awful to think about for long.


And there were lots of other folk that prayed for you too. My Mom told a missionary couple they have known for years that we needed prayers and they prayed for you. You were unspoken prayer requests at church until the news came out. Little did you know it, but we prayed that darn little membrane into being.

Glenn and I really were on pins and needles waiting for that 12 week ultrasound that would reveal our fate. Glenn would say “It just can’t be mo/mo. The odds are so slim for a mo/mo pregnancy.” We were very hopeful, but the stories we had read online gave both of us nightmares. Glenn didn’t sleep at all at night It might have kept me up at night too, except that I was so darn tired I would fall into bed right after work and never get out. He stopped eating and I didn’t realize it until we had dinner with my parents several weeks later and my Mom pointed out how gaunt he looked. He lost about 15 lbs worrying about you guys in there.

For my part, each day I got sicker and sicker. Smells overwhelmed me and made me sick to my stomach. If I didn’t eat soon enough, I got sick. If I ate, I got sick. I would get up at night and eat toast or applesauce trying to stave off the nausea. During the day, there wasn’t a smell that escaped my notice. I would walk down the hallway thinking: Hmmm, strawberry yogurt, oh boy, someone needs some deodorant, wow, that lotion is really strong. I have always had what my co-workers refer to as a dog nose. I can smell someone peeling an orange 4 cubes away when not pregnant. Add pregnancy senses and I was almost kind of scary. I would suck on peppermint, which did seem to help both mask smells and soothe my stomach. But, the further we went, the more miserable I got.

At one point, in the middle of the night, I got up feeling sick and went into the spare bath. Glenn had taken off his tennis shoes in there and left them by the tub, for some unknown reason. I began feeling sick, but I needed to use the restroom. I realized I was going to be sick before finishing and tried valiantly to turn to throw up in the tub and managed to spew into his shoes. I told him that for the next couple of months, anything in the bathroom was fair game. Move it or lose it.

I had several close calls at work, but always made it to the bathroom in time. But, driving to work, I had to pull over one day, so I finally bit the bullet and ordered a box of air sickness bags to carry with me. Those suckers are worth their weight in gold when you really need them.

However, it really troubled me that I was having issues with swallowing my prenatal vitamins. I had been taking them for months without a hitch, but I had noticed they smelled pretty foul. I was able to overlook this before the pregnancy, but as just about every food started to bug me, the prenatals became a daily battle. I would save them until a meal, dreading taking them. It didn’t matter what smelly drink I tried to take them with, I could still smell them and just could barely gag them down. I worried that I really needed the vitamins so you guys could grow strong, but I just couldn’t get them down. And then one morning, I had the brilliant idea to use tropical fruit punch to wash them down. Using grape juice had been successful the day before. We were out of grape juice, but I thought fruit punch might mask it enough to get them down. I tried swallowing one and ended up throwing up while on my way to the toilet. I dry heaved until I was exhausted and I lay down on the bathroom floor trying desperately to convince my stomach that it was indeed empty and didn’t need to purge any longer. Glenn came in to find me on the floor with bright red vomit all around me and almost had a heart attack. He helped me to bed and cleaned the whole mess up like a champ. In fact, he was very helpful through this phase. I often was embarrassed and didn’t want him to see me that way, but he always brought me cool wash rags, and helped me to bed. He re-purposed a trash can and stationed it by my side of the bed. He took great care of me and commiserated with how miserable I felt.

More Fun Reveals

The next day there was a UT football game on TV, so we headed out to Craig’s to watch the game. He had Matt and Casey (Glenn and Craig’s friends who had four year old fraternal boy/girl twins) were at the game. Ben and Connie, their twins who inspired Glenn to hope for twins before we even met were also there. I tried valiantly to watch the game, but was so exhausted I fell asleep. I didn’t think this was ALL that telling, since Casey took the twins up to watch a movie when they got bored and fell asleep herself. And I knew she wasn’t pregnant, but apparently it set off some warning bells. Later in the day, Casey asked Glenn if he was getting a baby for his birthday. He elegantly side-stepped this issue by saying no. After all, he was getting TWO babies!


After the game, when it was just Glenn, Craig and me, Glenn pulled out a gift for Craig. He had discussed different methods of telling his brother and eventually decided to utilize those onesies I had gotten him. He was giving Craig two of his shirts that were slightly too small. Rolled up inside each shirt was a onesie. The plan was that Craig would open the first, we would say “Surprise, we are pregnant!” and get all the excitement out, then he would open the second, find another onesie and we could say “Surprise! It’s twins!” Glenn had asked me why I deviated from the plan to give my parents time to digest the one fact before springing the other. I told him that I just panicked when my Mom cried. He admitted that her reaction surprised him too, but that my immediate revelation hadn’t helped the situation, but it was already done. So, we resolved to do it right with Craig.

He opened the first shirt and exclaimed how much he liked it as the onesie rolled onto the floor. He looked down at it, and promptly ignored it and took to admiring the shirt. Neither Glenn nor I knew how to respond to this. This was not how this was supposed to play out. We just kind of sat there in shock as Craig proceeded to pull out the other shirt and admire it. He scooped up the onesies and put them in his lap and set about totally ignoring them. Glenn finally said something to him about well, did you see what else was in there. Craig finally acknowledged the white rolls and with some prompting opened the first one. He didn’t seem horribly shocked or surprised. And of course, he asked immediately if there were two since there were two onesies. We were batting zero for 2 on letting the idea sink in. Oh well! Craig said later that when he first saw the rolled up onesie, he thought Glenn had given him tighty whities and didn’t want to open them. What a goof. He seemed genuinely pleased about the idea of twin nieces or nephews. We talked for a while about it all and showed him the ultrasound pics. He told us he was happy for us and seemed to take it all in stride.

On Sunday, we drove out to Bertram to visit Gaylon and Jean. We hung around the house and talked for quite a while. I kept expecting Glenn to say something about it and I was on pins and needles the whole time, but Glenn chit-chatted about this and that with not a care in the world it seemed. As it neared dinner time, I nudged Glenn and told him that if he didn’t say something soon, we wouldn’t have any time to talk about it before having to leave to eat. Finally he brought the gift bag with the onesies in and gave them to his father.

After much thought about what went wrong with the reveal to Craig, Glenn decided that a bag with JUST the rolled up onesies was the best plan. He rolled them and unrolled them and rolled them even tighter several times during the drive there. Gaylon reached in the bag and pulled out the first. The little UT longhorn was clearly visible, but it wasn’t clear what it was. As Gaylon unrolled them, he said, “Are they socks?” and both Glenn and I said no. He got the onesie opened up and plainly had no idea what it was, but it was clear from the squeal from Jean that knew PRECISELY what it was. There were maybe a minute or two of excited talk before Gaylon reached in the bag and said “Another one?” and the twins were out of the bag….literally. At least they got SOME time to absorb. Jean was overjoyed at the thought of children in the family and Gaylon seemed quite pleased at the thought himself. As we discussed it more though, there were times that Gaylon would get a blank expression on his face. You could almost see the Excel spreadsheet in his head tallying up the expenses of two babies at once. He would say something like “Wow! Twins!” and then snap back to the present. We explained the mo-mo possibility to them as well, but it was easier to reassure them that although it wasn’t good, it also wasn’t for sure and to pray for a good outcome. Not being medically trained, or having heard of it, they were smart enough not to Google it.

Making Them Grandparents

I thought and thought about how to tell my parents. I knew my mother would be ecstatic. She has wanted grandchildren for years. I heard her lament to someone at my wedding shower that she didn’t understand how all her sisters, who were YOUNGER than her ALL had grandchildren and she had none. I also knew that it was possible that this would elicit a very emotional response from them, especially my dad, who is a very tender-hearted guy. I had seen a silver fortune cookie in a catalog somewhere. It was to give as a gift with money, or a cute “fortune” in it. I got online and found one and bought it. I then typed up a fortune which read: “You will soon be grandparents.” Then below it, “Lucky Numbers: 05-21-2012.” I thought that was a cute way of telling them without blurting it out. Glenn and I discussed that we would let the pregnancy news sink in before we sprung twins on them. We would try not to overwhelm them all at once with the news. So, all week I stewed and couldn’t WAIT to tell them. I talked to my Mom several times on the phone and had to bite my tongue to keep from blurting out the news.


That Friday, I prepared the fortune cookie and put it in a gift bag. I drove to the restaurant with my heart banging and my stomach fluttery. We all arrived at just about the same time and we had decided to present the gift outside in the parking lot so that whatever emotional response there was, we could have a little privacy. It wasn’t ideal, but it was how it was going to be. I hugged them both hello and handed my Mom the gift bag. She looked surprised, but opened it up. She gave the fortune cookie a strange look, but the tail end of the fortune was sticking out, so she pulled it out. It was at this point that my heart sunk. I had miscalculated a bit. My Mom needs reading glasses nowadays. In my zeal to make it look like a fortune cookie, I had tried to duplicate actual fortune cookies, right down to the font size.

She held the paper out at arm’s length and squinted to read it in the gloom. For a minute, I didn't think she was going to be able to read it. Then she made a very funny face, as if she just wasn’t sure what it said. She looked up at me with a question in her eyes and I nodded yes. And with that she burst into tears. Now, this is not what I expected. I had expected excitement and happiness, not weeping. She handed the fortune to my dad, who seemed perplexed at just what was going on. I felt so bad for making her cry so soundly that I blurted out “It’s twins.” I guess I thought that might make her happy. I have no idea. At that moment, an amazing transformation happened. My mother INSTANTLY stopped crying. It was like the faucet got turned off immediately. She looked at me questioningly and said “Are you joking.” Her gaze shifted between me and Glenn and when I said “No, it’s twins!”, she instantly burst into even louder and more boisterous tears. I frankly, stood in awe. My mother is usually very reserved. If anyone is going to cry, it would be my dad, not my mom. She might cry later, but not usually that minute. I turned to my Dad who had an angelic smile on his face and a couple of tears in his eyes and hugged me and said he was very happy. All the while, my Mom is balling inconsolably. Poor Glenn had no idea what to do. He hugged my Dad too and I think my Mom recovered enough to hug us and tell us how happy she was. Eventually, when everyone was composed, we walked into Logan’s and as the waitress walked us to our seat, I realized my Mom had disappeared. When I asked my Dad where Mom was, he said she was in the bathroom crying, but she would be fine. Just sit down and look at the menu.

Mom returned to the table looking very flustered, but telling us how happy she was and asking all kinds of questions. She looked at the *fortune cookie under the light and with glasses and asked about the lucky numbers. I told her it was the due date and she seemed amazed. We showed them the ultrasound pictures. They really looked like blobs back then, but it was fun to look at them because otherwise, it was so easy to think that twins was a mistake and there couldn’t possibly be two in there.

We tried to lessen the mo-mo blow when telling my parents. And I had a hunch that my Dad, being an anesthesiologist, would know JUST what it meant, but was wise enough to keep that to himself. My Dad is a pretty smart guy in most cases and I think he does a lot of trying to manage overly-excited patients and reassure them, so he knows how to soften a hit. Later I learned that my Mom went right home and googled it. In fact, she said she asked Dad on the way home in the car and he was vague and somewhat non-committal. She said after she looked it up she woke him up and was like, “you said this wasn’t that bad. I Googled it, it’s really bad.”

It was a risk we knew we were taking in telling them, but we needed their prayers and support. And if, God forbid, that next ultrasound had shown no dividing membrane, it wouldn’t have been nice to spring that on them and let them be all excited only to dash their hopes later on. But, I figure that your grandmother prayed you guys into existence. I mean, you are probably twins because God got tired of listening to the same thing over and over again and wanted to make double sure that prayer got answered. I am joking. In all honesty, if there is a problem you are having, you couldn’t have a better ally praying for you than your grandmother.

Back out in the parking lot after dinner, Mom got teary-eyed again and told me to take care of myself and how happy she was again. Then she leveled a look at Glenn, one of the stern, serious ones and said “You take care of her.” Glenn told me later that if anything happened to the three of us, my mother would probably kill him. I said “No. You have attained golden son-in-law status by providing grandchildren.” Glenn replied, “No, she was dead serious. If anything happens to you three, I am in BIG trouble.” There might be a grain of truth to that.

*Girls, you should ask your grandmother (as of the writing of this, she hasn’t decided what she wants you to call her) to show you the fortune cookie. It lived on the mantle for months afterward and I think it might have migrated into the keepsake curio by their bedroom door. She showed it to every family member and friend that came around. I would bet dollars to donuts she will have it still and know right where it is.

Mo-Mo? Oh, That's BAD

On the drive back to work, I had a TERRIBLE realization. I have a very good friend, let’s call her Z, who likes things JUST the way she likes them. She has for years talked about wanting twin boys. Z had mentioned to her OB that she wanted twins and her OB had sat her down and basically read her the riot act on how twins were NOT going to happen for her and she just needed to get over that idea now and get used to the fact that she might have ONE baby. Z was somewhat hurt by this, but I think it was a good wake up call for her. And it probably didn’t hurt that right around this time, a good friend of hers had twin boys. I remember Z calling me to her cube and showing me a registry with 2 carseats, 2 cribs, 2 of just about everything and saying incredulously, “Do you KNOW how expensive twins are? I mean, two of all of this stuff. My gosh!” I think watching her friend go through a twin pregnancy and visiting her during the first couple of weeks after birth, it made Z a little more willing to give up the twin plan. However, I was very worried that she would be hurt to find out that I was having twins. I mean, I remember when I was single and friends would tell me they were pregnant, I was always happy for them. But it also felt like the universe nudging me. You don’t have much more time, better get on it. And without being married, or even having a boyfriend most of these times, it just felt like everyone was getting what they wanted but me. Like everyone was passing me by. And it was NOT for lack of trying or wanting it on my part. It was just that Glenn hadn’t shown up yet. So, the thought of telling Z worried me a lot.


That day at my desk, I Googled monoamniotic twins. Know this: if you have some health issue that you are wondering about, Google is a very bad idea. You could have a hang nail and come away thinking that you were dying of gangrene. Google is not conducive to calm and anti-inflammatory health results. I found that mo-mo (the short hand for monochorionic-monoamniotic) twins is a very high risk pregnancy. In general, the outlook is about 50% for mo-mo twins. Basically, being in a sac without any barrier between them, twins can float all over the place. They WILL have their cords get entangled to some degree.

The trouble comes if there is any impingement or compression on the cords. If they just tangle up, cool. But, as they grow, the tangles can turn to knots. And eventually, those knots can get tight enough to cut off the blood flowing through that cord to one or both of the babies. And there is NOTHNG anyone can do about it. There is no way to reach in and untangle them. There are very scary procedures like draining most of the fluid out of the sac to try to reduce their movement. But, in general, there is nothing that can be done until they reach about 26-28 weeks, when they can viably be delivered. At best, you make it with healthy babies until the viability date, and then enter the hospital for round the clock monitoring for signs that one or both babies is in distress and then have a crash c-section. There were all these women that had logged their stories. Most of them were successes accompanied with pictures of healthy little kids (and sometimes absolutely frightening pics of a tangled knotted mass of umbilical cords from the delivery) and stories of 4 months in the hospital on bedrest and then 2 months of NICU for the babies. And those were the success stories. There was one heart-breaking story of a woman whose twins had cord compression at something like 23 weeks. She was told there was nothing they could do, so they watched the vitals disappear from the screen and then she was induced into labor and required to give birth to her two dead children. She was spent and feeling horrible when they were “born” and wasn’t able to see them. By the time she recovered enough to want to see them, they had already been sent away. These stories terrified me and I prayed fervently that there was a membrane between them. In all my free time, I would envision them with a small little line between them, and the two little beans growing together, but separate.

So, that night, when Glenn and I talked about it, he was quite adamant that he didn’t want to tell the general public until we knew for sure, one way or the other, whether they were monoamniotic. We agreed to tell close family members, as we needed some prayer warriors praying for that thin line between our two babies. We talked about when to break the news and since we both felt that in person was the only way to go, we had to wait that whole week to tell my parents. My dad was working out of town and wouldn’t arrive until Friday night. Then we would tell his Dad and Jean the next day. Luckily, this was all happening the week of Glenn’s birthday, so we were able to arrange meals with both sets of parents without arousing too much suspicion.

I'm Sorry....How Many Did You Say There Are?

Over the next weeks, I mentioned the impending baby, the pregnancy and talked about things quite a bit. Glenn listened and always replied in a very non-committal way. After several days, it did begin to hurt my feelings, but I tried to understand from his point of view. Women get all ooey-gooey about babies and men start thinking of all their responsibilities. Our finiancial situation, while not bad, always worried him. He wanted more in savings, less debt. He wanted to be out of our neighborhood and move to a better part of town. He stayed up with insomnia quite a bit normally, and I noted that he seemed to have even more than usual lately. He was very stressed out at work and I knew that this news probably only added to that. He seemed disappointed we had to wait so long to go to the doctor too, but he didn’t say much.


But I didn’t realize how bothered he really was until the morning of that first doctor’s appointment. As we were getting ready I told him I was going to be so relieved that we would get reassurance that everything was fine. That weekend I had experienced a touch of morning sickness, but nothing severe at all. In a perverse way, it felt good to have more outward signs of a healthy pregnancy. I told him I was excited to go to this appointment and he stunned me when he said “I am terrified.” I asked him what he was terrified of and he started talking about what if there were problems, what if the baby wasn’t right? I answered him calmly that everything would be fine. I reminded him that we had talked about what would happen at this appointment. I had done more research and was reasonably sure that we would have a dating ultrasound as well as a pap smear. I had also read (thank goodness) that the ultrasound was NOT done with the familiar belly jelly and sensor rubbed on your belly, but with a wand affectionately referred to online as a “dildo-cam.” That produced a more accurate picture and it was what was used this early in a pregnancy. I was very thankful I had read this and a week earlier had prepared Glenn for what was to come. He had made a very ugly face and said nothing more. I mentioned the pap-smear and was telling him what that would entail when he interrupted with “Can I just leave the room and come in when they squirt that jelly on your stomach and start looking at the baby?” I looked at him incredulous. “No honey, remember, we talked about this.” I reminded him about the vaginal transducer and explained again what it would be like. It wasn’t until the words dildo-cam came out of my mouth that he seemed to understand. He began loudly complaining and I said “Remember, I told you about this last week.” He turned away from me and said “No, I must have blocked that out.” Now, I don’t doubt that he can conveniently forget things he heard and reacted to at one point. He has proven this over and over. It is just exasperating sometimes when I feel like I am talking to an Alzheimer’s patient, repeating the same thing over and over, getting a reasonable response to my statement that makes me think he heard and understood me. And then, later having the same conversation over again. I just looked at him.

Then he teasingly said words that would come to haunt us both. “So, when they’re doing this ultrasound, what if they see twins.” Now I knew he was just pushing my buttons, and I responded quietly and calmly, words that I will never live down. “Honey, stop worrying. There is only going to be one baby, and it will be right where it is supposed to be and have all the parts it is supposed to have and it will be fine.” To which he replied, “But what would you do if they said it was twins?” I sighed and responded flippantly “Fall off the table.”

At the doctor, everything went fine. I peed in the cup, they took my weight and vitals. The ultrasound machine was in the room and while we were waiting on the doctor, I took the time to point out the offending transducer to Glenn. He grimaced and looked away quickly. The doctor came in and asked all the questions. When was my last period? Yes, that would put me at May 21 as the due date. He did the pap-smear and the breast exam and Glenn sat dutifully in the chair and didn’t run for the waiting room. And then, when satisfied that all seemed fine, he said “Let’s take a look.” And pulled the ultrasound machine closer. He told Glenn to get up and stand on my left side by my head. Luckily the transducer part happened under a sheet and then immediately there was a staticky picture to distract us. Immediately the doctor said “Well, that’s interesting.” I held my breath. Was that good or bad? “Do you see what I see?” he said in a sing-song type of voice. I squinted at the machine, but honestly, it was one big mess and I couldn’t see a thing. I wanted to say, “I don’t see squat but static, what do you see?”

“I see two little flutters.” he continued, in the sing-song voice. It took me a second to figure out what he meant. Flutters? “Are you joking?” I asked. But right then, I could see the mouse pointer aimed at a little rhythmic beating on the screen. The doctor said “No, see, two little hearts.” and moved the mouse pointer to a second little rhythmic pulsating.

I immediately looked up at Glenn. His mouth was agape. I am not sure if he cottoned onto the doctor’s meaning later than me, or if it just took him a second longer to respond. Glenn very eloquently said “What?” and the doctor obligingly said “It’s twins!” I stared at Glenn. My first thought was “HOW did he KNOW?” His words from that morning echoed in my head. What on earth was happening? And I promptly burst into tears. Part of it was the immense relief of seeing a live baby on the screen. I had worried about ectopic pregnancies and false positives and miscarriages for the last three weeks, despite my brave face to Glenn. But another part of me was entirely overwhelmed. The thought of twins hadn’t even occurred to me and it was almost too much to take in. Glenn said something about “Don’t fall off the table.” And the doctor asked if I was ok. I nodded and tried to pay attention to what we were seeing on the screen.

You can see on the right that there is a baby with little arms and legs sprouting. The other, you can only really see the top of the head (or butt).

I could see that one blob did look like the pictures and illustrations I had seen of a fetus at this age. But the other, just looked like a round blob with no arms or legs. I worried and finally asked. We were told that the second wasn’t facing the same way. We were either seeing the top of its head, or its butt. He clicked away and measured the hearts and eventually said that the dating looked right on and everything was good. During all of this, Glenn wonderingly said to me, “Well, at least we didn’t use all the onsies in that three-pack.” Yes, thank God for small favors.

Then, the doctor put the wand away, sat me up and proceeded to tell us that this changed things. First, twins would be expected a little earlier. He said 3 weeks early, which put us at roughly May 1. Then he said that he thought they were monochorionic twins. I confess, that meant nothing to me, but he wrote the word a slip of paper with the words “one placenta” and then said that he wasn’t sure, but thought that they might be sharing one bag of water. He wrote monoamniotic with the words “one bag of water” on the paper. He went on to say that having one bag of water meant that their cords could get tangled and that would be very bad, but he reiterated that they were very small and there might actually be a dividing membrane between them. “You know, those membranes are like saran wrap thin at this age. We will be able to see a lot better in a couple of weeks when we do the 12 week ultrasound. So for now, just assume there is one and don’t worry too much.” He was very nonchalant and reassuring about everything and we left with a bag of prenatal vitamin samples and a piece of paper with two words I don’t think I had ever seen before.

Glenn and I were shell-shocked and walked quietly out to our cars. We drove the block to Chick-Fil-A for breakfast and I remember us sitting and staring at each other for a long time. We looked at the ultrasound pictures, only one of which showed two babies together. One of us would look at the other and say “twins” and then we would just both laugh. We talked some about what this would mean, but I don’t remember much of the conversation at all. I did ask Glenn what made him mention twins that morning and had he actually known. He insists to this day that he was just joking and trying to get a rise out of me and had no premonition. But, I have to tell you, it freaked me out a little that he had called it only minutes before the ultrasound.

I remember that the chicken sandwich didn’t taste too good to me at the time and I let Glenn finish it. We got up walked out to our cars and hugged. Then we both drove to work, where I don’t think either of us did one lick of work the whole day.

Holy Cow! I'm Pregnant

I headed off to work, where I think I got absolutely nothing done all day. I re-ran through our conversation, through the last week, when I had been expecting a period that wasn’t coming. And then, a couple of things started to hit me. The 10th anniversary of 911 had been the weekend before. We watched a bunch of stories about the survivors, the victims on the planes, the rescue workers, the building of the memorial. We watched the plane collide with the building over and over, the towers burning, one by one the towers falling. We watched the surveillance footage of the plane hitting the pentagon, the footage of the huge burn spot outside Shanksville, PA. We watched hours of footage where thousands of people died. Where children talked about losing their fathers and it was all heart-wrenching. I was moved to the point of tears, but never cried. UNTIL: A freaking Budweiser commercial of all things. They showed a commercial where the Budweiser Clydesdale team is harnessed up. The team is trotting across green grass. Then you see the New York skyline behind them and they stop. There is the gaping hole where the towers once stood. The horses all lean their heads down and bow. And I balled. I cried and cried. Glenn looked at me like I was crazy. But darn it, it just made me so sad. And frequently in my life, animals have been able to move me in a way that humans just can’t. But looking back, I think I can honestly say, that was the first in many silly, hormonal reactions to things. It should have been my first sign.


Well, that and waking up in the middle of the night to eat. I have never done this. Perhaps half a dozen times in my whole life have I woken in the night to get up and eat. I remember doing it as a child occasionally, when I was going through a growth spurt. But as an adult, almost never. All of the sudden, I would wake up and my stomach would hurt I was so hungry. After I realized I was pregnant, I would follow my stomach’s lead more readily. And in that first trimester, I rarely missed a night of midnight snacking, to the utter delight of my two dogs.

All that day, I kept thinking it must be a mistake. Could it be true? I remember sitting quietly in my own world at lunch while my friends talked and talked. I tried to keep up with the conversation, but my mind wandered. I kept my mouth shut. I had a wonderful secret that made me excited, and scared and feeling so many emotions at once. Was this going to work out? What would people say when we did tell them? What would my life be like with a brand new, tiny baby? I knew when Glenn came to grips with it, he would make a wonderful father. I was really excited to see that. But it was overwhelming thinking of all the things that were going to have to change in my life.

I called my doctor’s office, excited to have my news either confirmed or disproven. I was rather taken aback when the nurse told me that they didn’t do a first appointment until 7 weeks. That was 2.5 weeks away. How on earth was I going to stand the suspense? I made the appointment and wondered what would happen at that appointment. Would we get a dating ultrasound? Or just a pregnancy test? I looked online to see that the answer varied widely from one OB to another. But, it sounded like the symptoms I was experiencing were about what one would expect and what others in my boat were experiencing, so I tried not to worry. I did use an online calculator to figure my due date: May, 21, 2012. WHOA!

That night, I went to the grocery store and purchased two digital pregnancy tests along with my normal groceries. I wandered through the baby section and wondered at all the tiny things. Could there really be one growing inside me right now? Surely not! Then as I headed out of the baby section, I saw an end-cap with a three-pack of white onsies with a UT Longhorn on them.

On impulse, I bought them. That night, I laid them on Glenn’s pillow before he got home. When he came home, I greeted him and kissed him and he was very quiet. He walked into the bedroom, picked up the onesies pack, carried it into the closet and hung it up next to his shirts and proceeded to change clothes. Then he laid down on the bed and was very quiet. I tried to talk to him, but he seemed very distant, so I tried not to be hurt and went about my business. I know that he deals with things differently than I do. I want to talk through something and he mulls on it for hours, sometimes days. Frequently he has thought something through much more thoroughly than I have, so this seemed like his way of dealing with life-altering news and I tried not to get too bothered by it.