A Break from Nursing Posts

I need to take a break from reliving the nursing posts. I will get them done in the next week, but here is something on a different emotional tangent: 

One year ago, my husband and I were trying to wrap our heads around the fact that we were going to be parents to not only 1 tiny child, but two! What an interesting few days we spent coping with that new information...

We should have known better. For some reason, less than a week after I found out I was pregnant, I made the joke to him that it would be fun if it were twins. I even wrote in my pregnancy journal to the boys that I didn't know if I was writing to one or two babies. I don't know why. It's not like we have 3 sets of twins in our family, like the lady I spoke with today! It just took root in my mind, and from then on, I addressed the baby as "L'aig, or L'aigs (not sure)." I had read an article shortly thereafter that listed some commonalities among women who had twins (such as: tall in stature, overweight, over 30, black, etc.) and sent it to my husband, jokingly telling him that I fit almost half of the demographics (I'm obviously not black, lol!).

It just goes to show that God definitely has a sense of humor. We joked about twins for the next 9 weeks, even to our parents! They kind of rolled their eyes and said okay, knowing that our chances of having twins was pretty low, without having any sets in the family previously.

We had our 12 week appointment the Monday after Mothers' Day, so everyone in the family knew about it and was waiting to hear the results. I was nervous, just because this was our first glimpse into the health of our new child, so when my ob said that he couldn't hear the heartbeat through the doppler, my stomach dropped. I thought something had gone wrong, but he assured me that this happens frequently if the placenta is in the front, and ordered a sonogram for us while we were there.

We went into the darkened room to see the ultrasound technician, who was a sweet older lady who looked like she had done this thousands of times. She put us at ease and had me sit in the seat. She easily found the baby's head and what we saw on the screen was magical! L'aig was bouncing around and seemed to be doing just fine. She said the heartbeat was great and looked like she was about to wrap things up, when she frightened us by saying she was going to have to take a closer look at something.

We have had a tragic pregnancy in the immediate family, so at this point, I was pretty freaked out, thinking that there was something wrong with our baby. We addressed this with her, and she said, "I just need to get a closer look to see the other baby." I'm sure my jaw dropped. All I could say was, "You're joking," with an incredulous smile on my face. I turned to my hubby and we both instantly knew it was true.

We were both ecstatic and scared as we were ushered back to the ob's office to discuss the results. He was confident and calm, and told us just what we needed to hear: it was going to be okay, twins are born every day in that hospital, and that I was going to do great.

As soon as we made it down to the car, I called my mom to let her know the good news. I couldn't think to call anyone else in that state, so I asked her to pass the word along to everyone else. We went home and felt like we floated through the rest of the evening. I think we both burst out laughing sporadically until we finally went to sleep. I don't remember any of my dreams from that night.

The next morning was another story. The worries came. All the worries. How are we going to take care of them? How will we afford it? Will we have to move? Will my husband find a different job? What about all the gear? How will we afford college? Will they be healthy? Will I go full-term? Will they be in the NICU for weeks?

Thankfully, we serve a BIG God who can do anything, and has orchestrated our every move to get us where we are today, so we knew that we were well taken care of; but in the immediacy of that time, it was easy to let the "what ifs" get the majority of our mental energy. Obviously, we have made it and are thriving at this point, but it was pretty scary a year ago. Now, I thank God for our boys and everything they are. I couldn't imagine living without either one of them.

Baby A and Baby B at 12 weeks!

If you are a parent of twins, did you have a similar experience? How did you find out you were carrying multiples, and what was your reaction?

Today's encouraging verse: Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” Genesis 17:17