So, there I was, lying on my back in the dark little room, warm gel on my naked tummy, the ultrasound wand skimming across my pale skin. Matt had run out to the car to grab a disc we'd forgotten so the sonogram tech could record some of the images she catches on the disc for us to take home. She runs the wand in a quick swipe across my belly before placing it back in it's holder on the machine. Standing up she says she needs to check something on her computer. In that quick swipe, I thought I saw something odd, but didn't think more of it assuming the oddity was caused by the way the imaged blurred across the screen. It'd only been a few minutes since Matt left the room and we'd barely begun the half-hour ultrasound to check on baby's growth. At 19 weeks, this was our first ultrasound of this pregnancy--different from our first two pregnancies during which we got ultrasounds between eight and ten weeks along.
Matt reentered the room and our technician told him he'd better sit down. I thought that strange until she followed up with, "it may take us a while to get through all of this". He handed her the disc and cleared my stuff off a chair by the bed. Just as the technician was about to put the wand back on my belly, she held up two fingers. My eyes grew big. Matt said, "What?" I echoed Matt, "Wait, what? What?!" He put his head in his hand saying he was going to faint--he'd previously said if it was a girl he'd faint. "You faint? I'm going to faint!" It seems that my initial glimpse was true. I thought I'd seen two spines. "Yeah," said the technician, "there's two babies in there and I believe they're both boys!" Matt looked up from his hand and with a deep, disturbed-sounding voice said, "What?" Pause. "Two?" Matt had misinterpreted the technician's signal to mean "V" for, well...a girl. It was funny for me to catch on, begin to freak out, and then see Matt's reaction when he caught on to the fact that she was telling us that we have TWO babies, not just one.
Our TWINS!
In the days, no weeks, leading up to our appointment, I grew more and more nervous. I had NO clue what we were going to find out and I had no clue if we were having a boy or girl. I kept thinking that we were going to find out something wasn't right with the baby, like that it was missing a leg or something. As we sat waiting to be called back that afternoon, I was incredibly nervous, as prepared as possible for the unknown. Or so I thought.
The technician had stepped over to her computer to buy some time until Matt returned because she didn't want to continue until we both were aware of the surprise. As the news kept repeating in my head, I kept saying, "What? No way! What?" And yes, I confess, a number of "holy crap"s found their way into my speech that day, but mostly, "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!" Over and over, "Oh my gosh!" The wand danced about my belly, now pushing the cooling gel all about. Our eyes glued to the screen, we were now anxious to see the proof of the latter part of her announcement. Boys?! As the gray tone images became clear upon each little baby's "area", the truth of it all was black and white. There indeed ARE two babies and they ARE indeed both boys! Stunned doesn't even begin to explain what we felt. My choice word is "floored". By now, my whole body was shaking uncontrollably, not violently, just noticeably. "I'm shaking! Oh my gosh! Twins?!" The technician said that was my adrenaline working. No kidding?! The shaking continued, then I began to laugh. I couldn't look at Matt without laughing, so I tried not to look at him throughout the rest of the ultrasound. It was difficult.
Baby A is Caleb and Baby B is Christian.
We finished up the ultrasound, thanked the technician, and headed for the lobby with our little roll of photos and disc of images in hand. Sitting on the sofa in the waiting room before my midwife appointment, Matt and I just laughed, stared at each other and shared our shock. We left there feeling so floored, so thrown off, so completely caught off guard, it was like no other time we'd experienced.
Telling our families was unreal in its own sort of way, too. They all reacted with a similar sort of shock as we did, screams, stares of disbelief, and lots of, "What?"s. So now, here we are, midway through our third pregnancy, preparing for TWIN BOYS of all things! We've picked out names: Caleb Donald (Donald after my dad), and Christian Matthew (after Matt). Caleb and Christian. Our boys. Our boys. Our precious baby boys. Yup, I'm still working on getting used to it. I can now imagine two little baby boys in car seats in the back of the van, but it is still so hard to believe that I've got two little boys sharing a space in my belly. Matt's not even to the imagining part yet. I don't expect him to be until delivery day. Our wonderful technician that day said they appear to be identical twins, too, so we're curious as to how deep the "identical" part will show through when we finally get to meet them face-to-face. This might add a whole new dimension to our new challenge of being parents of not only two girls, but also twin boys. We are SO excited though, and cannot wait to do whatever we can to bring these boys as close to full-term as possible and deliver healthy babies into this world. We are also scared yet flattered that God would entrust us with the responsibility of caring for two infants at once while continuing to raise our four-year-old and one-year-old. What an honor, a privilege and a challenge. Thank You Lord! We're up for it!
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