Two by two….they came

One boy, one girl; two hearts beating wildly!

This is just one of those things, like a car crash, or winning the lottery; sure it happens, but just not to you.

(Let’s be honest, those two extreme and opposite examples is a lot like what it is to get the news that you’re going to be having twins!)

(if you  want to just skip over the details to get to the funniest part, scroll to the very bottom and start just below the triple star that says “***And for comedy’s sake”)

After 3 longs years to get our first, oh-so-handsome baby boy, we decided to start trying for baby #2 pretty early on….in fact, as soon as my soldier/hubs, Ty got home from Iraq and our little boy Gage was just 9 months old, we started again.  So, a year later, we were getting a little anxious when it was announced that Ty would be deploying again and we still weren’t pregnant, and thus, we quickly got on chlomid.  (Rest assured, the Doc told us that the likelihood of us conceiving multiples was only slightly increased with the use of this treatment…that’s laughable!)  So, last November, just as Ty was heading off to Afghanistan, in a last ditch effort to get a bun in the oven, we tried one last round of chlomid and spent a lot of money buying all of the expensive pregnancy tests only to find that one after another turned up negative.  But we had our plan in place, and I was set to begin IUI and IVF this spring while he was deployed.  I kept peeing on sticks, hoping one would be positive, and every day Ty would call and ask if I had tried again, but sure enough, they were always negative.

A few weeks into the deployment, I was laying in bed pretty late having a hard time trying to sleep, and kept feeling a mild pain in my lower right abdomen and all of my google and WebMD searches kept coming up with an appendicitis (because those two searches are of course always going to accurately diagnose you! Ha!)  Since I was confident it wasn’t an appendicitis, at 1AM, I went on a desperate rampage to find the last of the pregnancy tests I still had somewhere in my bags and boxes from the move…despite the fact that I’d just taken a test a couple days before, I was very hopeful…and two plus signs later (a nice little foreshadow there) here we are!

It took a little while to get in to see the doctor, but by the time I did, I assumed I was about 10 or possibly 11 weeks along according to when I finally had gotten the little pink plus signs, however, despite my no weight gain…actually, weight loss (all thanks to my daily, if not sometimes hourly visits to the porcelain throne!) I had quite the little belly poking out!  I begged my sister to blow off work for the day and come with me to my first ultrasound.  After a quick, and as always, uncomfortable exam, the doc pulled out the measuring tape and said I was 20 weeks along!!? What??

I turned to him and said; “That’s seriously not even possible.  Do you want to re-measure?”

With a chuckle, he responded, “I’m pretty good at my job…I’ve been doing it for a little while now”…like 20 years)

 I laughed in disbelief as he told me not to worry and that the tech would be in any moment to confirm the due date.  (I really think he had a good suspicion of what was coming at that point…but he didn’t clue me in at all!)

As soon as the monitor was pulled up, I saw…a whole LOT of body parts?! And then, suddenly I was looking at the photo you see above, and my sister called out, “Are there TWO in there??”

The tech looked stunned, like I should have already known this by now! He smiled and said, “yup.”

In that moment, I was nothing but thrilled, laughing and crying all at the same time!  The tech kept asking me to hold my breath so I could stop long enough for him to get their measurements.

Not only were there two little buns in the oven, but I was almost 14 weeks along, not 10!!

Being the ever patient person that I am, I made an appointment at a fetal studio that same day to determine their genders.  I invited my parents to surprise them…and since I’m also an incredible secret keeper, I blurted out that I was having twins within the first 5 and 1/2 seconds of being on the phone with my mom!  So I made sure not to call my dad since I can’t keep my blasted mouth shut, and had her get him there without blowing the surprise!  I had to lie and say that I was further along than I was to get the studio to let me come in, but I was confident my babies would cooperate….eventually.  I mean, the hubs would be calling from Afghanistan that evening to see how the Dr.’s appointment went and how AMAZING would it be to not only announce that it’s twins, but what their genders are too!?

After a lengthy session with the ultrasound tech, both babies cooperated, the gal gave me a 90% confidence rate that it was one girl and one boy, along with a card to come back 1 week later for a double check…which also proved the same.

Telling Ty was a little bit of a joke…since I had planned what I thought was this fun way of telling him, only to have it completely backfire.

How I planned the phone conversation to go:

Cass: “So I had this great idea today on how to decorate the babies’ room.”

Ty: “Oh yeah, tell me about it.” (because OF COURSE, my big strong handsome soldier he would care a LOT about this, Duh!)

Cass: “I was thinking of doing a Noah’s Ark theme, and I could order a vinyl sticker to go on their wall that says, ‘Two by Two They Came’, I mean, I just think it would be so appropriate as well as darling.”

**pause for it to set in….

Ty: “What are you saying honey?”

And then he’d figure it out and we’d laugh and cry…it was going to be perfect!

How the conversation actually went:

Cass; “So I had this great idea today…”

Ty, cutting me off; “How’s the baby?? Is everything okay? I know you had your appointment today, I’ve been waiting all day to hear about it.”

Cass: “Everything’s fine, it was a normal appointment, will you just let me tell you about my idea?”

Ty: “Okay, but hurry, I want to hear about the ultrasound.”

Cass: “So I had this great idea today on how to decorate the babies’ room, I was thinking of doing a Noah’s…”

Ty, cutting me off again, clearly exacerbated; “I don’t care about that, I want to know what they found out and what happened in your appointment, is everything normal and healthy, when’s the due date, also, I was on our bank account today and saw that you went to the fetal studio…did you find out the gender??”

Cass, unbelievably frustrated that things weren’t going as planned….obviously a flawed plan when the hubs is thousands of miles away and  is dying to just know if his wife and baby are doing okay, but I persisted:

“I’m getting around to it; can you indulge your pregnant and mind you, very hormonal wife for 5 seconds while I tell you my idea??”

Ty, annoyed, but realizing he might soon be treading on thin ice if he didn’t shut up and listen already:

“Okay, okay, what was your grand idea?” 

Cass: “I was thinking we could do a Noah’s Ark theme and I could order vinyl to put on the wall that says, ‘Two by Two They Came’, I just think it would be very cute as well as appropriate, don’t you think?”

**pause for it to set in…still paused…still paused…

Ty: “Is that it?”

Cass: “Yeah, don’t you think that is so appropriate?”

Ty: “Yeah yeah, it’s Noah’s Ark, I get it, real clever Cass, now if that’s all, could you please tell me what you found out today?”

Cass: “UGH! I just did!”

Ty, waiting amid the confusion for a moment and clearly not getting it: “Um, okay? Well, since you went to the fetal studio, did you find out the baby’s gender?”

Cass: “Yes…what do you think it is?”

Ty, clearly not one for wanting to be surprised or playing along at this point: “I don’t know, just tell me; a girl?”

Cass: “Yes!”

Ty: “I knew it! That’s so great! Are they sure?”

Cass: “Yes, but you’re only half right.”

Ty: “What does that even mean?”

**Quick interjection here, I swear my husband is the smartest man I know and every test score and GPA will attest, but yes…he seems a little dense in this conversation…also, it was just a whole lot of frustration on both parts  clouding the clarity in there.

Cass: “There’s also a boy!”

Ty: “What? What does that mean exactly…half right?”

Cass: “Well, it’s certainly NOT a hermaphrodite! There’s one boy AND one girl!”

It took a minute to convince him that I wasn’t teasing…I’m kind of a mean tease, and while it is absolutely like me to tease him about something like this, I certainly wasn’t teasing today!  By the end of it all, I finally got the results I knew were in there somewhere, with tears and laughter…I’m not sure it was really even possible, but he may have been more excited than I!

(here I am at 23 weeks with these two babies of mine)