Look , Pa! It's Twins!

I am writing more of my favorite memories as a way to keep my mind off of all of this.

Today's memory is brought to you by the letter T, as in Two babies, as in Twins.

In my last post I explained that Hubz and I did not know I was pregnant with twins when we married, only that we were pregnant, which, despite what the rest of the world might have thought and the Rule Book for New Relationships may have said, we considered wonderful, and maybe a little frightening. However, as I described in my last post, we were confident in the strength of our relationship despite its newness.

I had a regularly scheduled doctor's appointment the morning of the day we went on our honeymoon at a [touristy vacation spot] here in [Midwest state]. The doctor scolded me for gaining too much weight. I wasn't overly concerned about that. I had always bulked up to gargantuan proportions with my pregnancies, no matter how well I tried to eat. Then she busted out the tape measure. Seems I was measuring at about 20 weeks when I was barely sixteen. Maybe I was wrong about the LMP? I was soon scheduled for an ultrasound for Monday, the day after our weekend getaway to make sure we had the right due date or who knows? you may have some twins in there, ha ha ha. My LMP was a little goofy, kind of light and spotty, so maybe it was a fluke or something. Who cares. Time to celebrate! Time for the honeymoon!

Some truly heroic family members took The Girl and Eighty-Eight Fingers off our hands for two whole days. We had a great time, even though I had to stop at my fav store Walmart out in Hicksville and pick up some sensible shoes to walk around in because my sandals were KILLING my feet! I remember one of those honeymoon nights, Hubz and I were lying in bed snuggling (sorry, you aren't getting all the hot details here) and there was a thump-fest going on in my uterus. I mean, there was movement, and lots of it all over the place like a tornado in my abdomen, quite unlike either of my last two pregnancies (and EEF was a wild-child in-utero). Come to think of it, I had been feeling movement for several weeks by that time. Everyone knows that is Too Early to Feel Movement. So maybe it was the wrong due date. We would be having a Christmas or New Year's baby instead, so what.

But I wasn't so sure.

So I said to my new Hubz, "You know, there is quite a bit of movement here on this side and this side at the same time...maybe we are having twins?"

To which he confidently replied (and laughed at me--laughed!),"Naw, there is no way we're having twins. You're just farther along than you thought."

Famous Last Words.

Fast forward to Monday. EEF is with us in the ultrasound room struggling to break free of Daddy's strong arms and wreak havoc on the hospital, maybe bring it down around our ears because, you know, he's good at that sort of thing. My bladder aches so bad I want to cry. I am squeezing my pelvic floor muscles with a ferocious determination and a vice-like grip to avoid my overfull bladder bursting onto the ultrasound table and flooding the tech, the room and the whole damn hospital. I really want to die, the pain is that bad. Hubz isn't having too much fun with mega-squirming EEF either, but it's only a half hour right? The tech fires up the machine and lubes up my belly. She runs the probe across my abdomen and I am looking at the machine rubbing my eyes...Do I need glasses--Am I seeing double??? The Hubz's jaw drops to the floor with an audible thunk and the tech, running the probe back and forth across my belly says, "Hmm...you might be interested to know there are two of them in there. This is going to take some time to get all the proper measurements."

Silence.

Bladder. Pain. My life flashes before my eyes. Some... time...??? Did she just say some time???

EEF starts to cry, "WANT DOWN!" The hospital walls quake. Small, hairline cracks began to snake across the floor. The ultrasound monitor shattered.

Hubz reels his jaw off the floor and tries to calm the writhing, wriggling EEF.

And I have to pee. I just found out we were having twins and all I could think of was relieving myself in a long, fast-flowing stream in the toilet just ten feet to my right. Finally, the tech took pity on me and let me have at the bathroom. Thank you Jesus! You never saw a pregnant chick move as fast, leaping off the table in a blur like a live Nascar race. I don't think I even closed the door. I have never been so relieved in all my life. Twins, phaw, that is nothing compared to the, um, emptiness I felt.