A babies story. Part 1.

I have a feeling this might be overly positive.  Like a wound you get from your favorite trail or a loss you watch from your favorite team, time has a way of healing those negative experiences, sending you back down the same line or cheering from the couch the very next weekend.  I have to think that pregnancy is similar.  It's hard, uncomfortable, filled with self doubt and mystery, steeped in anxiety over the delivery, and completely humiliating when it comes to bodily functions.  But, like most difficult things, our minds have a way of making peace with the experience even leading us to believe that it would be something we would do again.

That's how I feel our pregnancy was.  It was amazing.  I look back on it now and the drama, bed rest, uncertainty, fear, and overall... largeness, was only a small percentage to the incredible feeling of creating life.  But we'll get to that.

Heading into the holiday season in 2010, I had just finished a pretty grueling race season and we had traveled every chance we got, in a way knowing what we had in store for 2011.  It was an amazing but sort of bittersweet summer for me.  I really felt like we were going into the next "step" ready but acknowledging that things would be very different for a while.  Leaving out the details of course, we started 'not not trying' in December.  It was really fun, and not for the obvious reasons :) but because it felt like we were hiding a secret from the rest of the world, a concept that once you're pregnant and have kids becomes annoyingly less and less possible.

It took three months.  For some reason, and I know 3 months is nothing in comparison to some, but I hadn't expected it to take any time at all and definitely wasn't prepared for the questions and insecurities that would come with something like this taking 3 months.  I remember being confused and happy with my disappointment but disappointed all the same.  By month 3, I had made peace with it and wasn't even paying attention really.  Ok, that's a lie but that month, I didn't tell Dave when we could take the test because honestly it broke my heart every time I had to tell him it would be at least another 4 long weeks.  That something we were doing wasn't working.  It was a very small glimpse into what I can only imagine is a horrible place too many women have to go in their minds when they can't have a baby right away, or at all.

The morning of March 5th, I was up at 4am to leave and volunteer at CRC's Spring Classic 5k.  I was due to find out that next day but obviously was thinking about it so I took the test.  Positive.  I remember getting weak in the knees and having to sit on the side of the tub for a few minutes.  Wake him up?  I really didn't want to throw that at him in a groggy state so I went to the race.  I had also devised a cute plan to tell him and couldn't believe it was time to put that into play.  After a very surreal morning (I remember trying not to smile as much as I wanted to), I went to Bodos and bought us breakfast.  I had gotten a onsie that had "Daddy's team 2011" on it, put it in the breakfast bag, and wrote "I love you" on the outside.  He came in from doing trail work and sat on the couch next to me.  I remember shaking as he opened it.  He said "awww" and then didn't get what I was trying to tell him.  I laughed and watched as it gradually sunk in.  "Wait.  Really?  Wow.  Are you ok?"  It was perfect.

Five weeks in and I was feeling fine.  "Our secret" was causing some nausea in the mornings but mostly just a dehydrated, sort of hangover feeling which was easily taken care of with some fruit and lots of water.  I LOVED fruit.  To the point where I could eat a whole watermelon in two days max.  I have no idea how but I got off so lucky with the sickness thing.  I'm not sure Leslie will ever let me live it down.  Week 9.  I was having some cramping and had just gone in for our first prenatal visit so the doctor ordered an ultrasound just to be sure.  She casually mentioned something like 1 in 4 pregnancies are lost "but I'm sure it's nothing".  Ok... so we had to wait a few days and then found ourselves in the dark looking at something minuscule and foreign on a screen.

Chuckle.  The technician chuckled.  I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have done that if we were miscarrying so I was totally lost as to what was going on.  "Well, I've got some news for you guys."  Oh yeah?  "You're having twins."

Long pause.

I think I laughed hysterically for ten minutes.  It was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard and I vaguely remember looking at Dave and saying "what did we do?!"  Having at last heard the heartbeat, um heartbeats, we decided to go public.  Family first.  I had of course already called Leslie.  I think she said she had to sit down.  Cam was at OCS school in the Navy.  I called him from the car, he was at chow time and told everyone around him.  Mom got worried because I think she knew what a complicated and potentially dangerous road we were about to go down - I'll always appreciate her letting me stay as positive as possible even when she knew how bad it was.  Dad, after a long pause, simply said "you're fucked."  Still makes me laugh.  We told Janet and Rick at their place, walking hand in hand down the driveway holding our ultrasound pictures.  We told Jenny and Shawn at the bike shop, signaling in a peace sign across the room that "there were two".  I got a "shut up" from Marcee, told Allison over lunch, laughing from Katherine, the sound of footsteps stopping from Liz, hugs and tears from a pregnant Mary Frances, and an "are we having two babies?" correction from Jess. 

I don't really remember anything detailed for a few weeks after that.  I got into more yoga than running, more sleep than activity.  I was incredibly fortunate that we had saved and could pay the bills on one income, I really think that had a huge part of how good I felt.  We read 'this week your baby is the size of a lemon' books and starting nesting around the house, moving Dave's office out to the shed and finally putting into play the new house construction loans.  We started having weekly dates and spent a lot of time together, quietly bonding while talking about our fears and excitements.  I loved these few months.  I felt safe and taken care of, beautiful and, other than the weekly panicked phone calls to Les, ready for the different experience that twins would certainly be.

To be continued when the Broncos aren't losing in the playoffs and my husband doesn't need some hand holding.  :)