Holy Mama

It’s the scenario all of us impregnated women have at one time envisioned at the start of a new pregnancy. During the first doctor’s appointment confirming the news we have detected on a stick. During that first sonogram, the first time a fetal heartbeat can be seen and heard.

And this time it actually happened.

“Sit still for a second,” my obstetrician said to me November 29, 2011, “I think I might see two.”

“Might as in 20% might, or might as in 80%?” I asked her. Might is very relative.

“Might as in 99.9%,” she answered.

Oh my God, I was thinking. 

“Hold this,” she said, handing me the probe stationed between my legs that usually only the doctor handles. “I need to catch my breath and sit down.”

She had to sit down? I was the one who was just told I was carrying twins.

So what was the big deal? Twins happen all the time.

The big deal was that these were not 1 and 2, or 2 and 3, or 3 and 4, or 4 and 5. They were 5 and 6.  Yes you heard me right, children number 5 and 6, as in I already had four others. 

She told me to get dressed and come into her office.

Everything felt surreal, I hadn’t even called my husband yet to tell him. My doctor started throwing a whole slew of information at me. I could barely focus.

“Spontaneous twins,” she said, “happen as you get older” (I was about to turn 36) “and the more pregnancies you’ve had.” So now she tells me.  

“I would assume they’re fraternal,” she continued, “because they are in two different sacs, but we won’t know for sure till they’re born, since even identical twins can split into their own sacs right after conception.”

“Also, there is something called vanishing twin syndrome, so there is a chance you could lose one. There’s nothing to do to prevent it.”

“Your due date is July 24^th but we don’t deliver twins after 38 weeks, so think of it as July 10^th.”

 “And you have to have your cervix checked every other week to make sure you don’t have to go on bed rest.

“And you need monthly anatomy scans to make sure the twins are growing in sync with one another.

“Come back again next week—we like to monitor a twin pregnancy more frequently.”

Boom. Boom. Boom. The facts were being thrown at me, and I was trying to digest it all. I left the office and could barely breathe. I called my husband Rob and, just like out of a movie said, “Are you sitting down?”

“Yeah, everything ok?” I hadn’t even been feeling pregnant. I was convinced it was a false positive.

“There are two.”

He screamed with excitement and said “Oh my God, that’s crazy. That’s amazing.” Actually first he said “shut the F up.” Then he said that’s amazing.

Amazing? I hung up and started crying, part excitement, part overwhelmed, part freaking out. I was going to have six children. Who has six children who is not Catholic or Chasidic? I use birth control. I think I’m normal. At least I’m normal on paper.

The fact is our whole life changed that day. We were a family with four daughters then ages 9, 7, 6, and 3. And while no confirmed pregnancy is ever a sure thing until a healthy baby is born, or in the case of twins until two healthy babies are born, on that day in November I began to imagine a world I had never dreamed of—a world as a mother of 6.