I can't think of too many things more degrading than being a 27 year old woman, a mother myself, and having both my parents stage an intervention over the state of my walk in closet. Flashes me right back to my teenage years when my mom would make a day out of cleaning my room and organizing my closet. Here it is the night after Christmas and as a grown woman, 6 months pregnant, and I am at the mercy of my parents help and humiliation once again.



Granted the room off our master bedroom is really more of a laundry room/closet where the washer and dryer, water heater, and electrical box my father needs access to happens to be located. It has been a thorn in my side and source of anxiety for months. So many days I vowed to get it cleaned up once and for all, only to find myself exhausted strewn across my bed starring into the debris at the end of yet another day that has passed on my untidy existence.

We're not talking a few loads of built up laundry, the place was a full blown disaster area. I've never been the most organized person when it comes to my stuff. I have a lot of it. My mom simply calls me a slob. My husband calls me a Bag Lady. My dad just says I'm pitiful and shakes his head in disgust.



We attack bags upon bags of items containing leftover junk from cleaning out my car that never got dispersed to its proper place and put away, discarded Halloween costumes, outgrown baby clothes, pictures, old credit cards statements. OK, so I'm a pack rat. The thought of the electrician muddling his way through the forgotten items of my life was embarrassing enough to allow the troops in. After about 20 minutes of my Dad's comments on my many (many, many, many) bagged up clothes that no longer fit, depression had fully set in.



Did he not realize that each comment like "Leah, what are all these clothes?" translated in my head to "I have an entire wardrobe of clothes that I am now too fat to wear." I should just donate to them all to Goodwill now because this ass is never going to be that size again.

They mean well. When my Aunt comes over to help and ends up rewashing loads oof clean clothes left in the basket because they are too wrinkled and folding my husbands boxers, I am thoroughly humilitaed. And in no position to turn down their help, so I suck it up and accept it.

The day after my 1st negative pregnancy test, I hosted a baby shower for a friend at work. The relief that I wasn't pregnant was dwarfed by the pink dresses and disappointment that it wasn't my turn again. Not to mention the fact I still felt like shit. How could a human being be so tired? There is no word that describes the fatigue of early pregnancy. I almost puked and passed out at Kroger buying the meat tray and rainbow cupcake arrangement. My thoughts still weren't in the right place of a person supposedly relieved by the news I wasn't in for 9 more months of hell.

If I had a girl next time around, I found myself thinking, I'd like a cupcake arrangement in place of a cake at my shower! Maybe I'd decorate her room with rainbows, like the wallpaper I had as a kid! And if its another boy I would...

It went on like this all day.

Somewhere inside I already knew the test was wrong. So by the episode the following morning at the gym and the fact I wanted to throw up during an entire car ride to Fort Knox (where I actually fell asleep on the couch during a one-year olds birthday party) I was ready to let my husband in on my little nagging suspicions.


OK, so actually I tried to be selfish and hide it a bit longer. I was thinking of all these clever and memorable ways I would tell him we were expecting again as I tried to nonchalantly escape midday for an unnecessary trip to Walgreen's. I needed another round of pregnancy tests and I decided I was going to keep taking them every few days until I got the answer I suspected. He, of course, chooses this one trip to decide to get out of the house and accompany me. I try to shake him in the store and sneak towards the tests.


"Bryce likes the Hallmark aisle," I say, ducking to the back of the store. When he rounds the corner with my son on his shoulders and spots me tucking the pink box under my arm, I am busted, but he says nothing. I wonder if he is angry but doesn't want to make a scene. I scurry to the checkout counter like a shamed teenager buying contraception, even though for us its already too late for that.

In the car, I reveal my real reasons behind the top secret shopping adventure and blab my suspicions. The nausea. The unrelentless fatigue. The unknown origin of my last period.

"You bought a what!?" He hadn't even noticed my purchase. I had ruined all chances of a surprise unveiling of our new future!

At home, I pee on the stick and my hand, and wait. A plus sign pops up pink.

"I think I did it wrong," I proclaim, panic starting to spread. I am on the verge of paniced tears.

"I peed all over the thing and my hands and it said to just pee on the end, so and I'm going to pee in a cup and dip it in for this other one..." I ramble on.

I execute my biology experiment and fling myself on the bed to await the results. I definitely want to cry. Why did we let this happen? I don't WANT to be pregnant again! I do the math and realize my son is entirely too young to become a big brother. I will rob him of his childhood, my mother's voice echoing in my head already. The statement is residual effects from my grandmother's claims about my mothers phone call from the doctor during my 1st birthday party that she was indeed pregnant with her second child so soon.


I make him go to the bathroom this time. Let him be the bearer of bad news, confused at this point as to what exactly would constitute bad news. He enters the room with a smirk and I can't read his expression. 'Haha you're crazy, we're not pregnant' or 'Of course you didn't do it wrong, we're having a baby!'


"You're pregnant, " He says, handing it over. Now I cry. We're screwed. We're not ready for this. What are my parents going to think? (Will I ever out grow my need to seek approval and please them?) My brother and his wife are already pregnant again with Grand baby number 3, they don't want another one yet. I don't want another one yet!


He holds me and is the calm and reassuring all through the night. By the next morning, I am happy again. Damn hormones, making me think I didn't want this! My God, I was pregnant again!!! We were to be blessed again with another baby! I had always wanted my kids close together. They would grow up like my brother and I and it would be great. How wonderfully lucky I was!


I got dressed for work with my secret smile and set up the camera to take pictures of myself with my two pregnancy tests. I was already planning the Pregnancy #2 scrapbook in my head! Suddenly didn't mind the nausea that forced me to give away my peanut butter cookie during lunch at a work retreat and sleep in the corner of the conference room while the rest of my group took a tour of the grounds of the historic Locust Grove. It didn't matter anymore I still majorly felt like crap... I was pregnant!!!

I am still shaking and teary eyed back in the playroom. I keep starring at the ultrasound printout. Proof doesn't make things more real, just more wierd. Twins? Really?


My husband and I don't have much to say to each other. I just keep lookng at him and laughing as I cry. He thinks I may be losing it. I've had my suspicions about beign pregnant for a week. I didn't tell anyone, not even him. I took a secret prenancy test to my relief and minimal disappointment revealed I was in fact, not pregnant.


I had just gotten over being pregnant (as if it were an illness contracted and I had unwilling exposed myself again!). My son was too young. I was three weeks in to an intensive Biggest Loser contest at the gym to get rid of the 50lbs I gained from him (even though I was so nauseated and ill before, during, and after my spinning class this week that deep down in the core of my being, I didn't need the pregnancy test or the doctor to confirm what my body already knew). Mainly, we were planning on getting pregnant next summer. Our dream had always been to get pregnant in July so we could aim for the baby to be born on April 26th, the day inbetween our birthdays. Mission accomplished, a year early!



We are called back to the office and when the movie star doctor walks in, I can tell she is surpised. And genuinely happy. Her excitment tumps the shock momentarily.


"Well, I said if I had one as cute as him, I'd have ten... you're about a third of the way there!"


She rattles off the how this pregnancy has just become different and goes through medical jargon about high risk factors and things I will have to research on the internet later because most of this follow up visit is a blur. I just keep smiling and shaking my head in disbelief. She prescribes a boat load of extra prenatal vitamins and sends us out into the world with a smile.


I make my husband take pictures of me with the ultrasound print out. I think now I'm the one who needs proof now this is actually happening.

The Understatement

'This Changes Everything...'

The view of the familiar waiting room filled with pregnant women is skewered by experience. We've been there, done that. Our proof is 9 months old and more fascinated by the challenge of climbing the carpeted benches than any toy within reach. We're on the outside looking in of this boat ride the second time around.

We've come for medical substantiation, as if the double pink lines on two different pregnancy tests and the fact I can't even remember my last period isn't proof enough. All I know is I greet everyday to the mother of all hangovers without having enjoyed a drop of alcohol the night before. Oh God, and the fatigue. There's only one reason you feel like this. I am pregnant.


"I'm just praying that the egg has split," I joke, mainly to get a rise out of him who has expressed on numerous occasions his desire for no more than two children. I remember studying irony and foreshadowing in 9th grade English Lit and I believe if my life were a novel or Shakepearean play, I'm sure this would be one of those moments cited as an example.


"Noooooo," he says, drawing out the one syllable word like the crazy white haired man from the movie The Bodyguard. "I said I wanted to have them back to back. 2 and we're done."


We get called out of the recess of the children's playroom, tucked privately in the corner of the modern, dimly lit waiting room, a la 'Private Practice'. Very California chic decor complete with designer doctors who are all size 4 or smaller with their high heels and sophisticated hairstyles. I am proud when I pee in the cup to see the framed magazine covers highlighting them as 'Best OGBYN's in Kentucky' and 'America's Top 50 Prenatal Specialists'.


The newest doctor on the team charms even my skeptical husband with her southern twang and optimistic smile. "If I had one like him at home, I'd have 10 more!" She exclaims and I am charmed by the fact she immediately sits on the floor of the consultation room to play with him. Not to mention she obviously studied my chart as she rattles off facts about my first pregnancy and delivery that even I forgot, as if she were actually there.


We are sent to ultrasound to get an exact due date established.


"So are we pregnant?" My husband asks.


I laugh, finding it amusing he's still in denial. He holds our wiggling son as the ultrasound tech begins. Here we are, the moment of truth. Every ultrasound I ever had during the gestation of my son began with this pit in my stomach, a black gnawing fear that the screen would suddenly show the fetus had stopped growing or its heart was no longer beating. She silently clicked away on the keyboard as I attempted to analyze and differenciate the grey black space on the screen.


It looked different than the many ultrasounds I had with my son. Maybe it's just because I was used to seeing him so big on the screen with all the ultrasounds I had towards the end of pregnancy, I rationalized with myself. She remained silent for too many moments before drawing in a breath.


"Are you ready?" More irony at its best. No one is ever ready for news like this.

She turns the screen towards us and points.


"Here is the first baby's heartbeat....."


Her statment lingers. I know my husband hasn't heard because he continues to play nonchalantly with our son.


"And here's the second baby's heartbeat."


My own heart soars. The first shock wave drowns the feelings of doom. First baby? Second baby??? I see the two tiny flickers on the screen, steadily beaconing from the abyss of my womb.


"We're here! We're alive! We exist....Two of us!"


I begin to cry and my husband becomes worried.


"Are you OK?" He asks, attention now undivided. He is unsure of my reaction. I couldn't be happier or more shocked. I cannot believe what I see. She prints out the proof we came for and sends us back to the doctor.


"This changes everything," she says with a smile, like she knows something we don't yet.

Baby A and B

I Believe in Miracles

Sometimes life changes faster than we can keep up. Most of the time when reality takes a major turn, leaving our head spinning, hands shaking and heart fluttering, it's a negative event that has blown in like a hurricane and changed the landscape of our lives forever. But sometimes, the greatest of blessings barrage us so suddenly shock sets in and it's hard to believe life can be so good. That this is our existence. Questions like 'What did I ever do to deserve a life like this?' creep in and cloud the simple fact that life is what it is… beautiful and surreal and unexpected and perfect beyond our wildest plans and imagination.


My son is 10 months old and already going to be a Big Brother. He crawls, stands, cruises effortlessly around furniture. He walks to you with outstreached arms and a grin full of swollen gums and freshly protuding teeth. Who ever knew teeth could be so cute? He eats like a machine and wants whatever we have on our plate: tuna fish, refried beans, sauerkraut, asparagus. He's eaten dog food, dust bunnies, bugs… and those are just the things we caught him chomping on! He calls for his 'Mama' with hands in the air, waves and says hi and bye, gives hugs accompanied by the sweetest, sloppy, open mouthed kisses. He has no idea all of our worlds will change forever in a few short months.

I am still stunned at the negative reactions of some people when I tell them I'm pregnant again. I've had people furrow their brows and tell me how sorry they are. Sorry? I just announced the creation of a new life, not a death! I don't want your sympathy. Some say things like, 'So soon? Were you trying to get pregnant?' None of your business, but if you need to know the details of my intimate life, we weren't trying not to get pregnant, if you get my drift. The question the annoys me most is 'So, was this an accident?' No, considering I believe everything happens for a reason and I would never refer to any of my children as accidents!

I always wanted my kids no more than 2 years apart. Mission accomplished, with a twist! My brother and I are 18 months apart and I don't remember a world without him. I loved him more than I loved anybody. There are pictures of me holding my own bottle with one hand and his with my other. As the days go by, I have more respect and admiration for my mother than ever before. I say lots of prayers thanking God for my husband and family's help and always one for single mother's because I can't imagine doing what I'm doing by myself.

If I were to have written a book on how my life would turn out, my story would have never looked like this. A Newburg girl living amongst the cows in the country with a hot husband, adorable son, and two more on the way. Twins! In Africa there is a myth that the mother of twins has supernatural powers. I like that idea. I'm going to need some kind of special power to make it through the remaining months of this pregnancy and the next few years of newborns, toddlers, and all the unknowns yet to come. I already have one a special power though, it's called faith. On a recent trip to the emergency room, one ER doctor told me it was going to take a miracle for one of the babies to survive.

'You know what?' I wanted to say, ' I believe in miracles.'

I feed, love, hug and kiss one every day.