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