September 1st, 2007 - The Great Reveal

"proof positive"

" our shocker "

Let me take you back a few weeks...picture this: Mike and Leah pleased as punch to be pregnant at all, skip into the doctors office with giggles and nervous smiles on our faces. We get to see our baby today, woo hoo! We know that my HCG numbers are higher than normal, but the doctors said less than .5% chance for multiples and even the nurses say that looking at our numbers it is maybe twins, which we think can handle, so we are nervously talking about the possibility that we might have twins and giggling like 5 year olds in the doctor office waiting room trying not to disturb the other waiting patients, most of whom are still undergoing fertility treatments and who are still not pregnant.
We are holding hands and trying not to fidget and then they finally call us in for our ultrasound. I am laying there on the table unable to see the screen and Mike is looking at the screen with no idea what he is looking at. The ultrasound technician isn't saying anything. She is just scanning along, and I say "Is there a heartbeat" because I am getting worried and she says yes. I ask "Is there more than one?" and she says "the doctor will give you the report" so i am like okay...Mike is watching and starting to escalate a bit because he senses that the technician is surprised and because it takes like 15 minutes with him watching and me not able to see and now I am starting to get nervous too so i am mouthing silent questions to him across the room like " what do you see" and he words back " i dont know" and I say "TRY" and he says "just dots" and I say "dots, like more than one?" and he says "yeah and I think she wrote a C" and I say "no way". And so after a while the ultrasound is done and they walk us back to the waiting room telling us absolutely nothing. Now we are in the waiting room again, still giggling but extremely anxious and not sure how to feel. Mike swears he saw her write a C and he said that everything just looked like an alien face, 2 eyes and a mouth and I am saying there is no way that was the babies, it must have been my ovaries that you saw. There is no way that there could be 3 babies and we are looking at each other desperate for affirmation that 3 babies is not a possibility but of course we dont know what to say to we continue to whisper and giggle to each other, ecited to find out what they will tell us.
We get called in again to the office and the doctor walks in. He is smiling and he hands us a photo. It says congratulations and indeed it looks like an alien head, 2 eyes and a mouth. We look at it, we look at each other, we look at it and the doctor says "congratulations on your triplets, you have really beaten the odds" and I say "Oh My God are you serious...is it too late for a surrogate" and Mike says "We have a basketball team" and I think that we both are about to faint and the doctor says "Ill give you two a few minutes alone" and he leaves the room. We look at each other and I start crying "How could this happen" I say, "Holy shit" and Mike says "Honey its going to be okay, we will figure this out, people arent going to believe this, we would have triplets, our luck is so weird, I told you I saw an alien head". We are shakily recovering from our shock and in comes the doctor again.
He knows that we are pleased to be pregnant but unsure of our news, it is obvious that I was shocked. So now the doctor says "congratulations you have three babies (yeah we got that part), how are you doing with this information, and do you want to talk to someone regarding selective reduction" all in one swoop of a conversation....and I thinking "wait a minute..I have 3 babies in me, yes keep saying it and it might be real.. ummm i am starting to panic with this information, thanks for asking... wait, what, selective reduction? should i talk to someone about selective reduction? why, is this really that dangerous? could i end up with no babies again? could i die? oh my god they ill come too early wont they...i work with premies, they can have so many complications, they can die, i dont want my babies to die, i definitely dont want to be he one to kill them...do i have to "selectively reduce" one in order to save the others? cant they all survive this, doesnt that happen too?.. and out loud I say "umm thanks, we're okay" and i weakly smile at him "sure I'll take that name" and I take the specialists card and I get dressed and we walk out of the room and we get the names of high risk ob doctors because with triplets i will need one and Mike and we say our goodbyes to all of the excited ladies at the desk and we walk out into the hallway and we start giggling again because we are still nervous and excited but for different reasons than before. And I say "how are we gonna tell our moms" and Mike laughs and says "I dont know but we have to tell them" maybe we can just say "we have a basketball team" and i laugh (and I feel like crying again) and we hold hands and walk outside.