Today we went for our first ultrasound. I wasn’t expecting much, as we are only five weeks and one day along. The Prince came to join me a few minutes before it was time for the ultrasound to begin. While we waited, he answered work emails, called his personal trainer, and did other annoying things that indicated to me that he was generally disinterested in what was going on. But then…the nurse came in the room.
The Prince has never seen a prenatal ultrasound before. As the nurse positioned herself and the machine to get started, I looked over at The Prince. He had his hands cupped over his mouth, his face was covered with sweat and he was hyperventilating a little. I asked if he was okay and he said with a shrug “Yeah. Of course”...but he never took his hands away from his mouth or his eyes off the screen. “Is that it?” he said, pointing at the screen. The nurse hadn’t put the probe in yet. She smiled politely and said “Nope. Not yet.”
A few seconds later, I started crying. A beautiful dark circle had appeared on the screen, with a tiny light circle inside of it. The Prince said “What? Is that bad?” And the nurse responded “Nope. That’s a beautiful sac and if you look right there, we can see the yolk sac.” He said, “The yolk? Like a chicken? Where’s the baby?” Taking over for the very patient nurse, I said “The baby is still too small to see honey, but the sacs mean the tiny dot of a baby is in there. Things look good."
With that, The Prince leaned back and started breathing deeply. I said to the nurse, “I think he’s relieved. My Hcg was pretty high, so there was some thought that it might be twins. But it looks like we have one healthy baby cookin’.” The nurse said “Well, sometimes we only see one at first and then a second appears later…” She stopped mid-sentence because as she said “a second appears,” the probe shifted and a second gestational sac, complete with a yolk sac appeared. The two little babes couldn’t have been further apart from each other in my uterus, but there they were…like two little eyes staring at us from the screen. We have twins!!!
The Prince said “No…where? I don’t see it.” I kept asking him if he was okay, because although he was smiling, his face had become pale and he looked like he might faint. The nurse walked him through what he was looking at and, for a second, he teared up. He didn’t let any tears fall…but he was close. To his credit, he said only positive things to me about the “twin situation” (except for one joking comment about how we are “now officially going to be poor forever”…a comment that I can forgive under the circumstances). He kissed me a lot (even in front of the nurse, which is not The Prince’s usual style) and kept on smiling. He was shaking when he said good-bye to me and he still looked like he might pass out, but I think he’s in shock and he will be just fine once the shock wears off.
As for me, I had been a little worried about this scenario. What would I think and how would I feel if I found out we were having twins? Would I panic? Would the pregnancy stop being “fun” and start being scary? It turns out that, as usual, I worried for nothing. I was elated when I saw that second dot. In fact, the nurse chastised me for giggling so hard that she couldn’t get a still picture of “Hamish 2” after we found him (or her). I was so excited, laughter was the only response I could give. I was literally bursting with joy.
My cheeks are still hurting a little from smiling so hard and I feel this warmth all through me. I’m happy and content and feeling so good. I may be poor for the rest of my life, but right now…today…I feel like the richest girl in the world.
