Ultrasounds....And Twins!

We snuck into the doctor's office late Monday afternoon. Our mission was to get one of those "for fun" ultrasounds that our doctor had invited us to have. It was all very hush hush, secret spy sort of stuff. Don't tell Obama. We don't want to get the health care police into a huff.

Even if you've done it before it is always fun to visit the ultrasound machine. Those grainy black and white pictures offer the first glimpses of the babies that you can't wait to hold in a few months.

We had seen the babies at about seven weeks. That is how we got the news we were expecting twins. Of course they looked like grains of rice way back then. Now we were eager to see how they had grown, and what a tummy full of two babies looked like.

Well it was nothing short of amazing. It was hard for the ultrasound lady to hold both babies in one view. But for one brief moment she got them. It didn't last long enough for her to hit the print button so we didn't get a picture. They apparently don't offer DVDs of these secret sessions either. But that didn't matter. The image of both babies, one on top of the other, will live on in my memory forever. What an amazing thing.

We got some other great images as well. There was one where one of the babies had his hand held out in front of his/her head. You could clearly see all five fingers. It is so crazy that, even as small as they are, they look like babies now. The tiny arms, legs, hands, and feet are so cute.

We won't go in for the official determination of the sex for another five weeks. So I have no announcement to make on that front. At one point during the show both Arica and I thought we saw "boy parts" on one of the babies. I can't remember if it was Baby A or Baby B. As a side note, at our particular clinic they always call the baby located lowest in the belly Baby A. I don't know if this is common convention or just their preference. Either way now you know.

The stenographer (read ultrasound lady) said she couldn't find any "boy parts" but it was really too early to tell. The doctor also said it was too early. Despite the fact that these two people are medical professionals and one of them has been delivering babies for 30 years, everyone we know has said they are wrong. They can tell the sex now. Whatever. We will not know the sex for another five weeks. That's my story.

I have, however, begun to prepare myself for the possibility of twin girls. I keep hearing that stupid Coors light commercial ringing in my head.

"And Twins!"

That's a nightmare.

I've also started to develop building plans for Braden and I to have our own little escape from the girls. It will be a place we can go to escape reality TV and watch a football game instead. It will have multiple TVs. It will have cold drinks. There will be rock music. It will be our manly place. I don't like the term man cave so I'm not calling it that. That term rose to prominence too fast for me. I never really accepted it. We'll call it, as Frank Costanza once said, "The Place to Be."

Whether "The Place to Be" ever comes to life or not is really not important. Maybe Arica will need her own place to run from all the boys when the time comes. We don't know. What we do know is that so far the babies are perfectly healthy, and that is all that really matters.