Our first obstetrics appointment was in early January 2005. My gestational age was 8 weeks and 2 days. Bernard was in Chicago so I left work early and went by myself. We were especially nervous about this appointment because in October 2003, we found out that I was carrying a molar pregnancy. I won’t go into too many details about that experience, but essentially a molar pregnancy is a placental tumor with no viable fetus. It can metastasize and become malignant so it has to be removed right away. I had a D and C (dilation and curretage) in October and had to have my blood levels of beta-HCG (which is super-high in molar pregnancies) monitored for one year. In addition, you can’t try to get pregnant again for one year after a molar pregnancy because of the risk of the tumor coming back.

I told my doctor while getting ready for the ultrasound, “I’m hoping for the best, but I’ve prepared myself for the worst.”

She nodded and said, “Well statistically, we can definitely be optimistic.” (My risk of another molar pregnancy was 2 to 3 percent.)

I stared at the ultrasound screen while my obstetrician was looking around. Even though I have some experience with vascular ultrasound, prenatal ultrasound is very different so I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking at. Suddenly, my doctor made a funny sound — a snort? A laugh? I suddenly panicked and thought, “What’s going on?”

My obstetrician said, “Boy, you are full of surprises.” She pointed to the screen. “Here’s one gestational sac.” She then pointed to another clearly defined dark space to the right of the first one, “And here’s another one.” She brought the ultrasound probe back over to the sac on the left. “Here’s one fetus and its heartbeat and — here’s the other fetus and the heartbeat.” (You can see the pictures from this appointment in our first blog entry)

“Twins?” I gasped.

“Twins.” She said. “And they both look healthy, but I want you to come back in two weeks for another ultrasound.”

I was still in a daze as I was walking to my car after the appointment. I called Chicago from my cell phone. The last time I called Bernard after an OB appointment was in October 2003 and at that time, I was hyperventilating and crying, because I was literally walking from my obstetrician’s office to the main hospital to schedule my surgery for the next day. This time, I was in shock, but grinning.

“How did it go?” Bernard said.

“It went okay,” I said. I was temporarily tongue-tied so there was an awkward pause, where I’m sure Bernard was getting confused. Finally, I blurted it out, “We’re having twins.”

There was silence on the phone again. “Really?” He finally said. Actually, we didn’t even know what to say to each other after that. Just a lot of “wows” and “what are we going to do?”