Friday I'm In Love

It took a while to get here, but the day Rachel and I had been waiting for finally arrived today. We got to see our babies again. It has been four long weeks since our last appointment, which probably does not seem long to normal couples. But to us, a couple who had to be monitored every three days, it was an eternity. I was as giddy as a child on Christmas morning when I woke up today. Also, with it being Friday, I had post-title/Cure song stuck in my head all morning. Rachel, with her nerves of steel, had a tummy ache which I believe to be anxiety induced.

We both took the entire day off of work today for our round of two appointments. Our first appointment was at ROC, which specializes in high-risk prenatal care. They performed ultrasound scans on the children for about 20-25 minutes. The results of which I can tell you are:

1. Lellow is 7 oz. now, Red is 8.

2. Lellow's heart rate was 159, Red's was 153.

Based upon facts 1 and 2, I am now more convinced than ever that Lellow will be a svelte, speedy outfielder type and Red will be a lovable, possibly portly catcher. But, I digress...

3. They are both in the normal range for all anatomical factors, including but not limited to arm and leg length, head size, heart rate, weight and awesomeness.

4. I confess, they did not have a machine to measure their awesomeness, but it was apparent.

Also, I convinced the extremely unenthusiastic nurse to label their sonogram pictures Red and Lellow instead of A and B. I am fairly certain that the only reason she did it was to prevent me from talking anymore about how they arrived at those two "womb" names. The picture with Red's name on it looks as though he is wearing a Halloween mask, so I didn't post it. The nurse did determine the sex of the twins, but luckily I reminded her that we didn't want to know. I can't imagine how lame it would have been to find out the sex from Monotone Mary the nurse anyway.

Nurse: "This one's a boy."

Rachel: (tearing up) "I knew it, oh my gosh, I'm so happy..."

Billy: (holding Rachel's hand and smiling at the screen) "A boy... This is so cool..."

Nurse: "Yeah, whatever, please hold still (yawn)... I have eight other patients to get through before I can finish my sudoku puzzle."

After Debbie Downer the nurse left the room, Rachel decided she had not seen enough of the kiddos. She took matters into her own hands and snuck some extra sonogram shots. Although it was fun to break the rules, I can see now why they don't sell sonogram machines to the public (you know, besides the prohibitively high cost and all). It was kind of like watching a scrambled cable channel... I think I saw an elbow, but it might have been a close-up of a placenta. Also, we think we saw one of the babies spines but it might have been that Cheeto Rachel accidentally swallowed whole on Tuesday. Either way, Rachel needs to stick to teaching because sonogram tech is simply not a good career choice for her.

Once the doctor arrived, our fun got a bit dampened. We were informed that there is a small cyst on or near Red's brain. Before we could sound the alarm for pregnancy scare number two, the doctor informed us that he thinks it is nothing serious and should disappear before our next visit in four weeks. He based this on the fact that Red is active and measures absolutely fine in all other tests.

Later in the afternoon, we had our second appointment. This one was with Rachel's OB/GYN, or should I say former OB/GYN. Our decision to change doctor's had nothing to do with Dr. Kim-Aschi, who is a terrific doctor. It was instead spurned by our desire to deliver in a hospital with which she does not work. During our last appointment we learned that Dr. Kim-Aschi intended for us to deliver at Memorial Hospital. We had never been to Memorial, but had heard some poor reports about it from local friends. A few weeks ago, we toured the delivery and recovery wards of Memorial and our originally preferred hospital, Baptist's. After some painstaking thought, Rachel and I decided that we would prefer to deliver at Baptist's, even if it meant changing doctors. Although both Hospitals are highly regarded for great infant care, Baptist's has a superior NICU, which may come in handy should there be any complications during the first few days. Also, we are closer to Baptist's, and Rachel and I know the layout of the hospital and surrounding area well since we had all of our infertility treatments there. So, this afternoon, we broke up with Dr. Kim-Aschi and her clinic, and are off into the great unknown. We will be setting up an appointment with a new clinic next week. I hope our doctor is either a woman or has a mustache.

Well, that's about it for now. The names we ruled out this week are all takes on alcohol. I gave up drinking for Lent this year, and so as a couple, we have decided to abstain from names that are based on booze, such as Tequala, Vidka, Dewars and the ever-popular baby name Willer Lite.