The Wife's Experience Pt 2

Continued from Pt 1.

Original ultrasound post here.

So as the wife is going into the ultrasound room and getting hooked up, she is talking away to the technician. We had agreed not to find out the sex of the baby, as we wanted it to be a surprise. Also, some friends told us that the birth was just not as exciting when you knew the sex.

So as she is getting ready, the wife is going on and on about how we don't want to know the sex, we want to be surprised, blah blah blah. (In fact, this place does not allow you to know the sex, which seems to be standard now.)

After a while she starts to get a bit upset, as the women seems to be ignoring the wife, giving her that polite grunt that says "Whatever you say, I am not paying attention".

About this time, I guess the woman gets tired of the wife's chatter, so she turns to her and says:

"Honey, I think you have more important things to worry about than that. It's twins."

I would have loved to see the expression on her face. It was probably a mirror of mine a few minutes later.

The Wife's Experience Pt 1

Before relating how the wife found out, I have to say there are very few times in my life I have been truely, jaw-dropped surprised. The last time I can remember was my 19th surprise birthday party (the two are not really comparable).

I had completely written the possibility of twins out of my mind as of the first meeting with the doctor. My first meeting with the doc was the wife's 3rd meeting, and I naively thought that any big surprises would have been out by now. Our ultrasound was at 18+ weeks, which is half way through. As a commenter mentioned in this post, there were surprises like this in the past. I figured having two show up at birth instead of one was so far in the past that I would have known the size of the team sooner than at the half way mark.

An interesting aside, less than a week before we found out we were having twins we were at our first baby sale. Picture a packed community hall, 30-50 women, each with a table covered with baby clothes and toys. I hate shopping unless it's power tools or some sort of electronic toy. So as the wife is looking at baby clothes, I wandered into the larger item room (strollers are sort of like a machine). The wife wanders in after me and we see a double stroller there.

I remark to her, "At least we are not having two". Her reply:

"I was just thinking the same thing".

Part Two tomorrow

It's Twins

Yes, you read correctly. We are having two, not one.

This wonderful news just about floored me.

It was at the 18 week mark, and we were going in for our first ultrasound. They take the wife in first for some reason, but said they would be soon out to get me. The wait is getting longer, and I am starting to worry when finally the technician comes out and calls my name. No hint of what is to come.

I get to the room and the wife looks up at me and says "Guess what?"

I say "I do not know, what?"

She says, "Guess"

Now I am starting to get pissed. What could be there to guess? We already agreed not to know the sex of the baby, so the only thing I could think of was various horrible deformaties that I did not even want to think about.

My reaction was to start to pace, then stop and look her in the eye and demand she tell me what was going on. This is my serious look, the one I save for situations when you should not mess with me. It is the "I am considering doing serious bodily harm to you" look.

The wife must have recognised the look (though this is the first time I used it on her) and she spilled the beans and told me we were having twins.

My reaction was disbelief. I mean, we had seen the doctor a few weeks ago. He checked her out, we listened to the heartbeat (I heard only one) and said eveything was fine. No mention of the possibility of more than one.

I don't like doctors. Some tend to conceal the true about what is going on "for your own good". Perhaps conceal is a strong work, but I like to know all the possibilities. I am not some liberal who can't take the truth. You can bet I will have words with this guy.

Next: Discussions with the doc and how the wife found out.

Collecting Ammo

I'm not sure how much the wife is into this baby thing. She has taken to calling the fruit of my loins "the pod".

I suppose that it better than her prior nickname, which was "the parasite". She stopped doing that after I threatened to tell the kid when he/she grew up.

I can just imagine, in the middle of some big fight, I would say "Well, at least I don't think Junior is a parasite."

It's never too early to start building up ammunition for the divorce hearing.

I wish I could claim that one, but I actually heard someone claim that marriage was not about love or all that other junk, but it was actually about having someone to collect information on and use against, in an effort to "one up".

The wife certainly has that one down pat. Once, about 1 million years ago, I burnt some meat I was cooking. Every time I cook or BBQ something, there is always some comment about "Is it burnt", or "How about a bit less carbon this time, honey?"

I will save this one, locked away in my brain, for a suitably appropriate time in the far future.

Everyone needs something to look forward to.

All Hail the Power of the Fertility Cock

(or How Tom Cruise Helped Conceive My Child)

The wife belongs to a dancing group and one of the things they do is give this rooster to each new married couple. They call it the Fertility Cock and is supposed to help conceive a child (a modern version of some ancient fertility myth). The thing has a good track record. Every couple who has had it gets pregnant.

All that hippie crap aside, the thing worked from a few thousand miles away and the wife is pregnant.

I am sure no one wants the details of the conception (it’s not that kind of blog), but suffice it to say, if The Last Samurai had been a more movie interesting, I might not have kids.

However, that is not the worst of it.

More details tomorrow.

Post Anniversary

Thanks for the suggestions.

In the end, we did some work around the house during the day and spent the night in a nice suite at the Fantasyland Hotel in Edmonton.

The evening included a fancy dinner and some gambling at the casino, where the wife won $16 at roulette.

Unfortunately she lost $20 at blackjack, so we were down $4 at the end of the night.

Lack of Posting

Sorry to all three of my readers for my lack of posting. Things have been a bit busy around here but I promise to start posting more.

There has been a bit of an event that will change the nature of this blog and that will provide you, dear reader, with much amusement.

More on that tomorrow.