You see two…..?

We are now 14 months into twin parenthood, and it has just now occurred to me that I am awake enough to begin writing my blog — that is, after the two cups of coffee I’ve had, with a third in my very near future.  We got a solid 6 hours of sleep last night, punctuated only once by the piercing shrieks that our son, Jack, has so well perfected.  In fact, if the Olympics had an event that was based solely on vocal volume, we’d have the youngest gold-medalist of all time on our hands.

Shall I start at the beginning?  Buckle up, because you’re about to experience life in the Sweeney household starting from the moment our lives changed forever.

It was a beautiful day in early summer, Kevin and I were heading to what we thought was the first of a few routine ultrasounds.  After some excited peeks at the screen in front of us, we heard the words we’d never forget: “I see two!”

My reply was that of any normal person, I’d imagine.  I looked at the tech and said, “Excuse me?  Two what? I thought it was too early to see the arms and legs!”  “No, silly.  Two BABIES.  You’re having twins!”

HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?  I didn’t realize I had said it out loud, but I did.  And it was forceful.  So forceful that the poor tech tried to explain the science behind twins and then decided it would be in all of our best interests to “give us a minute.”  After staring at each other in dumbfounded silence for what seemed like several hours, we were escorted to the nurse practitioner’s office where we were then bombarded with several sheets of paper and the phrases “bedrest,” “no work after 26 weeks,” “pre-eclampsia,” and my personal favorite, “high risk pregnancy.”  It was a whirlwind of information that flew directly over our heads, so much so that when we left the office with smiles plastered on our faces, Kevin looked at me and said “Um, what did she say?”

We drove home in disbelief, thoughts racing and hands shaking.  That day will forever be burned in my memory as the day we had our first experience as parents.  It was a day full of excitement, surprise, slight horror, and most definitely uncertainty.  Strange, because every day since then has had an element of all of those things — like when Jack wakes up smiling but there’s an ever-so-slight odor of something unsavory following him in his travels from one end of the crib to the other.  Excitement because he’s woken up and hasn’t started screaming.  Surprise because he’s woken up and hasn’t started screaming.  Slight horror because that smell never means anything good has happened.  Uncertainty because you’re not really sure if there are any clean onesies in the drawer and the smell indicates that you’ll probably need one.  We’re veterans at this now, we bought more than one pack of onesies at our last Target run.

Have you just had your HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN moment?  Have you ever had one?  Have you ever wondered what happens next?  Stick with me and I’ll give you a peek into the hilarious, every day life happenings of twin parenting in Washington DC.