Father of Daughters, Music Critic

In the car, the girls have requested "You Don't Know Your Beautiful" by One Direction on the Ipod.  Their dad obliges.

Brian:  This song makes me angrier every time I hear it.

Me:  It's not great art.  That's for sure.

Brian:  "The way you smile at the ground...."  Yes, your self-consciousness is such a turn on for me.  Whatever you do, don't act like you're feeling good about yourself.   

Me:  The kids like the song because it was played at the pool all summer.  I don't think they're paying attention to the lyrics.

Brian:  You know, there's a name for guys who are attracted to girls who lack self-confidence.

Me:  What's that?

Brian:  Date rapists.

God Must've Really Wanted me to Start Blogging Again

I should've known this pregnancy was not going to be like the others when I was watching Dear John on TV one night shortly after taking a positive pregnancy test.  Please don't judge me.  Brian was out of town; Channing Tatum stars in the movie.  Need I say more?  Only this time, I didn't just watch Channing Tatum with the movie on mute.  I got emotionally invested.  Rivers of tears ran down my cheeks from the moment poor Channing deployed to the middle east.    

Profoundly out-of-whack hormones is the only explanation for this.

About five or six weeks later, we're in our OB's office.  She's a new OB.  

(My old OB, who delivered both of our daughters, had in the past year decided that she was done delivering babies.  When I went to see her for my annual appointment a few months ago, I mentioned that we were on the fence about having one more.  I said, "It's a tough call.  You can't do it just because you want a boy.  You have to want another girl too."  And she joked, "You're not ready to do it until you want twin girls."  At least, I thought she was joking.  In the event that I decided to have another baby, she referred me to her partner, Dr. Bolt, who is younger than me.)  

So Brian and I are in the ultrasound room making preliminary chit chat with Dr. Bolt about my last two deliveries and how this one will probably be "even easier," when we start the ultrasound.  Very quickly I see what looks like a fetus on the screen with its little heart going a mile a minute.  There is something else right next to it but I somehow block this out.  I am focused on this baby and am relieved, as everyone always is at these moments, to see a heartbeat.  

After a moment or two of silence Dr. Bolt says, "You know …… there's another baby here."  My immediate reaction to this information:  to look on the bright side, I didn't pass out, or hyperventilate, or smack Brian across the face for doing this to me, or scream.  What I did:  Cry.  Hard.  These were not tears of joy.  It had taken me four years to decide I actually wanted one more baby.  There was never a thought that there would be more than one more.  Ever.  And even the thought of just one more was making me more than a little nervous.  I'm 35!  That's "advanced maternal age!" I've already got a six and a half year old!  How do I do this without my mother?

Yes, I cried hard.  Even harder than I cried at the Channing Tatum movie.

Dr. Bolt told us a lot more information at this appointment, but every word after "there's another baby here" sounded like the voices of the parents in Charlie Brown movies.  The nurse had to grab me in the lobby to take me back to do my lab work.  Neither Brian nor I had any memory of anyone mentioning blood work, though surely they had told us about  it.

"We have to move."  "We have to get a minivan."  "We have to get a night nurse."  This, from me, the heretofore rabidly anti-night nurse mom.  That we would get semi-regular babysitting help during the day had already been established when we thought there would only be one more.  I had dispensed with the quaint notion that  because I had given up my career to raise my kids, I would spend all of my time raising my kids.  I want help.  I'm done with this "supermom" garbage.

For the next week or so, Brian and I woke up at about 5:00 am in a cold sweat.  He'd get out of bed and go sit on the couch with his calculator and our bank statements and figure out how to afford my rather forceful demand for an immediate move to larger digs.  I'd just lie there, wide awake, staring at the ceiling, reciting a very Catholic meditative prayer:  "Lord Jesus, Son of God and Savior, have mercy on me, a sinner."  Over and over and over.  

We were soon on a plane to Napa, CA for Brian's work, and the improvement in scenery and reprieve from the Houston heat made it seem like maybe we could handle this unexpected scenario after all.  

We went back to see Dr. Bolt for another appointment three weeks after the initial reveal.  This time I was nervous because I hadn't had any nausea, and very little discomfort.  This was a sign that something was very wrong, I had convinced myself.  When Dr. Bolt started the ultrasound, I immediately started looking for both babies.  Are they both ok?  Is the one that measured a little small getting bigger?  

They were both there, as big as they were supposed to be, doing somersaults, hearts beating like crazy.  And I was happy.  Relieved and happy.  About each one of these new little lives.

Game on.  We're ready.