A Blast From The Past...I Snuck 2 Past the Goalie!

Another favorite memory...This is my 2nd edition of  "A Blast From the Past..."  This is when they were a little over 1 month old - Enjoy!


I snuck two past the goalie!

PICTURE ABOVE:  Ady is on the Left and Riley is on the right - this is when they were a little over 1 month old.  How cute they are cuddling with each other!  Their twin bond is just as cute today as they'll be 3 in October.

About two weeks before we were going in for our very first appointment with Dr. Stumpf, I remember thinking about the possibility of twins.  About a week before we went in I remember having a very quick conversation about it with Sara’s dad – Bob. 

Now – Bob has twin nephews, but I’ve always heard of twins skipping a generation.  Now is that a myth or is that true?

“Hey Bob, do twins run in your family?”  O.K. – maybe a stupid question because he looks at me as if I’m a total idiot, and I know what’s going on in his head….. “Oh my, who in the hell did my daughter marry?” Because he has twin nephews that I have met and hung out with.

So, I catch this look right away, and I try again, “What I mean is, are twins in your family or are they in your Brother-in-Law’s?”

The look vanishes, somewhat, although I think at times he still thinks I’m an idiot, which I have come to accept.  Anyway, he tells me that he thinks his grandma was one of a twin.

While all of this is going on, my very intelligent, beautiful, ALWAYS CORRECT, wife, says, “There is no way I have twins, I don’t feel sick at all, if I had twins, I would feel really sick”.

So, I put the thought aside and just kind of let my wife thinks she is correct, like she always is, but that is another story I suppose.

Oh man, all of this first time parents stuff, we go in and we get there early and check in and sit down and are sitting there not knowing what to expect and super excited at the same time.

A nurse walks out of the backroom, where only special people can go and announces “Sara Ketterhagen?”  Sara and I basically jump out of our chairs and she leads us into that special backroom and then into Dr. Stumpf’s office where we learn about the “birds and the bees” of pregnancy.

I know Dr. Stumpf told us all kinds of important “Do this, don’t do that” kind of stuff, “take your prenatal vitamins”, etc. but I can’t remember for the life of me what he said, which is totally o.k. because of what followed…

Sara and I were led into a room where Sara experienced her first ultrasound…..VAGINALLY!  I watched, while Dr. Stumpf lubed up this probe, this long, uncomfortable looking dildo-looking thing, and then all of a sudden said, “Deep breath”, and inserted this thing in Sara – OH MY GOD!  I think I felt the pain more than Sara as I imagined this thing being inserted into her.  It seemed like forever as I watched this thing disappear into Sara and all of a sudden, within seconds, “O.K. there it is, there is the heartbeat and as we were looking, we saw this little blob that had a tiny, tiny blob inside of it blinking a hundred blinks a second – it was there at that exact second when I felt like a MAN, like I am doing my duty to society.  It was also at that moment when I let out a huge sigh of relief.

Remember every time you got kicked, hit, punched, etc right square in the nuts as a kid?  Well I believed in that myth where if you got kicked hard enough, you might not be able to have kids – well, that started affecting me because it took Sara and I a couple of months of “practicing” (that’s what I like to call it), and I started thinking that maybe it was me, maybe I was “shooting blanks”.  Now that I know that I can add to our overpopulated world, I think I would like to practice more before the actual game time!  Sara on the other hand thinks it should be game time the first time we try – I don’t think so – I want it to be just right, which is why we need the practice!

I remember the hardest I have ever been kicked in the balls before, I mean testicles, I’m suppose to be using proper language around my daughters – says Sara.  I was helping my buddy out, who was a coach at Milwaukee Juneau for the boys basketball team when we were running up and down the court and there was a steal and a fast-break coming the other way and I went to take a charge and I put my hands up and the kid came square into me with his knee.  I have never doubled over so quickly because my penis, my testicles, my scrotum and everything else that is down there went numb.  It was an unbearable sensation that I would not like to feel ever again!  I totally lost feeling in my junk – sorry girls – but that wasn’t the worst thing – the worst came next when the influx of pain came and the numbness wore off – let’s just say I want to forget that part too!

Back to the blinking blob inside of the blinking blob.  I can’t tell you the feelings that I felt, tears filling my eyes, and how my wife reacted when we saw that blinking blob.  Sara absolutely glowed, I was so proud of her and how she and her body were going to embark on this unbelievable journey.  She was my hero and still is to this day.  My mind was completely wandering, when Dr. Stumpf said, “Oh, I have a little surprise for you”.  I knew right then and there that there was another blob with another blinking blob inside of it.  I swear on everything that I know, I knew we were having twins, my inside voice told me to expect twins weeks before we went into that ultrasound – I just knew!

“And there is the other heartbeat” Dr. Stumpf said.  Immediately, Sara asks in a panic tone, “What does that mean?”  “You’re having twins” the doc says with a casual smile, like it is no big deal.  “Yeah, what does that mean?” Sara asks again, a little more panicky and a little more concerned.  Sara went on to ask that question at least two more times and all I could think of was – I knew it, I knew it – we’re having twins!  Dr. Stumpf on the other hand was probably thinking, “Hey idiot, you’re having twins, two babies, what do you mean, what does that mean?”

It also meant that we were going on a less traveled path – remember the “birds and the bees” talk about pregnancy – well, everything had changed.  “Remember everything that I told you before?” Dr. Stumpf said, “forget it, because that was for one baby, you’re going to have twins” – Sara still didn’t understand however.

See, Sara is our reality check, she is the one that always takes things into perspective.  She understood what twins were, she was just thinking about all of the things that we were going to have to do to get ready for twins.  I, however, was in La La Land, which if you ask my wife, I am a regular attendee.  I was thinking how I not only snuck one past the goalie, but two – I’m the man! Almost a hat-trick – WAIT – THANK GOD there was no hat-trick!  I was daydreaming about what lay ahead – way ahead, I was thinking that I would have two shooting guards! 

I always get back to reality, but it usually takes me some time and it usually gets Sara annoyed and/or me in a lot of trouble.  It did at that moment because she was absolutely freaking out and stressing and I was grinning ear-to-ear with no thought of the work, craziness, and absolute insanity that lay ahead.

Twins?  I mean, honestly, how crazy can that be?

ADYRILEY

Well - it's a ton of work, but I wouldn't trade any of it for the world - I mean how cute are they?!?!