NEW LIVES
"she gave me what I most needed and couldn’t find on my own: comfort, hope, and reassurance"
By Michael Wolfe
“Follow me to see your babies.”
The nurse stood in the doorway of the operating room, pointing towards the exit. I looked to my wife, sweaty and exhausted after just delivering twins. She gave me a nod of approval, so I kissed her on the forehead, told her I loved her and followed the nurse out the door.
They like to call it a “difficult” pregnancy, like a “cozy” home no bigger than a closet, or a “spirited” child that’s really more of a [jerk]. My wife and I (yes, we’re in this together) struggled to get pregnant, finally resorting to in vitro fertilization that required me to shoot needles into my wife’s backside far more regularly than my marriage contract required.
But we considered ourselves blessed when we learned that she was pregnant with twins, and virtually erupted in cheers when the doctors told us that our family would remain in balance: we were having a boy and a girl.
My wife is just a tick over five feet tall, and I wondered exactly where these kids were supposed to be stored for nine months. And indeed, she started to grow out of her stylish pants pretty much immediately. Small mom, two babies; there was nowhere left to go but OUT.
In the third month of pregnancy, the normally surly commuters of New York City started to give up their seats on the bus to her. She was going to get big, and fast.
But trouble started brewing after about 5 months. At 21 weeks, she began to have contractions and raced to the emergency room...read more
*warning, this writer uses some profanity
