People seem to instinctively understand a mother’s attachment to a child growing within her, but a father’s connection is not that obvious. Over the years since our tragic experience, I have often been asked about my attachment to my twins. People wonder how a father can become so attached to unborn children he never met. A large part of the answer to that question began that first night as my wife and I were going to bed. It was a spontaneous moment, and completely unplanned, but after saying goodnight to my wife, I said “goodnight sweetie” to my unborn child as well.
I slept well that night (and likely a lot over that Shabbos as well). While I had spontaneously said goodnight to my unborn child that first night, it made sense to continue to make the same wish on every subsequent night.
Internet resources are great, and we quickly filled out an online pregnancy calendar so we could determine the due date (at first when my wife broached the idea, I had no idea what a pregnancy calendar was). We saw the results, October 21, as even more evidence that this pregnancy was bashert because October 21 was the anniversary of the day my wife and I first met.
Our follow-up appointments through the first trimester were all held at the fertility clinic. As I mentioned before, I was fortunate enough to have the flexibility in my work schedule to accompany my wife to her appointments. Thankfully, things were going well. The numbers from her blood test continued to progress in the right way. Aside from a prescription for progesterone pills, there was nothing to indicate that this was anything but a healthy pregnancy. It looked like things were all falling into place.
We eagerly anticipated our first major ultrasound at around 10 weeks gestation. We knew that would be the first real opportunity to see our baby and chart its growth and progress. We were nervous as we waited for the fertility nurse to begin.
For people without ultrasound training, there is no way to understand what we were seeing on that screen. We watched, completely clueless, as the nurse moved the ultrasound around. Our hearts sank as she said, “I don’t know how to tell you this….” only to be replaced with absolute joy when she continued, “you are expecting twins.”
My wife and I were ecstatic. I hugged her as we celebrated with the same kind of joy we expressed to the initial news that we were expecting. This was always in the back of our minds, but it was simply too good to be true. Twins represented an instant family, and much less of a need to go through the fertility process again any time in the near future.
The nurse’s reaction shocked me. After our brief celebration, she told us that most parents in the clinic reacted quite negatively to the news of multiples and that she was a bit shocked by the joy and excitement we expressed. The nurse was worried that her words, which represented the biggest bracha imaginable to us, would be seen as a negative. I didn’t understand how the news of multiples in a fertility clinic could ever be seen as anything except great news, but none of that made a difference to us.
We left the office with the strong feeling that Hashem was finally smiling down on us and that all of our wishes were starting to come true. That night, and on each subsequent night, I added a second “good night sweetie,” one for each of our two babies.
My wife and I discussed whether we would like to know the gender of the babies, as that could already be determined at the next scheduled ultrasound at around 13 or 14 weeks. All indications were that we were finally moving to our destiny and to a renewed and expanded celebration on October 21, but soon those hopes would be replaced by fears as things started to go terribly wrong.
