One year later – after the automobile accident:
It has been a rough year for Dana since she got out of the hospital. She did spend about ten days in a live-in care center that started her through intense physical therapy. She has gone from being in a wheelchair to gaining the strength to stand on her feet again, learning how to walk between parallel bars, being able to walk on her own with a walker, then using a cane, over the past few months she’s walking pretty much on her own without any aid.
I felt she did exceptionally well with her physical therapy. She convinced herself that she could go back to work, starting part-time. She started doing some financial analysis work from home. Only recently has she started driving herself to work for two to three days per week. She said it makes her feel that she is a contributor to society instead of a taker.
It was only the last four months or so that we were able to attempt having sex. The biggest problem was that I could not put any weight on her pelvis or push her legs up to her sides like usual. She said it hurt too much to do that right now. It seemed our best success at first was to have her lay on our bed or the kitchen table with her feet touching the floor. This way there was only her body weight to contend with, but I still had to be careful not to lean on her. It was a little tricky sliding my cock into her velvety vagina from her backside without putting any pressure on her. I think we finally got things working right when we had a great sex session when I stood entirely on my own and tilted forward from my feet, pushing my cock into her with her legs spread wide. She was able to have a good orgasm when we did it that way.
She and I have had several detailed and heart-to-heart conversations about her desire for children and our future. The doctors had told us that eventually, she would start having menstrual cycles again, which started about six months ago. However, any attempt to get her pregnant still was not working.
We decided she should go to a fertility specialist and see what they could tell her about the state of her reproductive organs, especially her ovaries and uterus.
The testing was grueling for her, which included detailed ultrasound scans (both internal and external), an orthoscopic internal inspection, X-rays with dye injections, blood tests for hormone levels, and other tests that took several hours to complete. We got the results a week later. What we found out was not very encouraging.
The tests showed that one ovary was functional, but its Fallopian tube appeared to be damaged and blocked. The other ovary was atrophied and did not appear to be functional. Her uterus appears to be intact and fully functional, even though it has some external scar tissue on it, the doctors did not see any reason why it would have any trouble carrying and delivering a baby.
They gave a detailed explanation of the options that we had to do to get a baby started:
A: Have surgery to repair her one Fallopian tube and open it up so an egg can travel through it. This would let her have her own children. However, the surgery would be expensive and was not guaranteed to be a success. It still required a fertile male to provide the sperm.
B: In vitro fertilization (IVF) involves retrieving some of her eggs from her one good ovary, fertilize the eggs outside of her body with sperm, the embryos are placed in an incubator and observed for two to five days, then one or two of the best ones are injected into her uterus in the hope of them implanting and growing into a baby. The remaining embryos are frozen for future use.
C: Surrogate: Two types – Traditional surrogate and Gestational Surrogate:
Traditional Surrogate is the goal of artificial insemination: the sperm is injected directly into the woman's uterus. Fertilization takes place inside the woman’s uterus with her egg that has been released from her ovary. The woman contributes her own DNA for the baby.
Gestational Surrogate: a donor egg is fertilized by sperm outside of a woman’s body. Once fertilized, it is allowed to grow for up to five days (then it is called an embryo) and is implanted in the woman’s uterus that will (hopefully) be growing and delivering the baby. The woman carrying the baby contributes no DNA to the baby. Any extra-unused embryos can be frozen for future use.
The surrogate options left many questions for us: Who would furnish the embryos? What did the parents look like? What type of medical and mental history did they have? Even though it was an option, she just didn’t have a strong desire to use a donor egg fertilized by some unknown father as she had no idea what he was like, both physical body style and size, hair and skin color, etc. In addition, it would not be her DNA.
There are pros and cons to each of the options. The success rate for option A (Surgery to fix her Fallopian tube) ranges from 20-60% depending on what they find when they get in there. IVF is a strong possibility, but has nominal success with 20-35% success per cycle, and gets very expensive quickly, with no promise of success.
Her desire for children was still very strong. She was still considered young at thirty-two years old and felt she had the strength to go through one of the procedures. After all the events over the last year, she had changed her mind about her demand that someone other than me be her sperm donor. She had concluded that having a child fathered by me could be an acceptable option. Another main point is that she knew that if it were my child, I would stay and help her through the pregnancy and help take care of her and the baby afterward. She would not have to go it alone.
We were still working on finding the funds for the Fallopian tube surgery and negotiating with my insurance company to see if they would cover any of the costs when we received a particularly unique and surprising option.
One evening after dinner, we received an unexpected phone call from Olivia, widow of Richard. She asked if we were going to be home in about thirty minutes and asked if she can come over and discuss something with us about which she has to make a big decision.
I said to Dana that my immediate thoughts were, “Oh no! Is she going to try to bring a court case against us for something – like aiding and abetting being part of the death of her husband somehow?”
Dana replied, “I doubt there is anything that she can try to say I caused that will have any validity in court. Let’s just calm down and see what she wants to say to us.”
About forty minutes later, the doorbell rang. I went to the door and greeted Olivia as nicely as I could. I asked her to come in and sit down. She chose our large stuffed chair that faced the couch. Dana came in and sat on the couch by me. I asked Olivia if she would like a cold bottle of water. She replied, “Yes, that would be nice. With what I’ve got to tell you, I will probably need it.” Dana and I looked at each other with puzzled faces.
I handed her the water and she took a drink, Olivia turned to both of us and started, “Dana, I know that this past year has been hell-on-earth for you because it has been for me. I can imagine the pain of healing from the accident and the long physical therapy was a terrible agony to endure. For me, life without Richard has been tough, both emotionally, physically, and financially. The insurance money helped a lot and I’m beginning to think I’m going to make it through this after all.”
“But I didn’t come here to tell you about my woes. I am sure you do not want to hear that. Why I came here is to offer you something extremely personal to Richard and me. Dana, I remembered that you said that you had admired my family and said you wanted to have children just like them. You adored their dark hair, their physical build, and their good looks. I understand that in an attempt to have children like mine you joined in the affair with Richard.”
Dana nodded silently as she was thinking back to their conversation in the hospital.
“Nobody knows, not even my children, that we had some fertilized embryos of ours frozen. The reason is that right after my last child was born, I had a lymphoma cancer that needed chemotherapy and radiation to cure. That would, of course, have destroyed my eggs for any future children. We did not know if we were finished having children or not, so we had several of my eggs harvested and fertilized with Richard’s sperm. We chose to freeze the embryos instead of eggs because we were told that the survival rate was higher for the embryos as they did not seem to be as delicate as just the eggs would be.”
“I have been paying over eight hundred dollars per year to keep them frozen. They can survive indefinitely as long as their storage payments are met. I am much older now and have no desire to have another child. I am even going to be a grandmother soon. The time to have children is when you are much younger. I also do not see much of a need to continue to pay to keep the embryos frozen. I need to decide as to what to do with them.”
“My options are to give them away or have them destroyed. By giving them to the fertility center, there is only a small chance that they will ever be used. If by chance they do get used by total strangers, I will not know anything about the parents and what happened to my embryo children. I do not want to think about that possibility.
The destruction option is not easy to do either. I do not know if I can go through that ordeal. That would be like experiencing a part of Richard dying all over again
“That brings me to my main reason for coming to see you tonight. It struck me deeply when you said you wanted a family just like mine. You were envious of the family I had. You did not want my husband. You wanted him to be the father of your children. With that thought in mind, I am asking if you would consider using the embryos to have your own children. They would be full sisters and brothers of Richard and my living children. Everything that you were looking for would be in these children.”
Needless to say, Dana and I were both taken aback and dumbfounded by her offer. Of course, we had no idea that these embryos existed. I did not know what to think.
After a couple of glances at Dana, I turned back to Olivia, I asked a question that had come to mind, “Since you are technically their biological mother, how much interaction and control would you want to have with them? Would these children be ours to raise as we want, or will you demand some type of control as to the decisions that need to be made in their lives?”
Olivia responded, “By giving you these embryos, I am giving you complete and total control of how they are used and how to raise the children that they grow into. I will not have any control or influence on any decision you make concerning them. I do hope that we will continue to have a good enough relationship that you would still let me see them from time to time. I would hope to be something like another grandmother, aunt, or another relative. I’d be whatever you feel comfortable calling me.”
“But of course, this is up to you two. You could ban me from their lives completely – and that is your right as their parents. However, I would hope you would not do that. We could find a way to let them get to know me as a relative of some type. However, when they got much older, like graduating from high school, I would hope that you would tell them where they came from and who their real biological parents are. If nothing else but for DNA traceability if there happens to be a genetic or medical question come up in the future. They should also know that information when they start to have their children.”
Olivia turned to Dana, “Have you got any questions or anything else you would like to discuss more fully? This decision has a direct influence on your personal and career life, as well as both of your futures. What do you want to ask or have me clarify?”
Dana looked like a deer in the headlights. She stammered for a moment but finally did ask, “Olivia, you know I felt a lot for Richard. I know as his wife that you have the right to resent me and want nothing to do with me. I just don’t fully understand why you would give something so personal of yours and Richard’s to someone that slept with your husband, someone that actually conceived a child with him? “
Olivia responded, “Dana, knowing that Richard had lied to me again and has spent a few evenings with you hurt me considerably, but I guess because of his past infidelities, it didn’t crush me. I recovered from his past affairs; I knew that I could recover from this one too. Of course, he has not been here to answer for his actions this time and I guess I am still angry with him for that. But I think in time, I’ll forgive him.”
“Forgiveness means we can go on with our lives without the bitterness of anger and hate clouding our daily decisions. Of all the women Richard had been with, none of them ever wanted him for his DNA. You were the only one that had a different motive than the others. You liked what he had given me and you wanted the same. That’s unique in my book. That’s why you seemed to be the best and only real choice to offer these embryos to.”
She stood up indicating that she had to leave.
Olivia said, “Now, I know that this is a lot to absorb and comprehend all at once. If you can think of anything more that you would like to ask me, please feel free to call me any time. I do not need a decision tonight. The next payment on the embryos is due next month, so I hope I can get an answer from you in about four weeks.”
“If you decide not to use them, I will probably let them thaw out and be destroyed. If I stop paying the freezer storage fees, I’m told that they will only keep them a year then destroy them, even though they are still viable embryos all along.”
Olivia started moving towards the doorway. We thanked her for letting us have this privilege. Dana hugged her and she turned to me and said, “I will understand whatever your decision is.” I hugged her, she said goodbye, then turned and we watched her walk to her car, get in, and drive away. She still exhibited that sense of class and dignity that I had seen a year earlier in the hospital.
I grabbed Dana’s hand and walked back to the couch. I sat down with her and looked directly into those beautiful hazel-colored eyes, “Well, how do you feel about this offer?” I purposely did not say anything else at that time, as I wanted to hear her uninfluenced thoughts.
Dana replied, “Wow! This is a huge new development. I have really mixed emotions. I had written everything off with Richard after the accident. Suddenly, all the same issues seem to have come back again – only a little more convoluted. This time, it is not my eggs. It will be Richard and Olivia’s children, born into our family and raised by us as their parents. Neither you nor I will have any DNA in these children. They will be like our adopted children, but I will birth them as a gestational surrogate mother. As their mother, my name will be on their birth certificates. But who will be listed as the father? You or Richard?”
“Dana, you know the past couple of years have been horrible for us both. The anger about you not wanting to have any children of mine hurt me extremely deeply. It was the end of our marriage. We actually came within a month of being divorced before I stopped it when you had the accident. You had turned your back on me and determined that you wanted to have Richard’s children so badly that you would give me up and our marriage to have them. Now you get a second chance to have Richard’s children. The only change is that it is not your eggs. The family you admire will have additional blood relatives – but they will be our children.”
I continued with something that had been on my mind for months, “There are some other questions that I need to get answered before I can decide what to do about this decision.”
“What other questions do you have? If you are as bewildered as I am, I can understand that you have many questions. I just don’t know what to say and think about all of this.”
“Dana, I have one major question that needs to be answered that has bothered me for most of the time we’ve been trying to get you pregnant. Before you changed your mind as to who should be your sperm donor, we tried for several months to get you pregnant with my sperm. After doing everything, as we were supposed to, you still never got pregnant. However, you conceived a child with Richard the first time you had sex during your fertile time. We know from the test results that were just completed, that now you have one useful ovary with a blocked Fallopian tube, but a fully functioning uterus. If we pay to get the blocked tube fixed, I want to make sure I can get you pregnant. What I am saying is that I want to be tested. Maybe I am infertile. That information will help a lot in this decision.”
Dana replied, “I have wondered about that too. We were doing everything right, but no pregnancy happened. Yes, getting you tested could give us the information we need right now.”
Two weeks later, I had an appointment with the fertility clinic where we had been before and Dana was curious, she said she would come along to see what they did. They interviewed me about my past and current medications, my medical history, diseases I have had, any accidents that might have damaged my groin area. They also, as expected, did a scrotal ultrasound, a transrectal ultrasound, drew a couple of vials of blood, and then asked for a sperm sample – in a cup.
They said that my wife could assist in that task if I wanted her to. It was nice to have my wife there because she provided the best way to get the sperm sample. We were allowed to lock ourselves in a room that had an exam table with stirrups. She got excited and immediately stripped herself naked and crawled upon the table, then put her feet in the stirrups. She said, “I’m going to make one of my wild fantasies about a doctor and an exam table come true right now with you.” I took everything off from my waist down. There was a white doctor's coat hanging in the room. She told me to put it on, but leave the front unbuttoned. The nurses had supplied a special condom that does not harm the sperm or add any harmful chemicals or additives.
With her naked and in stirrups, it did not take long for me to notice that she had shaved her pussy completely bald for me. I asked her if she did this just for this to happen today, she giggled and said, “I was hoping that this situation might happen and I wanted to surprise you.” She had a smile from ear to ear, as I started to place my fully erect cock at the lips of her already moist vagina. She said, “Go ahead, doctor, my pussy is waiting for you.” I had to push a little to penetrate her as her lubrication was not fully ready without more foreplay, but with the help of my saliva, I was able to finally get all the way in and start pumping.
The goal was for me to cum as fast as possible as people were waiting on the other side of the door to receive it, so I started pumping into her sexy shaved pussy with gusto. By instinct, Dana’s pelvis started to rise to meet my thrusts and she grunted each time our pelvis bounced together, and then she would drop back down when I pulled back. I kept pounding her for several minutes.
I suddenly realized that we could hear the squeaking of the exam table resounding throughout the room. I wondered if anyone was outside listening at the door, but concluded that they probably hear this squeaking all the time so it probably is not a big deal for them. I started pumping faster and faster until I finally climaxed, growling louder than expected, I was able to come hard, dumping my load into the condom, all the while continuing to pump into Dana’s pussy.
Feeling me climax, she had an orgasm that shook the table and took a minute for her to settle down. After a minute of enjoying the feel of her now fully lubricated vagina pulsing on my shrinking cock, I slowly pulled out of her and held the condom in place so it did not drop on the floor. I gripped the condom near my body, squeezed it snug to my penis, then slipped it off insuring that I held it intact until I walked over to the table and carefully squeezed my cum into the cup. I grabbed some tissues off the countertop, cleaned my cock, and then walked over to Dana who was still in the stirrups.
I started to clean her from her bottom upwards towards the front of her pussy. She started to giggle at what she thought was a funny situation. She remarked that usually, she has the largest mess to clean up, but this time it is I that has the bigger mess, but I was cleaning her up away. She joked, “Maybe we need to buy an exam table with stirrups for our home.” I thought her idea could inspire some interesting sexual positions. I hung the white coat jacket back on its peg on the wall.
We both got dressed. When I opened the door, a couple of the assistants were waiting and had a big smile on their faces. They said, “It sounded like you two had a good time in there. Now you are in the running for the most passionate couple we have had in that room together. You sounded like you got enough to fill the whole cup!” They took the sperm cup from me, and then told us to go to the waiting room as they need to check and make sure they have everything they need to complete the testing. After a few minutes, one of them came out and excused us to go home saying it would be about one week before they could get the results completed and sent to us. It took about half a day for the whole process.
In between normal activities like work, shopping, and cooking dinner, we spent the next week discussing the different possibilities of having children around. We already had the nursery ready. We joked about the thoughts of getting no sleep for the first year, as most new parents say is the norm.
As I rethought and pondered over and over about my situation with Dana, combined with the more I spoke to her about our future possibilities and plans, I was surprised at myself. The disdain that I had felt for Dana having sex with Richard to get a child and then asking me to help raise it seemed to be such a huge deal that I just couldn’t bring myself to do it when he was alive. I now realized it was that I did not want her having sex with him to get the baby she wanted. Now, in light of Richard’s death and the struggle that Dana had gone through to get well after the crash, teamed up with the fact that she still wanted children no matter what it took, I found that my rage and reluctance had left me. I realized that I was now making decisions about both of our futures from data, compassion, and my love for her. There was no anger to cloud my judgment. I concluded that I would resign myself to do whatever my test results showed us was our best decision.
Exactly one week after I visited the fertility clinic, the results arrived at our home in the mail. As I started reading the results, I immediately had a section of my left chest that started to cramp annoyingly strongly. I had to sit down. Dana took the paper from me and started reading it aloud. She said, “There are a lot of test results on this page. I think the main ones are “Sperm count: one percent, well below the normal range of forty-five percent: sperm motility; zero percent, when it should be close to forty to fifty percent, vitality (live sperm in the ejaculate) one percent when it should be around sixty percent.”
“The summary at the bottom of the page states: Sperm from this patient will have severe challenges fertilizing an egg unless significant changes are done to improve his sperm quality and quantity. Some things can be done to increase sperm count.” She paused looking the paper over, then read aloud to herself, “However, all options look expensive and could take years to get results – and there is no guarantee that after all the time and money, that there will be any change in your fertility.”
That really hurt! That was one of the toughest things I have ever had to hear in my life. Nevertheless, it did answer why I had not been able to get Dana pregnant before the accident. It also answered why Dana got pregnant with Richard on their first time together. He was fully fertile, and with the right man, she has no problems getting pregnant.
I looked into Dana’s eyes and said, “Honey, I think if I had known this before your crash, my feelings and attitude about you having children with Richard might have been a little different. I would still not have wanted you to have sex with him, but there are other ways that you can have his children and not have sex with him. We could have discussed this with him more from a business arrangement than an affair.
Both of us want you to have children. That seems to be the way you feel you can make your life happy. If you have the surgery to open your tube, and your ovary is fully functional, I am not sure whose sperm we would use. It looks like I cannot help you unless we go through more testing, expense, and probably surgeries. Even then, it does not look very promising. That will take months to years, which Olivia doesn’t have.”
I did tell her to keep in the back of her mind that if we ever can arrange the financing, I would still like to try to see if I can go through the process and get better results on my sperm tests so that I might still be able to father a child with her eggs.
Dana sat with me for a while so I could take this all in and understand what our most logical direction for our lives was going to be. A lot had changed in just a year. The more I thought about it, the more it looked to me like our children were sitting in a long glass tube in a freezer somewhere in a lab waiting to be implanted into Dana’s uterus.
I got to thinking that this reminds me of a song I have heard somewhere. It said something about being able to pick your children from a glass tube. I guess that is exactly what we will be doing.
We called Olivia and told her we wanted the embryos. She actually giggled she was so excited. She asked if there was an additional reason as to why this decision was made. I had to tell her that I just had fertility testing done and my chances of getting Dana pregnant with my sperm count and quality will be very low to non-existent. I told her that her offer could not have come at a better time in our lives. If this works, we will be more than friends, we will be relatives, just how, I do not know exactly yet. We will have to figure that out, but my kids will definitely be related to her. We will tell them before they get married and start their own families. I realized that trying to explain this to my family and friends could be tricky and could wait until a later time.
We called the fertility clinic for the third time and made an appointment to start the process of getting Dana ready for the embryo transfer. Olivia had come to sign some papers to officially donate the embryos to us.
The implant procedure became rather detailed with the timing of her cycle and with the drugs that she had to take to prepare her uterus for the transfer, but within six weeks, we were ready for our first try at embryo implant.
The doctor that was working with us asked, “How many embryos do we want to implant today?”
Knowing the cost and trouble everyone was going through for this transfer, and with the fact that in many cases there is only a twenty to thirty percent success rate, we looked at each other and simultaneously said, “Two.” The doctor laughed, then said, “OK, twins it is!” After getting Dana up on the table, her feet properly positioned in the stirrups, and loaded the catheter; he used an X-ray image to properly position the tip to the inner depths of her uterus, a few seconds later he pushed down on the syringe. It was done. He had her lay on her back for a while to make sure things settled down before excusing us.
Dana called me over to the bedside and whispered, “The last time I had my feet in stirrups was a lot more fun than what he just did to me. This was all mechanical and not sexy at all. I would rather have you as my doctor than him.”
We headed home. We left the remaining embryos in the freezer for probable future use – but now we must pay the yearly storage bill. We left the clinic not knowing what the future might hold, but at least we were together on this.
Dana had not gotten her period, so she was thinking she might be pregnant. We went back in six weeks to have an ultrasound done and see how many of the embryos had been implanted. We got another disappointment. There were no gestational sacs, no babies in her uterus. The doctors said that this was common for the first try. We had to do another cycle. They modified the medications she had been taking to prepare for the implantation.
The next month, we repeated everything that we did the first time, the same procedure with two embryos. The second ultrasound at six weeks was different- the ultrasound showed us some highly satisfying results. Both of the embryos had been implanted in separate areas of her uterus with their own amniotic sac. Dana was so excited; she was pregnant with fraternal twins.
We were trying to get our head around the fact that the size of our family would soon double. We took the pictures to show parents, family, friends, and Olivia. Olivia was overjoyed that something that came so close to being discarded could bring such happiness to an infertile couple and their parents. Dana expressed her feelings to Olivia that Richard was helping people long after he was no longer with us. We thanked Olivia profusely.
We told both our parents and friends that we had to use donor embryos as I found out I was unable to father children until some surgery and additional testing was done on me, and we weren’t sure that even then it would work. We did not want to wait for the surgery to be done and still might not have any success as Dana’s biological clock was ticking loudly.
Life fell into a new routine for us as a newly pregnant couple. While her pregnant belly was still small, we were able to have some of the usual sexual positions, but we seemed to end up with the missionary most of the time. Things changed after three months.
I found out that having a pregnant wife can have the effect of her having a much higher sex drive, especially in the second trimester. Dana had never been able to orgasm easily. I usually had to work at it. However, starting into her fourth month of pregnancy, what a surprise we both got! She was able to orgasm several times per night, without a lot of work by either of us. It was amazing for her. I found she was more forward about having sex than she had ever been. I would come home from work sometimes and find her naked in bed waiting for me. There were evenings when we completely skipped having dinner because we were too involved in getting each other off. It was the first time she ever experienced skimming or stacking, that’s having multiple orgasms per session, many times never really coming down from one orgasm before another starts.
When I found that she could do that, I bought a vibrator and surprised her with it one evening right after dinner. She started to have her first orgasm within a few minutes of me pushing the full length of my cock into her sweet lubricated vagina, and then she held me in tight with her legs as I pressed the vibrator directly onto her firm clit. She had me pinned and I could not move from her squirming body as she quickly had four consecutive orgasms, each slightly more intense than the previous one. After the last one, she pushed me back and covered her pussy with her hands. She shrieked, “I can’t take anymore! It’s too intense. Please, you’ve got to stop!”
I gave her time to take a short breather then I grabbed her again and pulled her legs apart to start eating her pussy, then after a minute quickly switched back to using the vibrator. She tolerated this for a few minutes, and then she had another orgasm that was so strong her whole body shook for over a minute. After she caught her breath, she pushed me away and said, “We’ve got to stop. That last one even had my uterus pulsating. I certainly do not want to cause any problem for the babies."
We found that as her belly grew, the best sex position seemed to be the woman on top. That way she could control the depth and the movements. She particularly liked it when I was fully impaled into her with her bottom on my hips, and I would use the vibrator on her clit. She would get to bucking so hard on me that I had come and she would still be going at it, with several orgasms in a row. She learned details about herself as to when she could take more of the vibrator, or when she had truly had enough and had to push me away. I think our love for each other grew tremendously during those pregnancy months.
Everything went like clockwork through most of the pregnancy. Dana had the typical troubles with morning sickness, which was worse some days than others but seemed to dissipate around the end of her third month when her enhanced libido took over. A few times, I caught her looking in the mirror as she got out of the shower admiring her strikingly large boobs. She had to buy larger bras. She also got a few nursing bras to be available when the babies arrived. Her breasts are a joy to hold at night when I spoon her in our bed as we drift off to sleep. She never seems to mind my hands rubbing her back and holding all the sexual parts of her body. I think I still love holding her large breasts the most.
Life went on and the months went by quickly. Before the time came for the twins to be born, Dana was starting to experience some increasing effects of preeclampsia and the doctors did not want it to get any worse. They put her on bed rest and some new medication to see if her blood pressure would go down.
About two weeks later, the doctors determined that the twins were far enough along to be born a little early, so at thirty-six weeks, Dana was induced and her labor started. The doctors were ready to do a C-section, but it was not needed. I waited by her side and held her hand as the labor progressed. At one time, as she was getting towards the end of her labor, she cried out with the pain and grabbed my hand, put the web between my thumb and first finger in her mouth then bit down hard. It drew blood with teeth marks bruising my hand.
The doctor looked at my hand and said, “Sometimes these bites even need stitches (as if he had seen this happen several times before). I don’t think you need stitches this time, but be more careful of where you put your hands on the next pregnancy.” (Did he know something I did not know?) I found out that irrational things can happen when a woman is going through what is referred to as the “transition to the birth stage.” It is a woman’s reaction to the pain – it was not any anger directed at me.
The births went as normal as can be possible for a natural birth with twins. I was in the room and watched both of the babies as she pushed them out of her body and into the doctor's hands. Both of the babies had the long dark hair Dana wanted in her children. The babies were small - only five and a quarter and five and a half pounds each. The twins stayed in the hospital for a week to monitor their weight and to gain strength. They did well and they came home with us eight days after their birth.
We had to buy two car seats just to take them home, and a double stroller came a few days later. They seemed to settle quickly into their new home. Life was a turmoil for many months with diaper changes and midnight breastfeedings. It was endearing to see Dana with a baby in each arm, both of them suckling at her breasts at the same time. She looked up at me with a huge smile on her face. I realized, I dearly loved this woman and we truly had a family now.
I also realized that these two babies are totally innocent of any wrongdoing. They are here because of decisions that were made by their biological parents as well as us, their birth parents. I can never blame anything on them. They are trusting little souls that depend on us as mom and dad to do everything for them – at least right now.
Oh, you want to know what sex the babies are? We had one of each - a boy and a girl. Just like we had planned it years ago.
I thought that waking up to pick up a crying baby in the middle of the night would be dreadful. But it became fairly routine to get up and retrieve the baby and bring it into Dana, she would nurse it right there in our bed, then either she or I would put it back in its bassinet when it went back to sleep. Of course, shortly after, I would need to go get the second baby as it was its feeding time too.
I enjoyed holding them and seeing the daily changes in their little eyes and faces. Time passed very quickly. I can recall vividly the day the twins were about ten months old when they saw me come into the living room when I got home from work. They both crawled across the floor to my feet, sat back on their little legs with bent knees, grabbed my pant leg with one of their hands, and then looked up at me, held their other arm up in the air, begging me to pick them up, and made babbling sounds until I did. It was then that my heart surged with gratitude at being their dad and thankful that I would be able to raise these beautiful kids and have them as my family forever. They were my family no matter whom the DNA came from.
Just in case you wanted to know, I did tell Dana to put my name on their birth certificates.
Last night after we were in bed, Dana turned to me and said, “I’ve been thinking about when we should do another implant of our other little frozen family members.” I guess I had better ask my employer for a raise.
