I met my first son the usual way back in the 70's. After only 6 hours of labour, an epidural (sp??? but it means freezing the spinal cord from the waist down), and an episiotomy followed by about 10 minutes of incredible pressure (no pain, just a sensation like a freight train was forcing it's way through my hip bones) - there he was! Squawking and strong and pink and slimy and healthy and a whopping (or so I was told) 8 lbs, full head of thick brown hair, and absolutely gorgeous eyes that were .... closed. He was sleeping by the time they put him in my arms. Must have been quite the boring experience from his end anyway ... but I was so doped out - half-asleep from the aneasthetic - it didn't really matter.   I saw them a few minutes later in my hallucinations, and I knew they were blue, like mine.   ;-)

He was the biggest newborn in the nursery at the time, so the nurses asked if they could use him for a bath demonstration the next day. I said sure ... and a few minutes later had my first taste of parental humiliation. As I watched anxiously (don't you DARE break him!) the nurse laid him on the change table and started undressing him accompanied by a long, involved litany of "do thises" and "don't do thats". And all went just peachy-keen till she took off his diaper, and he cut her off in mid-sentence by peeing in her face.

:-O   Oooo I was SO embarrassed ... and shocked ... and looking forward to this new task with real dread at that point .... but she just laughed and said "Yes, and sometimes THIS happens too when the cold air hits. So hold another diaper this way when you're changing a boy ..."

But the way I met my twins was quite different. First time I saw them I was six weeks pregnant. My doctor sent me for an ultrasound because, according to him, "you're twice as big as you should be at 6 weeks". I thought he was just being paranoid - I couldn't see that I was any "bigger" at all at that point! - but off I went anyway. Drank the proscribed 6 gallons of water an hour before, suffered through them dragging that heavy "scanner-thing" back and forth across my bursting bladder for 15 minutes with my eyes just glued on that monitor screen.

All I could see was "clouds". But by the time we were done I noticed the nurse had labelled the two darkest little clouds "A" and "B". ANd I asked "What's A and B mean?"   She hummed and hawed and then said ... "I can't give you the diagnosis. You'll have to wait and ask your doctor".

Well, the worry kept me up half the night, and the doctor phoned at 7:30 am the next morning saying "CONGRATS! What are you going to name your twins?" I'll never forget that moment - the shock just rendered me speechless (highly unusual for me!) He had to repeat the question till I blubbered out "Twins? Twins????   Like, you mean, TWO at once?" He said "Yes" ... and all I could say was "I think I'm going to die ...."

ANd he said "Well, wait till after they're born before you do that, ok?" So I did. And I met "Little Cloud A" and "Little Cloud B" in the flesh about 6.5 months later.

Hey, it was fun talking about this! Thanks for asking, and thanks for listening too!