Jennie and I had always had a plan, ever since the days before we were married, that we were going to have two kids. When we were discussing these things during our courtship, they were whimsical discussions on the distant future. But, as recurring discussion so often do, they took on an importance of their own –a weight of their own– every time we had the discussion again. After a certain point, it was understood that we were going to do what we said we were going to do, just because those plans had, at some juncture, actually become plans.

Our son’s birth, in 2004, set us on the path down the road of our plans.

But, when Jennie called me while I was at work in the late fall of 2006, from a OB/GYN appointment, to tell me that we were having twins, the plan of two kids was out the window.

Three has been fifty percent better, anyway.

* * *

That pregnancy, however, was problematic throughout. Jennie had complications all along the way, and those complications culminated in a doctor’s visit on March 7th of 2007, when Jennie was told that she wasn’t going to be leaving the hospital until after the twins were born. As it turned out, Jennie’s water had broken and it wasn’t going to be safe for the babies, as young as they were at that point, to be any distance from the hospital, in the event that anything might happen. Jennie was ordered to bed rest in the hospital later that same day.

For the both of us, this development came as a shock, and while we were scared, we tried to take it in stride. I carried on with the business of being a parent for our two-and-a-half year old while Jennie was stranded in the hospital. We visited Jennie, Garrett and I, in the hospital each evening, and then I would take my son home for bedtime, and for daycare the next day, while I continued to work. I know that he really didn’t have much of an understanding of why it was that things had changed; it’s hard to explain complicated things to toddlers in ways that they can understand.

I am glad that we didn’t end up having to do that for very long. Eight days later, the twins were born. Three months early.

In case you are wondering how early a baby can be born before it is too early for it to survive, in 2007, the edge was right around twenty-eight weeks of gestation.

Or about three months early.

So, needless to say, things were difficult.

* * *

On the evening of March 15th –if you’ve ever read Julius Caesar by Shakespeare, that date should ring a bell– I’d just put my son to bed and was in the process of making my way through the episode of Lost that was waiting for me on the DVR, when the phone rang. I was irritated for having to pause my show to answer the phone, and I was irritated at the fact that the phone my wake my newly sleeping son, so I jumped up quickly and answered it gruffly.

Meanwhile, as I was doing these things, Jennie was being convinced by an intern resident at the hospital that she was not, in fact, having labor pains, and that rather, she was needing to have a bowel movement. As a result, and to the shock of the intern resident, our first daughter was born in the bathroom of my wife’s hospital room. I’ll spare you the gravest of details on the matter.

The phone call I received was the hospital, telling me that my wife had just given birth to our first daughter and if I didn’t get to the hospital in a hurry, I was going to miss the second birth, as well.

My parents, at the time, lived about a twelve minute drive away from us. I called my mom and told her that I couldn’t leave for the hospital until she was at my house to stay with my son, So, six minutes later, she pulled into my driveway, at slightly less than the speed of sound, and I left for the hospital.

The hospital was about a twenty minute drive from our home. It had quite the series of stoplights, and that night, I caught every single red light on the way to the hospital. If you’ve ever been out on a road after dark, racing from red light to red light, you may have attracted what I attracted that night.

Competition.

About halfway through the trip to the hospital, I was waiting at a red light when a sports car pulled up next to me and revved its engine, the driver turning to stare me down. Keep in mind, of course, that I am sitting in the mini-van that we’d just recently purchased, to accommodate the family growing from three members to five. The fact that this idiot was wanting to drag race with me, when I was just trying to get to the hospital, was absurd.

What was even more absurd was how badly I smoked him when that light finally turned green.

When I finally got to the hospital, I stormed to the location where I expected to find my wife, and the hospital staff stopped me to tell me that she’d just gone in to emergency surgery and I was not allowed into the surgery area. So, for about ten minutes or so, I paced back and forth, like a lost puppy, outside of the doors to the surgery area, wanting to be somewhere that I couldn’t go, wanting to see someone that I couldn’t see, and not quite sure of what to do next.

Then, a nurse from the neonatal intensive care unit found me and told me that I could either wait to be let in to see my wife, or I could come with her and see my first-born daughter.

As I met, for the first time, my middle child, my youngest was being delivered via C-section because she was in the breech position. She ended up being brought to the NICU a short time later, while my wife was escorted to post-op.

* * *

Looking at my two beautiful daughters –Lilly and Sarah– these days, and remembering how tenuous their first moments in the world were, all those years ago, I can’t help but think about the story –the miracle– of their birth and their survival. When one of them frustrates me or disappoints me, I don’t have to think very long about how desperately we prayed and hoped for them to continue to cling to life, before I’ve forgotten their trespasses. Their story is a story worth telling.