How many are you having?

  That's always a good question to ask first time parents. How many? Really did she even have to ask? With all do intentions we could never dream of having some one ask us that question because the honest answer is always one. I mean come on, women get the twin gene from their side and the husband has nothing to do with it. So to answer that question before you ask, no Traci does not have any twins on her side of the family, unless her mother was adopted and they forgot to tell her. We do have twins on the Shepard side, my great grandmother Ollie had a twin sister named Dollie and that's the only trace of twins in either side of our families. But I guess if twins are hereditary then they have to start some where and it mine as well be us to start this new tradition...
    I can remember like it was yesterday. My first appointment at Traci's OBGYN. Obviously, I was a little weary going into the whole thing. We walk into the waiting room, surrounded by other women waiting as we were.  A few minutes pass by and they call us back. The ultra sound tech walked us back, kind of a rather mundane woman no real frills or excitement and sat us down in the room. As Traci laid down on the table she said that the gel was gonna be cold and started the ultra sound on Traci's stomach. A few seconds had passed, which seemed to me as an eternity for not knowing what to expect, and then.....Traci stared at me, pale face and big eyes.  Traci knew right away what was on the screen.  All I heard was the ultrasound tech say something that I never expected her to say... How many? And without a hesitation I responded with one and she said "Nope, there's two!" My heart stopped for a second or maybe a minute and this is where we begin...

Traci and I sat in silence as we waited to see the doctor.  The doctor gave us a lot of information about twins and what to expect, something about nutrition, bed rest, weight.....All I heard was double the weddings, double the cars, double the college tuitions....

Once it all sunk in Traci and I were ecstatic, scared and confused all at the same time.  We had never thought about how we would tell our family we were having twins, besides we were not even suppose to be able to get pregnant and now we are having twins? 

We e-mailed this ultrasound picture to our family and waited throughout the day as each family member slowly checked their e-mail, which they never caught on to what "baby A" and "baby B" really meant because like before twins weren't even an option. "Does A and B really mean, uhhh twins?" Yeah,really.....  it does.