And the old wives say...

Yesterday we went to hear our babies' heartbeats. I've seen them a couple of times before, (at the 7 and 9 week ultrasounds) but this time was especially exciting, because it's the 12 week heartbeat appointment, and according to an old wives tale, it's one indication of gender.

Now, I know all these old wives tales are unreliable, and give you a hint rather than anything solid. About the only solid indication of gender you can get is when you look at the baby (usually via ultrasound, though sometimes at birth) and it does or doesn't have man parts.

But, I've seen some really good old wives tales for predicting gender - the two best being the heartbeats and how you're carrying the baby, high or low.

I remember a friend of mine once told me in no uncertain terms that she was having a boy. She was about 8 months along, and while I didn't ask about an ultrasound, my thought was that she must not have gotten one. Her torso looked more like a barrel than a bump. She was carrying that baby so high, it must have been sitting on her lungs.

Surprise! A month later, she popped out a girl.

A few years later, I was visiting home and saw a lady in my parents' ward who was basically carrying the baby between her thighs. I had never seen a bump so low before. I immediately assumed boy.

A month or so later, the announcement popped up on Facebook - Baby boy!

Now, those were extreme cases, but I've usually been able to guess gender by how the baby is carried, unless it's smack dab in the center. And it's usually not obvious until quite a lot farther along in the pregnancy.

In my case, it's a bit tougher, because there are two babies. If I have one of each (fingers crossed!), well, I doubt anything is going to look like anything. Also, it's not like there's going to be any space in there for the babies to sit high or low. They'll sit wherever they can squeeze in.

But, that said, when I look at my miniscule bump in the mirror, it does look pretty high. Extremely high, in fact. Maybe, just maybe, they're still small enough that I can use the old wives tale and say, "I think we're dealing with 2 girls here."

But then came the heartbeats.

Now, heartbeats have a little bit of accuracy - typically over 140 bpm is a girl while under 140 is a boy. But, if the baby is moving around a lot, their heart rate will increase, and a boy can totally fool you into thinking he's a girl.

Baby A had a heart rate of 165. I think it's safe to say Baby A is probably a girl.

Baby B's heart rate was 155. Girl? Or active boy?

Impossible to say, I suppose. But from the looks of things, I'm definitely having at least one girl!

So here's to the ultrasound in 8 weeks. I have 8 more weeks to resist buying little dresses and hair bows and girl shoes and hats and and and and ...

The Payoff.

Have we all seen the movie Big Hero 6? If not, it's awesome, and I highly recommend it. Yes, it is painfully formulaic, and the "twist" is quite predictable if you're over the age of 6, but it has a lot of good laughs, and beneath the fun it deals with incredibly deep themes of death and loss and healing. The emotional punch of the character arcs are well worth the formula-to-the-letter plot.

That aside, there's actually a specific moment in the movie that keeps playing in my head: The song played during the credits.

Yes, I know that has absolutely nothing to do with the plot or character arcs or anything like that, and when I watched the movie, I basically only heard the incredibly bouncy and fun tune of the song and told myself, "I am so downloading this when I get home."

And I did. And I listened to it. On repeat. For a while.

The song is "Immortals," by Fallout Boy.

I'm really not entirely sure what the song is talking about. It's like a bunch of disjointed thoughts that sound - maybe - kind of profound when said by themselves, but make absolutely no sense when strung together.

One line sticks with me:

"Sometimes the only payoff for having any faith / is when it's tested again and again every day."

The first time I heard that line was around the beginning of this year, right as we were picking up infertility treatments again after Christmas break. When I first heard it, going through such an intense struggle to keep faith in what I was doing, that concept really resonated with me.

I know, when we endure trials and move through them with faith, we want there to be a very specific payoff. If we're reaching for something incredibly difficult - a college degree, a relationship, an infertile body to produce children - we want that faith to end with the result we are reaching for. And when it doesn't - over and over and over and over - we wonder what happened. What's the point of that degree of faith when it's not paying off?

And yet, even when we're not getting the payoff, we can see some payoffs growing from having to hold onto it, again and again, every day.

That was a key piece of my experience - lessons learned from having my faith tested every single day. And as the months passed with my very specific payoff not being realized over and over, I had to step back and realize exactly what I was getting.

Some things were obvious surface improvements. For example:

With the extra motivation to make my body as healthy and functional as possible, I exercised and ate a lot more vegetables, and my whole body became healthier. Over 6 months of patient work, my BMI shrunk to its ideal range, I gained a lot of energy, and I felt great about myself and what I looked like.

I became better at sticking to a budget. Let me tell you what. Infertility treatments are not cheap, and my insurance wouldn't cover squat of it. As our budget shrank, I started tracking it. I stopped buying the easy microwave food that costs 3 times as much, and made sure that if we were approaching the end of our "eating out" budget for the month, we actually stopped going to Burger King.

And some things were much deeper:

I learned endurance. I learned how to keep going through to the home stretch, and not give up even when stressed about money, enduring heavy discomfort from the treatments, and experiencing severe emotional baggage from constant failure.

I learned sacrifice. We're officially not going to Scotland, now that every extra penny we had went to doctors. Also, I have absolutely no idea how we're going to pay for pharmacy school, but I'm sure we'll figure something out.

In that same vein, I learned priorities. I had to make a very conscious decision about what I wanted more, children or financial stability. And letting go of the security of that savings account was a huge learning experience for me. I had to let go of having my plans all figured out with the financial pathway to them decided. I had to close my eyes, take a deep breath, and step out into the terrifying unknown. Like I said, I have no idea how we're going to pay for school. And, I had to learn how to be okay with that.

And faith. I had a 20 month crash course in how to cling to what I know in the face of what I don't. I knew the Lord was in control. I knew I had been promised children. I knew the Lord keeps His promises. I knew I had been instructed to continue with the treatments. I didn't know when, or what more I'd have to go through, or how much harder it would get, but I stuck with what I knew. And I had to make that decision over and over and over, because that faith was tested constantly.

Right now, I still enjoy the song, but my favorite part of that line has become the first word: "Sometimes."

Because sometimes that really is the only payoff - the constant testing of your faith, and the growth that comes from it.

But other times, that's not the only payoff.

Sometimes, when the testing is over, you get exactly what you prayed for, hoped for, and clung to with seemingly irrational faith.

And sometimes, you get exactly what you wanted, but doubled.

I'm having twins.