Raising “All Americans”: A Dad’s Perspective

Training Regiment Oh the insomnia!! New parents know, stealing sleep becomes an everyday occurrence. A cat nap here, a nod off in basketball film session or rocking not only your baby, but yourself to sleep, it all counts when you have newborns. Like I said in the last post, we were planning for one baby, not two, so we had double of everything and my poor wife, she was nursing both boys. They were "feeding beasts" and Michelle was doing everything to keep up with every two hour feedings. We stayed that first week out of the hospital at Michelle's grandparents house in Anamosa, Iowa. It was a luxury to have family around (my parents still live in Battle Creek, MI) and made it a short trip for the nurse to make her in home check up on the boys. Every thing was going well with the boys, but one thing that was looming over us, was the fact that I was going to have to return to Ottumwa with school starting up and that meant Michelle's schedule was about to get crazy!...

News Bulletin "Are you sitting down?" Those were the words spoken to me by my then 5 1/2 week pregnant wife, Michelle. At this time, I was the assistant men's basketball coach at Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa. My first coaching job and I was at one of the most successful programs in the country. So with that, I spent a lot of time at the office or on the phone. This was a phone call I wasn't expecting. Michelle worked in the radiology department at Ottumwa Regional Hospital and she had had one of her fellow techs do a quick ultrasound on her. At 5 1/2 weeks, our baby was barely the size of a grain of rice. I immediately asked her, "Is everything okay?" The thought that something was wrong with the pregnancy engulfed me because only a few short months ago, Michelle had miscarried and I was preparing myself for the worse. "What do you think about twins"? Dream Come True I was ecstatic over the news! Secretly, I always thought it would...