The Beginning of the Story

A few weeks ago, one of my parents (who I won't name, but she probably wouldn't like that I'm telling this story) told me for the first time where I, well, perhaps I have to say we, were conceived. My whole emotional and psychological being screamed "TOO MUCH INFORMATION." I completely understand the relationship between sexual congress and conception, but for children, the spark of life is truly unreal until the parents drop that little tidbit into your lap. I'm can't even remember how we came to be speaking about how we came to be, but even speaking about it with my mother tells me how much life changes when you become an adult. Adults talk about adult things; we even laugh about the most important episodes of our lives.

My life began roughly nine months before February 27, 1973 in a place called...

I'm sorry, you'll have to ask my mother.

I shared spent my gestational months with two other people. Most fetuses have the luxury of introspectional time with their mothers during pregnancy. Mother's sing to their babies; they rub their bellies imagining where the head is; the father hopefully takes an interest in the mother's ever increasingly distended belly and tries to impart wisdom through the epidermal barrier. Not so during my time in the womb. I can only imagine that when my mother would sing, each one of the three of us would attempt to press our ears to the outer surface - perhaps near the bellybutton - straining to hear the songs of the 70's. Perhaps my mother was singing great classics like "Shake your Booty" or "Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me" by Mac Davis. I'm sure there was a tussle, a swinging of fists and Vikki would probably always have won since she didn't have to share the same placenta as Ryan and I.

I'm sure life was altogether different on the inside. For fetuses, that's all they know - they know 98.6 degrees, which at this point in my life is a little too warm. They know they are fed through a tube connected in their belly and the most satisfying part of the day is to suck on one's toes. How life changes; now I can't even touch my toes much less put them in my mouth. Supposedly my mother didn't know that she was going to have triplets until a week before we were born. Try to draw that fresco in your imagination - twenty-four year old mother, teacher, married less than two years, living in the frozen tundra of north central Iowa. In the last weeks of pregnancy, my mother went to live with friends in the town where the hospital was - my parents house was half an hour away from the delivery room. Imagine sitting in the doctor's office and he saying, "Mrs. Matthias, perhaps it's best if you sat down for a minute." For a woman having triplets, I think the most appropriate position is always sitting down. "Diane, we think there is another baby in there." Technology has certainly changed over the years. My mother knew twins were on the way but, Hello, how about finding another crib. The local newspaper, the Rake Register would declare, "RAKE POPULATION SWELLS BY 2 PERCENT: TRIPLETS BORN".

Every time I tell people that I was born as one in a set of triplets, inevitably - and I truly mean this, almost every person I have ever met has said, "Oooh, your poor mother." I, of course, cannot imagine carrying fifteen pounds of bouncing babies in my gut, nevermind suffering through hiccups and twelve appendages prodding all sorts of viscera that were never meant to be prodded. I cannot truly imagine going to the bathroom every seventy-five seconds because the bladder eventually shrunk to the size of a raisin. I can't imagine these things - but my mom had one thing going for her: instead of having a fifteen pound baby, she could break up the delivery into thirds; one baby girl 6 1/2 pounds - two boys, 4 1/2 pounds. So, mid-morning February 27, 1973, probably during the song "He Ain't Heavy; He's My Brother" the three of us witnessed our first day of life outside - Vikki first, then me thirty minutes later, and my brother taking his time five minutes after my arrival.

Linda Ronstadt wrote a song in 1978 called "Ooh Baby, Baby." For us she would have need to add an extra 'baby.'

People didn't feel as sorry for my dad but they should have. To this day, my dad has a phobia of strange smells and certain body functions. He gags when he sees baby poop. He scrunches up his face when a baby passes gas. He sticks his tongue out in distaste at spit-up. This is all so surprising because my dad was/is a doting father/grandfather. He loves kids and both my parents were exceptionally good at providing enough love to spread around that little triplet sandwich that they had brought into the world.

I'm not sure how much detail I should go into my first day on planet earth. Needless to say, and you will find out as I continue to write, I have difficulty writing in the first person singular. Rarely has there ever been an "I" almost always a "we" or "our". "We" had our birthday. "We" got Christmas presents. As Ryan and I are identical twins, I didn't receive my first individual gift that was different than my brother until I was married, I think. Perhaps I exaggerate a little, but I do remember racing to open presents on Christmas and birthdays because my aggregate set of presents was identical to my brother's. Whoever opened his present fastest was actually surprised - the other one was left to the ignominy of being the slower opener and unsurprised one.

Each story needs a beginning - an introduction to life, if you will, and so I have attempted to put our beginning into the open. (Notice, I wrote "our beginning" - it still remains.) In telling a testimony it's important to see where the roots are, just like looking at a tree or any other plant, if one can see the beginnings, sometimes it is evident what fruit will come forth.