The Second Trimester: September to November 2008

Sarah: Our nights became very active―total marathons. We were up, down. Lights turned on, off. Someone’s hot or cold. We both had restless legs from the pregnancy, so our legs looked like jumping beans. Plus, every time we tried to get close to each other, it felt like two beached whales trying to hug. Kristen also developed the habit of waking up at 4 A.M. and reading about how to give birth, then waking me up and freaking me out.

Kristen: Sarah gave up on sharing the full-size bed. She went to the couch. That couch is awful. But she insisted. She liked it. And we spent every night banging into each other to go to the bathroom. Only one pregnant lady could be comfortable at a time.

Sarah: Physically, I carried much more of a basketball, a typical boy if you will, and Kristen carried more of a girl, much more round. We were told that often. But I think people just didn’t know what to say. They just looked and thought, Could that be possible? Or is one just getting fat because the other is pregnant? We definitely got double takes. One morning, at the grocery store, I saw Kristen talking to a woman about babies. And then I walk up, and the woman goes, “Oh! You have another one.” She didn’t know what to do with the information.

Kristen: On the street, people probably thought we were friends who had just come from pregnancy class. When I was registering us at Buy Buy Baby, the woman who worked there was freaking out because she had never seen this before. She kept saying, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” That happened a lot.

Sarah: One of the best moments of our pregnancy happened when we took the grandmothers to our four-month sonogram. It was really special, because they were getting to see their grandchildren for the first time, and we were finding out the sexes. Two pregnancies makes everything doubly exciting, and this was no exception. We found out that I was having a girl, and Kristen was having a boy. We had always imagined it that way.

Kristen: At night, we started putting our bellies together so the babies could say hi and tap at each other. It was sweet.

Sarah: Kristen loved playing the “name game”―in which you try to come up with names for the babies. We kept thinking up silly names for the kids, like Luke and Laura from General Hospital. I actually couldn’t stand that game.

Kristen: Sarah and I talked a lot about our dreams. I woke up once and said to Sarah, “I had the craziest dream. I saw the baby and asked him his name. He said Michael.” And Sarah said, “His name is not going to be Michael.” So I just kept thinking, This poor baby came to me in a dream and told us what he wanted his name to be and we’re not going to use it.

Sarah: People would ask me questions about “my baby.” And I would say, “Which baby do you mean?” In their heads, the child I carried was my baby. But, honestly, that’s not how I think about it. Of course, I love the idea that I’ll get to look at my daughter and see passed-on traits, but that’s just a small part of my relationship with her. And it won’t make any difference with my son. Biology isn’t everything.

The Third Trimester: December 2008 to February 2009

Sarah: When you’re shopping for twins, it feels like you need to get it right, because after they’re born, you’re going to be too busy to go back to the store. I’ve thought about dressing them for their first big holiday, Easter. She’ll have on her little pink dress and shoes, and he’ll have on his tiny suspenders.

Jeanne Henderson: We shopped from Manhattan to Manhasset! I have no idea how we’ll financially dig out of it. But it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

Sarah: Our mothers were all about the baby showers. We had one with Kristen’s family, one with my family, and one with my mother’s friends. It was like a four-alarm fire―registries, invitations. They had to have RSVPs immediately. The showers were so much fun because we both got to go and experience all of it together.

Kristen: I was still performing when the showers happened. After one 80-minute show when I was 8 1/2 months pregnant, I was on an adrenaline high for three days―until I took a nap and woke up and wasn’t the same person anymore. The pregnancy shifted. I was completely exhausted in a way I can’t describe.

Sarah: One day we went to the pharmacy with our big bellies. I bought compression hose, and she got two wrist braces for her carpal tunnel. I thought, This has taken a really bad turn. One day we accidentally dropped our keys in front of the door to our house, and I said, “We should just call a locksmith.” It seemed easier to change the locks than bend over.

Maura Ellis, Sarah’s sister-in-law: I felt bad for them, because during my pregnancy I could say to my husband, “You empty the dishwasher.” And I knew that there were nights when stuff had to get done and someone had to do it.

Kristen: The giggly high we had earlier in the pregnancies left the building. We were just tired and hungry. Sarah was a lot more mellow than she had been. She didn’t have any other choice.

Cathy Henderson, Kristen’s sister: It was smooth sailing until the last month, when there was no unpregnant person there and both were so uncomfortable. Kristen kept saying, “Now I know what everyone was warning us about.”

Liz Brooks, the couple’s best friend: I came to stay with them for the last week. I did everything that involved bending. Sarah would go off to work, and Kristen and I would talk. She would say, “I’m nervous. I’m terrified.”

Kristen: It sounds obvious, but the big issue was, How do you get this baby out? That was weighing on my mind heavily.

Sarah: We couldn’t remember anything. We would start a conversation and it would just end. And there was no such thing as cuddling. It was hard to get near each other. We would try it, then her hand would go dead and I would get restless legs. So we would say, “On the inside, I really want to be with you.”