Ryan White and Valerie White

[00:04] RYAN WHITE: I'm Ryan White. I'm 38. Today's Friday, August 19, 2022. I'm in Boise, Idaho. I'm here with my wife, Valerie White.

[00:19] VALERIE WHITE: I am Valerie White. I am 38 years old. Today's date is Friday, August 19, 2022. I'm located in Boise, Idaho. I'm here with Ryan White, my husband.

[00:34] RYAN WHITE: I'm a little nervous. I always wanted to do this. I actually used to do stuff in this room when I worked here a long time ago. I had to tell you that. It was, like, eating me up. Now I can talk about other stuff. So I always knew that I wanted to do this, and I always thought it was going to be a conversation between my mom and about me getting sick when I was younger, but when I was thinking about what was the most impactful thing that's happened in my life and just kind of the most incredible story and the one that means the most to me, it was when we found out about the twins.

[01:30] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. I know that finding out about the twins, all of it kind of was impacted by your health and having cancer in your early twenties. Cause they told you, you know, at that time, like, do something now if you want to have children before you start treatment. Cause if you don't, you won't get to have them. And so you did that and that was your plan?

[01:55] RYAN WHITE: Yeah, yeah. I had. Gosh, I think I paid for, like, a decade of storage. Yeah. Semen storage. And I can't believe, like, I got treated at the West VA or West La Va. And it's, like, a really expensive part of LA. It's like Westwood. Yeah. So the closest place, of course, was.

[02:23] VALERIE WHITE: Like, a super expensive Hollywood or something.

[02:25] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. I got, like, monthly reports. It was. Yeah.

[02:29] VALERIE WHITE: How. How everyone's doing.

[02:31] RYAN WHITE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[02:34] VALERIE WHITE: Well, and then we made the decision to elope on December 31 of 2017. And shortly after that, I decided to take out my IUD because we knew we wanted to. We had to go the clinical route to get pregnant, and so we just wanted to be off of birth control and, you know, see so that I would be ready as soon as we could.

[02:58] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. So. Sorry. This is more like talking to each other.

[03:06] VALERIE WHITE: I know.

[03:06] RYAN WHITE: Okay. Yeah, I actually. I remember. I remember the day when we found out and, you know, like, I don't remember a whole lot of stuff.

[03:22] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. And ironically, there are some parts that are really blurry for me, and I think I was just so overwhelmed for the most part.

[03:37] RYAN WHITE: I remember we were in our oldenhouse condo and sparks, and you came out of the bathroom and like, I had no idea that you were taking a pregnancy test. I mean, I had, the day before, gotten off the phone with the VA, and I was trying to figure out, since I had the service connected disability thing, and it was because of the, because of that treatment, I thought, like, okay, I'm going to be able to maybe get it paid for to try and have kids. And so I actually had gotten a call like 2 hours after we found out from somebody at the VA who was like, hey, we figured it out. And I was like, you're never going to believe this, but we might just.

[04:27] VALERIE WHITE: Need to pause because we weren't sure how viable pregnancy would be at that point. And I just. The reason I took a test without telling you is because I thought I was being a crazy person. I thought there was no way I was pregnant, but I just felt weird. So I took the test and I was pregnant. And so we had our wedding coming up and we wanted to. And then our honeymoon was shortly after that. We got married. Then we had a wedding later.

[04:53] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. So I just wanted to think, though, about, I wanted to go back to that day. Do you remember how long I was in disbelief because I honestly didn't believe you for a while. And, I mean, you showed me everything, and it wasn't because I didn't trust you, it was just because I did not think it was possible at all. Like, do you remember how long that lasted? Cause I feel like it.

[05:30] VALERIE WHITE: I remember you really questioning it, but I always just thought it was more like it felt surreal to you than. Yeah, than you just absolutely not believing it, which I feel like it felt surreal to me too, in a way. I mean, I had had a child before, twelve years earlier, so it felt surreal to me that I was going to do this all over again, but also that we didn't have to go the route we thought we would have to go, you know, we didn't have to go. And, you know, we were planning for me to like, go down to San Diego or something like that to get treatment. And so it was kind of like, surreal that now that plan was not a plan anymore all of a sudden.

[06:13] RYAN WHITE: Yeah, that's right. I forgot that we were thinking about trying to go to that, that naval hospital in San Diego because I was like the only one I could find.

[06:20] VALERIE WHITE: I. Yeah, that was the only one that did fertility treatments like that.

[06:23] RYAN WHITE: So, yeah, we seriously had like, a lot in place plan wise. I forgot about how much we had in place.

[06:32] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah.

[06:35] RYAN WHITE: So at that point, like, I already thought we had. So me personally, like, I have a question for you based off of this, but at the time, you know, I did feel like it was like a miraculous God, you know, intervention kind of thing that, like, I had gone over a decade, you know, being a young, mostly single at certain points guy, and I just. I just couldn't believe, like, the timing and everything, it was crazy. And so I thought, okay, this is. This was supposed to happen, you know?

[07:16] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah.

[07:17] RYAN WHITE: And I know that since then, you know, like, you and I both have had, like, shifts in our faith.

[07:26] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah.

[07:28] RYAN WHITE: Like, when you. When you think back to that, like, well, I wonder, like, at the time, did it feel like a spiritual thing to you? And then, like, now with, like, these changes in, like, our beliefs, like, do you feel differently?

[07:47] VALERIE WHITE: I don't think so. I mean, I still think there's a higher power. I just don't know that I believe in all the, you know, 1990s evangelical church we were raised in anymore. But I still think that, you know, we were created for a reason, and we are intelligent for a reason, and we were able to expand our family because science and love worked in our favor.

[08:23] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[08:24] VALERIE WHITE: And it just kind of also made me think, there's been a lot of times in my life that doctors have been very wrong.

[08:31] RYAN WHITE: This is true.

[08:33] VALERIE WHITE: It's really lucky when they're very wrong. And it's a happy thing. It's, you know, you're not, like, mad that they were wrong.

[08:42] RYAN WHITE: Well, and speaking of happy thing. Yeah. So. Got married. Well, actually, we had just gotten married. Right. We had eloped. That's right.

[08:57] VALERIE WHITE: We were married for four months, and then we found out we were pregnant.

[09:00] RYAN WHITE: And we were staying pregnant, and then.

[09:01] VALERIE WHITE: We had our actual wedding in my sister's backyard.

[09:04] RYAN WHITE: Right.

[09:06] VALERIE WHITE: It was in May of 2018.

[09:09] RYAN WHITE: Yep.

[09:10] VALERIE WHITE: And it was, I think, just a few days after our actual wedding that we went and we had the ultrasound with the midwife in Reno.

[09:19] RYAN WHITE: And didn't you suspect that you got pregnant, like, right after your bachelorette party?

[09:25] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[09:27] RYAN WHITE: I remember you saying that.

[09:29] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. But with the. When we saw the midwife, and she. She was so funny. She, you know, she did the ultrasound.

[09:38] RYAN WHITE: And she liked her.

[09:39] VALERIE WHITE: Oh, she was wonderful.

[09:40] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[09:40] VALERIE WHITE: If we could have kept going to her, we would have.

[09:42] RYAN WHITE: Yeah, she was cool.

[09:43] VALERIE WHITE: But she gave me an ultrasound, and she told us, one healthy baby, you know, everything looks great. And she said, and that's great because I don't deliver twins well.

[09:51] RYAN WHITE: And I was. I was thrilled, too, because I had such fear, too, leading up to that point, because, you know, like, I had blood cancer. I thought that, you know, and even, like, when I had been tested, like, when my fertility had been tested in the past, it had come back as, like, having mutations and abnormalities. And so I was always, like, kind of nervous. I almost wanted to use the frozen.

[10:20] VALERIE WHITE: Because it was young and because.

[10:22] RYAN WHITE: Yeah, it was like. But it's kind of weird. Obviously, I was not healthy at that time in my life.

[10:27] VALERIE WHITE: Right.

[10:28] RYAN WHITE: But in my mind, because it's like a younger version of me, maybe it was better.

[10:32] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. Well, you hadn't gone through the years of chemo. Yeah.

[10:39] RYAN WHITE: It was just.

[10:39] VALERIE WHITE: That was probably what was causing mutations was four years of chemotherapy treatments, you know? So, yeah, when she said one healthy baby, we were really excited. I think we kind of pushed to get an ultrasound, too, because. Yeah, I was only about nine, eight or nine weeks. And they don't. Normally. They don't always do an ultrasound at that time, but.

[11:01] RYAN WHITE: Well, and they didn't do it the way that I expected them to. Like, the belly one. It was the other kind.

[11:07] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. When you're earlier on, they can only do an internal. They can't see through.

[11:11] RYAN WHITE: I never knew that until then. Yeah. And so, like, I thought it was miraculous already, you know? And then, like, we go on our trip.

[11:21] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah.

[11:22] RYAN WHITE: And I remember you had been. I had so I'd been once before to Europe and you hadn't yet. And I remember I just, like, explored everything on my trip, and it was so much fun, and I wanted to, like, give you that same experience.

[11:43] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah, we had big plans to go all over the place.

[11:46] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. And so we had. I mean, like, I had a binder that I made.

[11:51] VALERIE WHITE: Do you remember that had itinerary type a about our.

[11:55] RYAN WHITE: Yeah, yeah. And.

[11:58] VALERIE WHITE: Which is not your normal. You're not a normal type a person. So I could. And we were also on a serious budget. We were not.

[12:07] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. We were kind of doing it.

[12:09] VALERIE WHITE: So we were trying to go cheap. So we were planning to take lots of trains and walk lots.

[12:13] RYAN WHITE: That's right. Yep.

[12:15] VALERIE WHITE: And we landed in Amsterdam. That's where we started. And we spent a couple days there. And I was not feeling very good. You know, I was really tired, really nauseous, like, incredibly nauseous. And, you know, we just kind of took it slow in Amsterdam, and then we decided to splurge for the first class train tickets down to Brussels.

[12:39] RYAN WHITE: That's why we did the first class.

[12:41] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. Because I didn't feel good, and it seemed like it would be easier to get on that way.

[12:46] RYAN WHITE: Well, and it wasn't that much more. Right. It was, what?

[12:48] VALERIE WHITE: Like, oh, yeah, no. Splurge for the first class european train tickets if you can. Totally worth it. They gave us pastry and coffee, and I remember being all excited about that. And then I remember about halfway. It was like a two hour train ride. Is that right?

[13:04] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[13:04] VALERIE WHITE: And I remember about halfway through, I just was like, something is wrong. I don't feel good.

[13:08] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[13:09] VALERIE WHITE: And so I went to the bathroom on the train.

[13:12] RYAN WHITE: Yep.

[13:12] VALERIE WHITE: And I was bleeding, and it terrified me. I just. I instantly started bawling, and at the time, praying, like, please, I want this baby more than anything. And I came and sat in the seat next to you, and I told you, and you were like, as soon as we get there, we will go to a hospital. Like, we're gonna see what happens. And we got in an Uber with an Uber driver who didn't speak any English. Yeah, he was very nice.

[13:43] RYAN WHITE: He was nice.

[13:44] VALERIE WHITE: But I think he was learning, while in Brussels, they speak Dutch and French, and I think maybe he spoke French and not Dutch, and I think he was learning French.

[13:54] RYAN WHITE: Speak Dutch or French.

[13:56] VALERIE WHITE: It was. But he got us to a hospital. We looked at. Yeah. We just went to a random one, and we waited a long time to be seen. I felt like it was a long.

[14:09] RYAN WHITE: Time because, like, you know, we didn't have very good, like, Internet on our phones, and I think it was like, there was.

[14:17] VALERIE WHITE: All the magazines were in french languages.

[14:20] RYAN WHITE: Like, we couldn't talk to anybody that was in the waiting room, you know, like, we were obviously, like, out of.

[14:28] VALERIE WHITE: We had our luggage with us, too, because we were changing hotels, so we're, like, wheeling around wheelie suitcases through the hospital.

[14:36] RYAN WHITE: And it was on a weekend, too.

[14:38] VALERIE WHITE: Because it was Saturday, I think it was a Saturday.

[14:39] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. It was basically, like, their skeleton crew.

[14:42] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. And we saw one doctor, and then he sent us up to, like, ob Gyn to see the next doctor. And I didn't even know at that point that they were going to give me an ultrasound.

[14:54] RYAN WHITE: No, I didn't know that.

[14:56] VALERIE WHITE: I just thought we were going to see an Ob Gyn, and they would, you know, give me an exam, and we'd go from there.

[15:03] RYAN WHITE: Yeah, I thought maybe they'd, like, check your blood to make sure, like, yeah.

[15:07] VALERIE WHITE: Well, and I thought maybe I'd get progesterone or something like that. That helps a pregnancy be more viable.

[15:13] RYAN WHITE: Because they were concerned about you with not. I wasn't concerned, but, like, because of age, you know. How old were you?

[15:20] VALERIE WHITE: I was 34.

[15:21] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[15:22] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. Geriatric pregnancy is what they call that.

[15:25] RYAN WHITE: It's so terrible.

[15:30] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. It was being monitored pretty closely because of my age.

[15:34] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. And I remember the doctor we got, she. She did speak some English.

[15:39] VALERIE WHITE: She spoke English very well. She told us she lived in Berkeley for a while. Do you remember?

[15:43] RYAN WHITE: Yeah, yeah.

[15:44] VALERIE WHITE: She grew up in Berkeley, I think. Elementary years she went there. But she was born in Portugal, Spain. I remember everything about her because. I don't know, she just really affected our whole trip. I actually, at one point thought if we were having two girls, we would use her name for one of the girls.

[16:03] RYAN WHITE: That's right. What was her name?

[16:04] VALERIE WHITE: I can't even remember now. Isn't that the worst? I know. I think it was Mathilde.

[16:10] RYAN WHITE: Yes.

[16:10] VALERIE WHITE: And I wanted to use Matilda because that's a little more american, but.

[16:14] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[16:14] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. Yeah. She was lovely and wonderful. But when she took us in to give us ultrasound, do you remember what she said?

[16:26] RYAN WHITE: Yeah, she said, both babies are fine.

[16:32] VALERIE WHITE: And I looked at her and I said, oh, it's just one baby.

[16:35] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. And then she said, no, it's two.

[16:38] VALERIE WHITE: I said, are you sure?

[16:40] RYAN WHITE: And she said, why would I joke about something like this?

[16:44] VALERIE WHITE: There was definitely, like an american sarcasm translation gap. Yeah, she didn't. She thought I was mad, I think.

[16:52] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. She just didn't. Well, that's why I said, that's maybe why I remember her not being.

[16:58] VALERIE WHITE: She really softened up after she realized that we were just floored. We had no idea. She didn't know that we didn't know.

[17:05] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. No.

[17:06] VALERIE WHITE: She probably would have broke the news differently if she hadn't known. We didn't know.

[17:10] RYAN WHITE: She probably thought we were kind of nuts at first. Yeah. Of course. Both of your.

[17:15] VALERIE WHITE: Obviously, it's two babies.

[17:17] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. You knew you were pregnant. You're from America. You probably have it all, you know, squared away.

[17:26] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. Well, and I had told her I'd had an ultrasound, too, so. Yeah, I think she thought we knew.

[17:31] RYAN WHITE: She was like, you are freaking crazy.

[17:33] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. And I remember she thought that they were identical and in the same sack. It was so early on that I don't think that you really would have been able to tell that.

[17:42] RYAN WHITE: That's right. We'd have to.

[17:43] VALERIE WHITE: But she was really worried. Cause there's higher risk in those kinds of things.

[17:47] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[17:48] VALERIE WHITE: And so she had her like the, like, lead doctor give me an ultrasound, too. And he said everything looked fine. And they did. They gave me progesterone and I took that for a while afterwards.

[18:02] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[18:03] VALERIE WHITE: Also, this whole doctor's visit only cost about 60 euro. Yeah, it was amazing. But, yeah, we were.

[18:13] RYAN WHITE: We didn't know that at the time, that we. We just kind of, like, gave them our information and, like, kind of, like, we need to see a doctor. We're just gonna, like, hope for the best.

[18:21] VALERIE WHITE: I offered him my insurance card, and they looked at me really confused.

[18:24] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[18:24] VALERIE WHITE: Like, what is. No, we don't want that. Okay.

[18:29] RYAN WHITE: We did have to give them, like, our address.

[18:31] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. They took a copy of my photo id and stuff like that, so.

[18:35] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[18:36] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. I remember when we left the hospital after we got, you know, everything in order, we had our little ultrasound pictures in our hands. I remember kind of just feeling, like, crying. Not out of sadness, but, like, being completely just overwhelmed and not really know. Like, I was overwhelmed because we're in on this exciting trip that I've never been to Europe before. I've always wanted to go.

[19:02] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[19:03] VALERIE WHITE: And now I don't feel good, and I have. I'm growing two babies.

[19:08] RYAN WHITE: It was. Yeah, it was bittersweet for me, too. I mean, like, I was, again, in complete disbelief.

[19:16] VALERIE WHITE: It was very surreal. Yeah.

[19:19] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. Like, I kind of felt the same way. I was like, oh, we don't get to do as much, and, oh, we're gonna have to pay for a lot more taxis and stuff. And I just kind of saw, like, our trip dwindling to us, like, hanging out in the public park, which is. Which would have been fine. I'm sure we would have had fun, but.

[19:39] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah, I think it ultimately just ended up being more expensive than we antipathy. I think we got to do everything we really wanted to do.

[19:46] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. Yeah.

[19:47] VALERIE WHITE: But for the most part. But financially, it hit us in the pocket a little bit.

[19:51] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. Yeah. And I remember that first, like, so we celebrated in Brussels, and do you remember.

[19:59] VALERIE WHITE: Do you remember when I fell getting out of the Uber?

[20:02] RYAN WHITE: I do now. Yeah, I had forgotten about that.

[20:06] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. When we. When the uber dropped us off at whatever that beautiful square is called in Brussels. The palace, the downtown city center thing. It's cobblestone streets. And I was just distracted and overwhelmed, and I just tripped, and I felt pretty hard, and I think you were really worried.

[20:25] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[20:26] VALERIE WHITE: But I got up. I was okay.

[20:28] RYAN WHITE: Yeah, you walked it off.

[20:29] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. I remember feeling a little embarrassed because there were lots of people around.

[20:33] RYAN WHITE: Well, and you have, like, it was actually a pretty good fall. I think you just have an insane pain tolerance, and then you probably had a ton of adrenaline still.

[20:42] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah, I do think I remember having a pretty bad bruise from my fall.

[20:47] RYAN WHITE: I remember that, too.

[20:49] VALERIE WHITE: Who was the first person that we told we were having twins.

[20:53] RYAN WHITE: It was the waitress. We. We went to, um. We went to this, like, little outdoor restaurant right in the middle of the square, kind of under those gold statues. And we were just sitting there, and the waitress came. And do you remember what I told her, or you told her?

[21:18] VALERIE WHITE: They just asked us, you know, like, what would you like to drink? And then we were kind of giggling, and we were talking and looking at the pictures. We had the ultrasound pictures in our hands, and she said, oh, you're having a baby, in somewhat broken English. And we were like, yes, we just found out we're having twins. And she said, I'll get you a beer. Yeah, she brought you a beer. I didn't get a beer. I did have to tiny sip, because I had to try the belgian beer.

[21:51] RYAN WHITE: I remember there was.

[21:52] VALERIE WHITE: And you ordered a bucket of mussels.

[21:54] RYAN WHITE: Oh, heck, yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah, I got those. There was like a. Wasn't there another american couple?

[22:05] VALERIE WHITE: There was an american woman meeting up with a friend. She. Her husband worked for the Un, I think.

[22:12] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. Okay.

[22:13] VALERIE WHITE: And we talked to her a little bit, and she was really kind and excited for us, too. And then I think while we were there, we started. It was, you know, with time differences, I think that it was really early morning in Nevada, so nobody was awake when we found out. So as our meal progressed, I think we started calling people that we knew would be awake. I think we called my dad first because he's an early riser.

[22:42] RYAN WHITE: He is.

[22:43] VALERIE WHITE: And, you know, everyone was very excited for us, which was awesome.

[22:48] RYAN WHITE: I think some people were, like, just as much disbelief as we were.

[22:52] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. Everyone seemed pretty shocked.

[22:54] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[22:55] VALERIE WHITE: My mom was like, I knew it. I had a feeling. I thought you had two babies. She said, even that first ultrasound, I thought I saw two babies. I was like, mom, you are crazy. You cannot see two babies.

[23:05] RYAN WHITE: Right? Yeah. I don't remember.

[23:06] VALERIE WHITE: She's convinced she knew I didn't see it. I guess my grandma, too. She had a feeling, too. My grandma told my mom, I think she's gonna have twins. Yeah.

[23:16] RYAN WHITE: Gosh, that's wild. You know, I remember I'm having a hard time with my memory again.

[23:28] VALERIE WHITE: Well, and I remember still being really nervous. Cause the doctor had told us.

[23:34] RYAN WHITE: Oh, yeah. That's what I wanted to talk about.

[23:36] VALERIE WHITE: That they were sharing a sack and that they were identical.

[23:38] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. We were still concerned because.

[23:41] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. So we were being even probably more careful than we ultimately had to be because.

[23:46] RYAN WHITE: Well, I mean, we just didn't. It was a big deal.

[23:48] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah.

[23:48] RYAN WHITE: We had. We had a lot, like, invested in, you know, these babies.

[23:55] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah.

[23:55] RYAN WHITE: And we.

[23:58] VALERIE WHITE: It was not the timing we planned on.

[24:01] RYAN WHITE: No.

[24:02] VALERIE WHITE: But we thought we better. Hang on.

[24:05] RYAN WHITE: We had been exploring the options, you know.

[24:08] VALERIE WHITE: Well, but we were planning to, like, put. Do it on our schedule, which is ironic.

[24:13] RYAN WHITE: We were planning for one.

[24:14] VALERIE WHITE: Right.

[24:14] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. One on our schedule.

[24:16] VALERIE WHITE: Knowing, like, the women's fertility history on my side of the family. I should have known I couldn't plan anything well.

[24:23] RYAN WHITE: But honestly, like, it's been. Nobody gets so long on my end that I just, like.

[24:27] VALERIE WHITE: Well, and you just didn't think it was possible. Yeah. It was a really wild thing to learn.

[24:33] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[24:34] VALERIE WHITE: I remember when we got to Ghent, which is where we stayed when we were in Belgium, we met Freya, who was the front desk person at the hotel, and she quickly became our friend. Cause we told her we were having twin babies and she was there every morning to greet us and she helped.

[24:54] RYAN WHITE: Us order that pizza.

[24:55] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. We got turkish pizza because everything was delicious.

[24:58] RYAN WHITE: Yeah, that was fun.

[25:01] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. And, I mean, I'm still her social media friend.

[25:04] RYAN WHITE: I am, too.

[25:05] VALERIE WHITE: I still connect with her. If I ever end up in Ghent again, which I would love to, I would definitely try and take her to lunch or something like that, because she was very sweet to us and took really good care of us because she knew that we had spent the whole day at the hospital, pretty much, so we had planned to explore Brussels more in that one day that we were there. We ended up only getting a few hours there.

[25:29] RYAN WHITE: Right. Because we spent the whole day at the hospital.

[25:31] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. And so we took the train to Ghent from Brussels, and I. We got to meet Freya, which is, you know, highlight. Yeah, she was great.

[25:42] RYAN WHITE: She really was.

[25:44] VALERIE WHITE: Which she has since told me that the hotel closed, the owners sold it, so she's doing something else now. But. And then I just remember we wanted to go to Bruges, remember?

[25:58] RYAN WHITE: Yep.

[25:59] VALERIE WHITE: And there was just no way I was going to be able to do the trains and the buses and all of that to get there. And so we very boldly rented a car.

[26:10] RYAN WHITE: I forgot about that, too. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, it was.

[26:14] VALERIE WHITE: How was driving in Europe?

[26:17] RYAN WHITE: Oh, it was. I mean, I'm probably already a little bit of like a crazy driver, you know, because I just. I just have a hard time paying attention, I guess.

[26:33] VALERIE WHITE: You're not very good at multitasking. I don't mean that offensively.

[26:36] RYAN WHITE: No, but that's totally true. But, yeah, it's terrifying. And because it was a manual and it was a different kind of manual, because I was used to the jeep. Yeah, but it was the tiny kind of. It was a fiat, right? Yeah, but it was before. Was it before fiats in the US or, like, right when they came out?

[26:59] VALERIE WHITE: Oh, no, we've had fiats in the US for a long time, but it was the, like, fiat suv, so it was a little bigger than the tiny little fiats. Yeah.

[27:08] RYAN WHITE: Well, anyway, yeah, like, I remember getting out of town was a little challenging, but it was like, okay, like, I can. You know, we got out of town, and then when we got to Bruges, I mean, it was packed and the highway was decent. It was, you know, pretty smooth. But then when we got to Bruges, there was, like, parking.

[27:30] VALERIE WHITE: Was just parking. Parking.

[27:31] RYAN WHITE: Very hard. Yeah. And then there was just tons of people on the street, so that it's.

[27:37] VALERIE WHITE: Like real life Disneyland. It's like, it's so cool. I would go there again, for sure.

[27:43] RYAN WHITE: Well, and I thought that that was hard. But then I remember the next morning when I had to take it back.

[27:50] VALERIE WHITE: And there were kids going to school on their bicycles.

[27:53] RYAN WHITE: Like every. I don't know what it is, but, like, everybody, it seemed, in that town went to school and started work at the exact same time, because the whole town was on the road and it, to me, was so chaotic. And I know it was probably totally normal for them.

[28:14] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah.

[28:14] RYAN WHITE: But it was the scariest driving. I mean, like, I've driven the wrong way in the trolley lane, towards oncoming trolleys in San Francisco. On accident, of course.

[28:26] VALERIE WHITE: Right.

[28:27] RYAN WHITE: And that was terrifying. But this was scarier, I think.

[28:30] VALERIE WHITE: You were afraid you were gonna hit a person, basically. Right.

[28:33] RYAN WHITE: What were you. I mean, you had gone through all this stuff.

[28:37] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. Well, and I think that our hotel and then the car rental place, like, right in between, was a giant school, so everyone was trying to go the same way as we were going, and you just.

[28:52] RYAN WHITE: I think I was late, too, so I was just panicky.

[28:55] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah, we were afraid we were gonna get charged for another day, cuz.

[28:58] RYAN WHITE: Cuz we were already broken. It was super expensive.

[29:00] VALERIE WHITE: We were expending on.

[29:01] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[29:02] VALERIE WHITE: But, yeah, it was all worth it.

[29:05] RYAN WHITE: It was, yeah. Um, I wanted to ask you a little bit more about. Well, I guess, I mean, when we knew that they were potentially, like, at risk and stuff. I mean, like, at what point, I guess, did you stop worrying?

[29:33] VALERIE WHITE: I don't know if I ever really stopped worrying. I stopped feeling, like, terrified.

[29:39] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[29:40] VALERIE WHITE: After we got back to the US and had another ultrasound, and they confirmed that they had their own sacs, and they were fraternal, you know, I think that gave us a lot of relief. And then I felt even more relief once we started seeing the genetic specialist.

[29:55] RYAN WHITE: Yeah, that's right.

[29:56] VALERIE WHITE: Because we got a very detailed ultrasound every couple weeks, and that was a huge stress relief.

[30:03] RYAN WHITE: I thought that we didn't know the gender until we had seen him, because he was the one who pointed it out to us, isn't he?

[30:09] VALERIE WHITE: He's the one. We got the genetic testing done there, and so we knew we had at least one boy, but we didn't know what second baby was. And he. Very early on, I think I was only maybe 13 or 14 weeks, he said, I'm pretty sure that this baby is a girl. He said, I can't guarantee it because it is very early.

[30:29] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[30:29] VALERIE WHITE: He's like, but I look at babies every day, all day.

[30:31] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[30:32] VALERIE WHITE: And so I'm pretty sure. And he's like, we'll know for sure at your next ultrasound. And, yeah, sure enough. One boy and one girl.

[30:40] RYAN WHITE: Well, I was kind of in disbelief, too, that we were having a boy at all.

[30:45] VALERIE WHITE: I know. You thought for sure you were going to be just a girl dad.

[30:48] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. Well, I mean, I. So I have. I'm the oldest. I have three sisters. My dad is one of five, and he.

[30:57] VALERIE WHITE: Or he's the only boy. Yeah. Um, your mom only has one brother?

[31:03] RYAN WHITE: She only has one brother, and there's two girls. And, like, even my grandma, again, she has one brother, two. Two girls. So I just thought, like, the chances of having a boy, and we already have Clifford.

[31:14] VALERIE WHITE: This is true. Yeah. Our oldest. Yeah.

[31:16] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. Who. How old is he?

[31:19] VALERIE WHITE: At the time, he was twelve.

[31:20] RYAN WHITE: That's right.

[31:21] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah.

[31:21] RYAN WHITE: It was right after we got married. Oh, he was. He was still a little wild kid back then.

[31:27] VALERIE WHITE: Oh, yeah. Who's very different than he is now, being 16.

[31:31] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[31:32] VALERIE WHITE: A lot of change happened in those four years.

[31:35] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. I miss the kid in him, but I also really love the person that he's becoming.

[31:41] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. He's a cool kid.

[31:42] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[31:43] VALERIE WHITE: And he's really good with the twins, too.

[31:45] RYAN WHITE: He really is. He. He's gonna be a really good dad someday.

[31:49] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah.

[31:50] RYAN WHITE: If he wants to do that. But I asked him if he did, and he says he wants to. So, I mean, I guess if he continues to feel that way, then.

[32:00] VALERIE WHITE: Well, when he was, like, the twins age now, you know, like three ish, I would ask him what he wants to be when he grew up, and he would say, a dad.

[32:09] RYAN WHITE: Really?

[32:09] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah.

[32:10] RYAN WHITE: So did you. Did you find that odd? Because Brad wasn't part of his life.

[32:19] VALERIE WHITE: No, I think that that might be why he didn't have. I mean, he has a present dad now, but at the time, I think he wanted a dad, and so he wanted to be a dad. And he also loved my dad so much, and he knew that my dad was a dad, so I think that he just wanted those things, you know?

[32:39] RYAN WHITE: It's kind of heartbreaking.

[32:40] VALERIE WHITE: No, it's sweet.

[32:42] RYAN WHITE: No, I mean, it's sweet that he. He wanted that, but it just makes sense.

[32:45] VALERIE WHITE: I mean, I think it's sweet because of where we are now, you know? He has a wonderful relationship with his dad and I. He still has a wonderful relationship with my dad and he has you as a dad. He's, like, inundated with dads now.

[32:58] RYAN WHITE: No, I don't mean it like, I don't want it to feel like an attack at all or anything like that.

[33:04] VALERIE WHITE: No, I know.

[33:04] RYAN WHITE: I just. It was obviously important to him.

[33:09] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah.

[33:09] RYAN WHITE: And I just. I just feel for him that, like, he didn't have.

[33:13] VALERIE WHITE: He also always a brother or a sister. He asked many times. I think by the time they came around, he was maybe a little over it.

[33:22] RYAN WHITE: Right. He was. That was like, when he.

[33:24] VALERIE WHITE: That was when he gave up. He was like, I don't need a brother or sister.

[33:27] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[33:28] VALERIE WHITE: And then he got two. Yeah.

[33:31] RYAN WHITE: So.

[33:32] VALERIE WHITE: And the year before the twins were born, his dad had a baby, too. So he became. Went from the only child to one of four. Well, yeah, one of four in, you know, a matter of a year.

[33:44] RYAN WHITE: Well, we knew we were outgrowing our space. Cause it was, like, already pretty tight in sparks and it was, like, super expensive. So we decided to move out to Idaho, like, before it got expensive because we were hoping to find a cheaper place. Like I'd always dreamed of raising my kids here in Boise.

[34:06] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. We moved eleven days before the babies were born.

[34:09] RYAN WHITE: Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Because I know it wasn't easy.

[34:15] VALERIE WHITE: No, it was not easy. But, I mean, Sam was ready to come. She didn't. She couldn't stay anymore. Toby was eating all of her food. She was hungry and she's still hungry. She's three and a half and the girl's still hungry.

[34:28] RYAN WHITE: I know, right? She's wild. And then Toby, of course, is not. Doesn't really eat much at all. But he's.

[34:36] VALERIE WHITE: He's a beefy boy, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're just. They're such their own unique little persons now. It feels so long ago. All the, like, pregnancy and especially the honeymoon feels like way, way long ago, you know?

[34:52] RYAN WHITE: Yeah, it does. It feels like, almost like it was a different. I guess it was a different stage in our life, right?

[34:59] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah.

[34:59] RYAN WHITE: Different lifestyle.

[35:00] VALERIE WHITE: I feel like a different person now.

[35:01] RYAN WHITE: Yeah.

[35:02] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. In a good way.

[35:05] RYAN WHITE: In a very good way. Do you remember how we came up with their names?

[35:12] VALERIE WHITE: Well, I know that we really loved the name Samantha from the jump, like we discussed. If it's a girl, we like the name Samantha. And then we had a hard time picking a boy name, but, yeah, we did.

[35:25] RYAN WHITE: What was it that you wanted to use again?

[35:29] VALERIE WHITE: You know, I don't even remember now. I think I was always kind of washy on boy names. There were some I kind of liked, but there was nothing that I was like, yep, that's the one. And then one morning, you were like, I think I like Tobias. And I was like, okay, let's do it.

[35:43] RYAN WHITE: I mean, like, you don't know that many people named Tobias, right? And the only guy that I knew who was named Tobias was a cool guy. Yeah, I liked him.

[35:53] VALERIE WHITE: And I don't think I ever knew anyone named Tobias until I named my child. Now I meet Tobias all the time. Is that funny? And it fits him. Toby.

[36:04] RYAN WHITE: Yeah, it does.

[36:05] VALERIE WHITE: Little personality.

[36:07] RYAN WHITE: Well, yeah. And at the time, I had a. You know, I was still pretty into, like, Bible stuff and things like that.

[36:14] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah.

[36:16] RYAN WHITE: Like, I like that his name went with Sam's name.

[36:19] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. Yeah, they were. We're very lucky to have them both. And they've totally changed everything about our world.

[36:29] RYAN WHITE: Do you remember. I mean, no judgment if you don't, but do you remember the way that I remember the. Do you remember the way that I remember. Do you remember what their names meant or mean?

[36:42] VALERIE WHITE: I have it written down somewhere, but I don't remember off the top of my head.

[36:46] RYAN WHITE: So Samantha is like Samuel, and it's God listened.

[36:55] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah.

[36:55] RYAN WHITE: And then Tobias. I can't remember, like, where the root is there, but it's God provides.

[37:06] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah.

[37:07] RYAN WHITE: And even though.

[37:10] VALERIE WHITE: And that's the way we felt when we found out we were having two babies.

[37:15] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. Cause it was, like, always. I always wanted to be a dad. And I loved being a dad.

[37:20] VALERIE WHITE: I always wanted to have more kids. Yeah.

[37:23] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. But I just. Yeah, it was kind of unexpected. I didn't believe it was ever gonna happen that way.

[37:31] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. And now we're tortured by two three year olds every day.

[37:36] RYAN WHITE: Oh. And I love every minute of it. They're so sweet.

[37:39] VALERIE WHITE: No, I know. I'm just kidding.

[37:40] RYAN WHITE: I love our family.

[37:41] VALERIE WHITE: Yes. We're lucky.

[37:43] RYAN WHITE: Yeah. Well, is there anything else you wanted to.

[37:50] VALERIE WHITE: I don't think so.

[37:51] RYAN WHITE: Okay.

[37:53] VALERIE WHITE: I mean, I'm sure we could keep talking for another hour.

[37:56] RYAN WHITE: We probably will, but.

[37:59] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah.

[37:59] RYAN WHITE: Thanks, babe.

[38:00] VALERIE WHITE: Yeah. Thank you.

[38:02] RYAN WHITE: This meant a lot to me.

[38:03] VALERIE WHITE: Thanks for having babies with me.

[38:05] RYAN WHITE: Yeah, I was gonna say anytime.

[38:09] VALERIE WHITE: No. No more babies.

[38:10] RYAN WHITE: No more. But I love you. Thank you, babe.

[38:14] VALERIE WHITE: I love you, too.