Thanksgiving Special
When Kari (Schlaak) Rettig was a little girl growing up in New Richland, she owned more than 100 dolls and used to tell people she wanted a dozen children someday. With the birth of her second set of twins this year, she now has an even dozen — and countless reasons to be thankful
A DOZEN AND THEN SOME — The Rettig family, front from left: Rockford, Victoria, Keira, Emma and one of the newest twins. Back: Elisabeth, Jacob, Mercedes, Christian, Lee, Hudson, Kari (holding the other twin) and Hannah. The new twins are named Abraham and Benjamin. (Submitted photo)
By RACHEL RIETSEMA
Staff Writer
The saying, “The more the merrier,” well, the Rettig household has taken that one literally.
Yes, Kari and Lee Rettig definitely have their hands full, with 12 children in all. And they wouldn’t have it any other way.
“People remember me saying I wanted a dozen children,” said Kari, a New Richland native and daughter of Lyle and Diane Schlaak. “I remember having over a hundred dolls and I named most of them. My husband was the older of two; he debated about even having children before we were married. He then said four and once we had about two, he was fine with six.”
But, after bearing their first set of twins (numbers four and five) Lee’s exact words at the time were, “However many God blesses us with is fine.”
“Our days are full,” Kari said. “I tell people it's like preparing three Thanksgiving meals each day as I am cooking for 14 each day.”
Their most recent bundles of joy arrived fresh off the helicopters. Yes, the plural noun usage is certainly correct here.
“With Abraham Jon and Benjamin James (A.J. & B.J. or Abe & Ben), I ended up having placenta previa and placenta percreta,” she said. “They weighed in at 4 lbs., 5.5 oz. and 4 lbs., 13.2 oz. respectively and 18 1/4 & 17 3/4 inches long.”
Being stricken with both of those particular conditions weighed prettily heavily on her heart and mind, especially with two little one’s lives at stake.
“I know how busy twins are because I already had a set,” she said. “But see, I didn’t know I conceived twins right away. I had an ultrasound in early February and it only showed one baby.”
At that February appointment, she did point to the ultrasound screen and thought maybe she had seen a second spine. But for some reason, the doctor assured her that it was just a shadow.
“Later on, I was having dark brown spotting so I made an appointment to go in,” she said. “I had bright red spotting Wednesday night and made my appointment for the next day (my appointment was for Friday),” she said. “At that appointment (the end of April, the 26th), the ultrasound technician said, ‘You don't know you're having twins?’"
Immediately thereafter, she received a text message from Lee, asking, “Are you O.K.?” Apparently, he hadn’t heard from Kari all afternoon because the appointment lasted so long.
“My eldest son was with me,” she said. “I found out I was having twin boys, but didn't tell Jacob as I thought it would be best for Dad to know first.”
She and her son stopped somewhere to pick up some Twix and Twinkies. A very necessary errand, she said.
“Lee was heading home with building supplies for our addition to the house,” she said. “We met on the side of the road. (The previous day my husband said how he hated people sticking their hands in his pockets so I had Jacob put a Twix in one pocket and a Twinkie in the other when we stopped on the side of the road.) I told Lee that I knew he hated people digging in his pockets; however, he needed to put his hand in Jacob's pocket. He pulled out the treat and instantly knew we were having twins again because we shared Twinkies with everyone with our first set of twins.”
Two weeks after the confirmation of twins, she hemorrhaged and was taken via ambulance to Sacred Heart Hospital in Yankton, S.D. Only there for a few hours, she received a unit of blood.
“I was then air-lifted via helicopter to Sanford in Sioux Falls where they kept me in bed the entire stay,” she said. “My husband drove to the Yankton hospital behind the ambulance and then drove to Sioux Falls where he met me, my mom and sister.”
Lest we forget the 10 children at home, Kari’s sister went back to their house to care for them. In the meantime, Kari boarded a fixed-wing helicopter and was airlifted to Rochester.
“I kept asking my husband to take pictures of the helicopter to show the children as I knew, especially the boys, would love it,” she said. “I was really just fine with the entire thing. I knew I was in the best hands possible, my Heavenly Father and the doctors of Mayo.”
Her mother Diane added a few words, “Kari’s life was in danger, because at any time, she could bleed to death. At one point, she was hooked up to three ports just to be safe.”
Now inside Mayo Methodist, she lay in bed like a ticking time bomb. And so, about nine days later, she gave birth to her twin boys.
I was at there from the Saturday of Mother's Day weekend until the middle of June,” she said. “The babies were born nine days after I arrived. I was monitored closely for the first 12 hours and then twice a day.”
Both Abraham and Benjamin needed a bit of oxygen and were connected to a ventilator for about eight hours for precautionary reasons. Other than that, these premature babies’ hospital stay lasted about a month.
“The odds of having one set of identicals and one set of fraternals are 1 in 10,000,” she said. “Our first set of twins was fraternal and the second set was identical, falling into the 25-30% of identicals when the split occurred 1-4 days after conception.”
She and Lee’s hands now completely full, they take one day at a time and are thankful for every meal provided.
“Just about two weeks ago, we had a phone call saying someone had a party and had leftover food, enough for about 20 people,” she said. “My husband picked it up and we had delicious chicken with wild rice, peas in the pod, etc. and all we had to do was reheat. Everyone has been especially helpful when I've been so busy with the newborn twins.”