“Rain would be good right now.”

Matthew Bohling offers the farmer’s prayer on a blue-sky day in mid-May.

He sits with his wife, Leisa, in their updated yellow farmhouse, home to five generations of Bohlings. The Tot Finder window sticker upstairs marks where Matt and three sisters slept.

Outside, a steady wind pushes against the bins and outbuildings sticking up from the featureless landscape. Its unvarying force creates a sensation of motion despite the postcard stillness. It is, at least, one certainty among the immense fields of risk.

Another is the steadily dwindling population in such rural areas as this.

For five years, the Bohlings have fretted not only over crops and cows. They’ve endured the stress and sadness of their inability to start a family of their own, their hopes wilting as though burned by drought, crushed by hail.

And then, this spring, a seedling.

At 14 weeks, her pregnancy barely showing, Leisa faces great risk. The embryo has split. The bettors have doubled down for a chance at identical twins, but the twins share a placenta. There’s a 1-in-4 chance one twin will rob nutrients from the other in what’s called a twin-to-twin transfer.

The farm is 100 miles southwest of Lincoln, an hour from York or Hastings, a long way from anywhere if something goes wrong. It straddles the border between Thayer and Nuckolls counties, which together cover 1,000 square miles of fertile earth, supporting 23 million bushels of corn, 5 million bushels of soybeans and 75,000 cattle.

The scarce commodity here is youth. Thayer and Nuckolls counties average 10 people and one farm for every square mile and one child younger than 5 for every two farms.

When Matthew and Leisa were born in 1976, the counties boasted upward of 15,000 people. Today, they have fewer than 10,000. Each year, their aging, hard-working neighbors of mostly Germanic heritage hold nearly two funerals for every baptism.

Leisa is due Nov. 14, but twins can come early. Every couple of weeks, the Bohlings will visit Dr. Amie Hollard in Lincoln. As lead physician on the riskiest pregnancies at BryanLGH Medical Center, Hollard often must tell women they won’t be mothers, not this time.

They met in 1994 through Leisa Hargens’ roommate and dated all of their freshman year at Hastings College.

Leisa, who grew up near Grand Island, played college basketball. Matt started out seeking a business degree but switched two years later to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and an ag degree.

Never marry a farmer, Leisa’s mother advised, but the eldest of three Hargens farm girls knew what she was in for when she married Matt in 2001.

Both assumed kids were part of the arrangement.

“Every couple,” Leisa says. “You hope.”

For Matt, there was no urgency.

“Whatever happens.”

Leisa does a little of everything at the Davenport bank where she works. She also gardens, helps the high school basketball coach, sits on the school board and keeps the farm books.

At 27, after waiting three years to become a mother, she lost patience with nature. That led to the Heartland Center, an Omaha fertility clinic. She had a laparoscopy for endometriosis. Next, she took the fertility drug Clomid and went on a six-month hormonal roller coaster ride. Then, endometriosis again.

In Omaha, Dr. Victoria Maclin chemically induced menopause to starve the endometriosis. For six months, Leisa awoke with hot flashes.

Insurance typically pays for none of these treatments, and the costs can run $500 per month.

Then came the big decision: Should they ante up $10,000 for in-vitro fertilization and roll the dice on a 1-in-3 chance of success?

Matt wanted to wait. “I really didn’t think it would work,” he says.

In January, they spent the money.

Of eight eggs harvested, seven were mature. Two of those were successfully fertilized in a test tube, and one made it to the budding embryo stage known as a blastocyst. Doctors implanted it, but they typically implant several to better the odds.

The money was gone. If this failed, the next step was adoption.

“Or,” Leisa said, “we won’t have children.”

Family and faith supported them. Matt’s mother, a nurse, gave Leisa hormone injections every day for weeks. Matt and Leisa drove the straight roads to Omaha and back, where an ultrasound in early February finally revealed an embryo.

Happiness.

And then, hey, there’s another one in here.

The first trimester brought killer nausea.

“I was in bed sometimes by 6 p.m.,” Leisa said. “I felt horrible … exhausted.”

After three months, she felt bad only when she hadn’t eaten. But still, she worried.

So many couples spend years and fortunes and end up childless.

“I’m a realist,” she says, then nods at her husband. “He says pessimist.”

Matt was helping his dad farm when he had the chance to rent a quarter and an 80 from his grandparents. Only the bigger, more efficient farms survive, Matt says, marveling at a $500 fuel bill for his combine.

He often gets up at 7 a.m. and doesn’t get in until 10 p.m.

After five generations of Bohlings on the farm, do they ever think about a sixth?

Matt does, Leisa says. “That’s part of the reason he’d like to have boys — for the farm.”

It’s such a mixed blessing, she blurts out. “Farming is such a thankless job.”

Everything hinges on weather and prices. A sudden hailstorm spells disaster.

May 31

In the cramped cube that is Dr. Hollard’s ultrasound room, a pale yellow light shines above sonographer Cindy Grossman and two monitors. Matt Bohling is wedged into a corner next to his wife, who lounges on blue vinyl, her black sandals dangling off the end of the table. Her red top and black pants have been rolled back to expose the bulge on her slender 5-foot-11 frame.

Wife and husband marvel at the wedge-shaped blacks, whites and grays on the monitors. At 16 weeks, the ultrasound shows each baby to be about the size of a sweet potato.

“There’s a heartbeat there and one heartbeat there,” Grossman says. Leisa smiles as she listens to the “woob, woob, woob” of baby A’s thumbnail-size heart beating 153 times per minute.

“Are those the heads?” she asks.

“Those are the bellies.”

“How do you tell if they’re both getting nutrients?”

“If they’re both growing,” Grossman says.

“They’re moving a lot,” she adds.

“They’re probably going to be boys and real ornery,” Leisa says.

Grossman changes to a three-dimensional view.

“So do you know what they are yet?” Matt asks.

“Yeah, I know what they are,” Grossman says.

“I’ve been trying to look, but I don’t know what I’m looking for,” says Matt.

Hollard enters, having observed from a computer in another room.

“Growth looks good,” she says.

She answers Leisa’s questions about pains and snuffles, the normal events of pregnancy.

“Now,” Hollard says, “Baby B has echogenic intracardiac focus.”

It shows up as a bright spot in the heart on an echogram and is thought to be calcium. It has been associated with Down syndrome, she adds, but because a previous test was normal, that’s not something to worry about.

“The other baby doesn’t have it,” she says, and because they’re identical, so are the chromosomes.

To be safe, she’ll send them to a fetal heart specialist.

Matthew tries to be certain about what he’s heard. “So one of the babies could have Down syndrome and the other doesn’t?”

There’s a chorus of no’s. They’re identical, so their genes are identical, and because one doesn’t appear to have the anomaly, the other doesn’t. It seems to satisfy him.

June 14

They’ve been looking at cribs, going to garage sales, eyeing green paint swatches for the nursery.

“Matt’s starting to figure out how expensive it will all be,” Leisa says.

She’s been worrying about the bank’s parade float for the Davenport summer festival.

Matt’s been studying ultrasounds, trying to determine the sex of the babies.

The ultrasounds look completely normal now, and they’re halfway through the pregnancy with no real problems.

All along, Leisa has tried to believe, to hope, to not think of failure. Her family lights a candle every week in church.

One of her sisters had no trouble having children. Leisa worked hard to hide her own desperation.

“Any woman going through this tries not to show her feelings,” she says. “Yeah, jealousy. But I don’t want that feeling. I’m happy for them.

“Jealousy is not the right word,” she says. “You feel alone more than anything.”

If there’s one reason this sensible, cautious, private woman has agreed to open up her life, it’s because she wants others to know this: “You’re not the only one. Somebody else is going through the same situation.”

June 28

Once again, Cindy Grossman applies a wad of clear gel to Leisa’s bulging tummy.

“Baby A is 12 ounces now,” she says. Its twin weighs an ounce less.

At her bank, Leisa has run into something of an unknown. It’s been 15 years since an employee needed maternity leave. Nobody knows whether it’s supposed to be paid time off, vacation time or what.

On the farm, Matt’s busy with irrigation.

“It’d be nice to get 2-3 inches of rain right now,” he says.

They picked up a glider rocker last weekend. They still need to tour and select a hospital and look into birthing classes. Matt’s given up studying ultrasounds.

It’s looking like the twins will arrive during harvest, when Matt and his father spend every waking moment in the fields.

“His mom and I take turns taking meals out to them,” Leisa says.

It could be a problem.

July 8

A drinking water purification system sits on the kitchen counter at the farm, waiting to be installed.

“It’s been a concern of Dr. Hollard’s,” says Leisa, who has been drinking bottled water since she got pregnant.

On the refrigerator door is a photo of the implanted blastocyst that became twins, along with some ultrasound images.

Matt comes in, his entire head sunburned.

“Got some hail,” he says, refilling a giant water jug from the tap. “We won’t have top dollar.”

He’s gone as quickly as he came, back outside to work on irrigation.

Leisa gets a little defensive at a question that suggests farming might not be the ultimate lifestyle.

“I love being on the farm,” she says. “I grew up being on the farm.”

Mid-October

The harvest has been in full swing for two weeks.

“The rain’s slowing us down,” Leisa says. “That’s the way it goes.”

If their children choose to farm, Leisa says, that’s fine.

“Farming’s tough, but I’d support them with whatever they want to do.”

Matt still doesn’t know the sex of the children.

“He’s made it this far,” she says.

They’ve picked out three or four names for each gender.

Hollard has no new concerns, but Leisa no longer is allowed to work. She was down to three tops that would cover her middle anyway.

Hollard has suggested a Caesarean section, because one of the twins is breech.

Nearing the end, it doesn’t seem like it’s been three long years of trying to have children.

“At the time you’re going through it,” Leisa adds, “it feels like it’s a never-ending process.”

Oct. 25

An amniocenteses reveals the babies’ lungs haven’t fully formed, delaying delivery.

“I just feel big and awkward,” Leisa says.

The harvest is done; Matt’s been putting up a fence for cattle.

Their crops, Leisa says, are so-so.

The babies end up being born vaginally. Hollard induces labor Nov. 5.

Two girls come 9 minutes apart after a little more than 11 hours of labor. Campbell weighs 6 pounds, 10 ounces. Kinzley is 5 pounds, 15 ounces.

Throughout the pregnancy, Matt has been sure they were boys. The night before their birth, he told Leisa, “I bet we’re having girls.”

A week or so later, Leisa says, Campbell seems to be the aggressive one. “She wants her food right now.” Her sister is laid back.

“It’s indescribable, exhausting,” Leisa says. “You don’t know what to expect, and when it happens, it’s life-changing.”

She hasn’t cried yet, but she’s choked up. Matt’s giddy, changing diapers, helping with feedings.

Except for the blowing wind, it will be quiet on the farm for the next several months. He’s glad to have the extra time for his daughters.

“He’s just totally enjoying them,” Leisa says.

Their grandmothers have taken turns helping. The grandfathers are concerned and proud, Leisa says.

Down the gravel road, past the green John Deere mailbox, probably in 2024, they’ll all be rooting for two perfectly matched power forwards in Davenport’s rivalry basketball game against Bruning.

All with one eye on the sky, reading the weather.

Reach Mark Andersen at 473-7238 or mandersen@journalstar.com.