We made a wish, and two came true!

We waited about six months after Baby Sink to regroup and start trying again.  After three agonizing months of trying (hindsight: it wasn't long at all, at the time: it felt like years), we finally got the positive we were waiting for!

never been so happy/excited/nervous for two pink lines!

we were thrilled!! this is post-postive test (and post-gym) :)

the next morning Daniel sent me the sweetest message

I had to thank Robin in advance for getting me through the next 9 months! :)

The next fun part was telling our families.  We had a trip scheduled that weekend to take my family to The Bay.  Last Christmas, I had made a sign for my parent's house that reads "Nana and Papa's house - where cousins go to become best friends".  I had been saving it for just the right time.  We had Abby open a "gift" and everyone found out the good news!  Lots of happy tears and hugs.

A few days later, we had an impromptu Sweet Frog date with Daniel's family, and he told Jacob that he needed to meet his cousin... cue more happy tears and hugs!

We had several weeks to wait for our first appointment.  Thankfully, those weeks went by quickly, and I was only nervous the day of the appointment.  I spent the first few weeks was fairly sick, but continued going to the gym and trying to eat healthy, and welcomed every bit of nausea :)  Daniel was awesome - like always - trying to make me feel better and picking up my slack cooking and cleaning.  The most annoying thing he did during those first few weeks was talk about us having twins because he wanted to have twins so bad.  I kept telling him that we were NOT having twins, the chances were SO low, and he needed to stop.  He even got my mom in on it - she was calling the baby "peanut" and one day said "you know how many nuts are in a peanut, right??"... I told her to shut it, we weren't having twins.  Don't get me wrong, I would be thrilled with twins, but it was so unrealistic for me to even think about.

First appointment.  Cue racing heart, nervous sweats, and lots of positive thoughts about a heartbeat and healthy baby.  The ultrasound tech is talking to us and telling us all about what she's about to do (as if we've never had an ultrasound before).  I was too nervous to tell her that we've been there done that, so I just nodded my head.  She had the screen turned and was doing her thing, and I heard her whisper "good", so I thought to myself that it was a good thing.  Then she said "well, this is going to take me a minute" (Daniel and I both think Oh, no...) and she says "because this is going to take me a while longer.  I'm going to do double the work - there are two babies in there with two heartbeats!".  I started bawling and Daniel said "Are you kidding me!?!" (because he had been talking about it for weeks now!).  She looked at him and said "Honey, we don't kid about things like this... you're having twins!"  I was still crying, so the ultrasound tech told me that it would be okay, and I had to explain to her that they were the happiest tears imaginable!

Holy.Cannoli.
Praise.Jesus.
Oh.Shit.

To say that we were thrilled is an absolute understatement.  We hoped and prayed for a healthy baby, and we were doubly blessed.  Our lives went from single to plural in an instant.  We started talking about babies, heartbeats, heads, them, they, etc.  Whoa.  So now we have a Baby A and a Baby B.  They both measured 7 weeks 1 day, and they both had heartbeats of 154.

 

A is on the right and B is on the left

As we were anxiously waiting for the doctor, we talked about how we were going to break the news to our families, and knew we had to do it in person.  And we smiled until our cheeks hurt.

Our doctor came in and said "well, you guys don't do anything easy, do you??"  Haha, guess not.  She was so happy for us, too.  Being pregnant with twins is a whole different ballgame than just one baby, so we were told we needed to also see a high risk doctor, and we started researching all of the new stuff we had gotten ourselves into.  Daniel made this cute announcement (since he's a Star Wars nerd) to show our families:

 

So we got home, regrouped, and started making our rounds.  Because Daniel had been talking about twins for the past few weeks, guess what... nobody believed us.  My sister even thought we had photoshopped the ultrasound picture.  It took lots of convincing that we were, in fact, having two babies.  Cue lots of happy tears, hugs, and genuine happiness.  It was one of the happiest days of our lives.

Oh, and how did I tell my mom?  I said "how many nuts did you say were in a peanut"?  She kind of giggled, and I said "well, that's how many babies we are going to have!".  She stared at me and I said "we are having twins!!".  She cried and cried :)

We had a high risk appointment a few weeks later, which was an agonizing wait.  We knew it was really early and we were praying to have two healthy babies up on that screen.  That appointment went amazing, and there were those two little peanuts... swimming around and growing like weeds!  They were also able to tell us that their heads were developing normally (the best news in the whole world!).  We've never been so thankful before.  I was also told that I had to stop all exercising and just needed to eat and eat and eat.  Talk about a lifestyle change!  But I'm willing to do anything to keep these two precious babies healthy, even if that means that I hang out on the couch eating ice cream :)

After getting the good report from the doctor, it was impossible to hide my growing bump.  I had a pre-planned trip to Blacksburg, so I was able to tell all of my Hokie momma's in person!  We told everyone at work and all of our friends and extended family as soon as we saw them.  Some people would have waited until it was "safe", but based on our past experience, we wanted all of the support we could get - in case something good or bad happens.

We have done LOTS of research on being pregnant with twins, having twin babies, and raising twins.  My incredible husband started reading right away (and he NEVER reads!), and giving me some advice and has made sure I do lots of resting!

And I made some cute matching onesies for our announcement picture

We had our first trimester screening this past Monday, and we were hoping and praying that our babies were healthy - since this was the appointment last time where we got bad news.  We have been hopeful, but not naive to the fact that something could go wrong.  Our appointment couldn't have been better.  Our babies are normal, normal, normal (that word was music to our ears!).  All results for trisomy abnormalities were normal.  They both had beautiful, big, huge, round heads!  We saw them swimming around and waving.  Baby B was a diva and always wanted to be in the picture.  Baby A was just hanging around, and didn't want to cooperate as easy for the measurements and pictures.  And it was the most amazing sight.  Their heartbeats are the most amazing sound.

 

We made our first twin purchase!  Since we'll probably have newborns around Easter, we found these adorable "Just Hatched" bibs

 

After our appointment went so well, we made it Facebook official!  Because you know, these days, it's not real until it's on social media.

We are so happy.  Daniel is the most incredible husband, and is already the best daddy.  He loves my growing bump.  He does everything in his power to make me happy and comfortable (almost) every day :)  He makes me feel beautiful, despite me not being able to work out, eat like a cow, and watch the number on the scale rise.  He talks to the babies, makes big plans for them, and loves them beyond measure.  We are taking this day by day, and not taking a minute of our babies for granted.  We know that things could go wrong, and are so thankful for what we now have.

"Bad times make the good times better" - Frankie Ballard