Among many questions on our mind (such as, but definitely not limited to: “how do you feed twins” “do they wake each other up all night long” “how do you pack all 3 kids in the car” “DO you ever go anywhere with 3 kids under 2”), the next big question was- will it be boys, girls or boy/girl twins?

We had the early blood test done just like we did with Colbie, but with twins they can only tell you if a Y Chromosome exists or not. In other words we would know if there was at least one boy or not, but wouldn’t know the gender of both until the anatomy sonogram.

We were in the midst of building our new dance studio (yes LOTS on our plate, but apparently that’s how we roll) as I waited for the results. I was driving to the studio to meet Trey for some last minute projects we were needing to do before we could move in when the Dr. called with the results. I simply cannot keep anything a secret from him so I knew if I wanted to tell him in a special way I would have to do it RIGHT THEN. We needed something for dinner so I picked up some pizza and gave him the news that way. Trey was convinced it was twin girls (I think maybe he was just preparing himself for a house FULL of girls and the drama that would ensue with that combination).

Here’s what I found out…

Not the fanciest way to tell your husband that he will in fact get to be a boy dad, but he was excited nonetheless.

So it was either a boy and a girl or a 2 boys and we had to wait to find out…

This won’t be a long post, but we felt this video was funny enough it HAD to be shared! Both sets of grandparents knew we were pregnant, but we videoed the reaction when we told them it was twins.

During dinner we decided to just give them the picture of the sonogram- one said Baby A and one said Baby B- we thought it was fairly self explanatory, but apparently not!

Please tell me you heard them ask if it said Baby Elf!? Yes, moms we are trying to tell you that our baby is going to be an elf…

Many people wonder- how did you react when you found out you were having twins? And then many more questions follow- Do twins run in your family? Are they going to be identical or fraternal? Etc. etc. So here you go- this is how it went down.

I was on my first weekend trip away from Colbie and Trey was on baby duty solo for the whole weekend. I was in New Orleans with my fabulous dance teachers from the studio for a dance conference. I was still breastfeeding Colbie so pumping while out of town was going to be interesting and I was partially prepared for this to be the end of breastfeeding since Trey would get through my whole stash at home over the weekend. We had a great weekend and even had some time to go out and have fun. Several times we joked about what if I was pregnant. I’m not even sure why that came up- maybe I was feeling weird, or a little late, but for whatever reason I remember I KEPT saying I am NOT pregnant- there’s just no way. We got home late on Sunday night and Monday morning I decided to take a pregnancy test. Why? I don’t know- I just felt like I should. I had BARELY put the stick on the side of the bathtub and BOTH LINES POPPED UP! Um excuse me, what? I didn’t even take another one because it was the darkest, fastest appearing lines I knew I was actually pregnant.

Although at this time Colbie has JUST turned 7 months old and I should be freaking out, I was amazingly just SO excited! That night when Trey got home and we were sitting on the couch I just blurted out “I’m pregnant!”. No fun reveal, no exciting lead up- just said those 2 words. He just stared at me for a little while and I think he said “Whhaaaaat?” He had the deer in headlights look that I thought I would have, but I was just so excited to have 2 kids so close together and I knew we would be able to handle it and of course it had been less than 24 hours so nothing had actually sunk in yet.

Fast forward to about a week later. I had been feeling nauseous and not feeling great, but I remembered morning sickness with Colbie and knew it would eventually pass. UNTIL…  I wake up in the middle of night throwing up and then just couldn’t stop. All night long and all morning. I couldn’t take the smallest sip of water without it immediately coming up. Finally about 8:00am we decide to have my mom come watch Colbie so Trey & I can go to the hospital. I have learned that hospitals are very scared of pregnant women (unless you are in the labor & delivery wing) and they don’t want to do anything without you seeing your OBGYN first. They gave me some medicine for the nausea and re-hydrated me and told me to see my doctor. The next day Trey & I (and Colbie) went to my doctor’s office together. I knew I would be getting a sono (our first one with this pregnancy) to check things out and make sure everything was ok. I was convinced something was wrong and that’s why I had felt SO bad so I made sure to have Trey with me in case of bad news.

I will never forget this scene:
We walk into the sonogram room and the tech says “lets see how many babies are in there” and laughs. I barely hear her because I am so nervous and even when I realize what she said I brush it off because its not even a thought in my head. Colbie is parked in her stroller right in front of the monitor that shows everything and Trey is sitting next to me. I have my eyes covered because I just cannot handle the thought of bad news. The tech BARELY starts the sonogram and says “Oh! There ARE two in there!” I immediately uncover my eyes and see the unmistakable picture of twins. (I didn’t actually know what twins would look like that early on, but when you see it on the sonogram you just KNOW its twins). Colbie giggles and looks up at me and then I look at Trey. Biggest eyes you’ve ever seen! He can’t speak and I just start laughing. I am so relieved that there is nothing wrong, so relieved there actually is a baby in there (omg there’s 2 in there!) and so unbelievably in shock that I can’t do a single thing, but laugh.

While I will never forget finding out we were expecting twins I honestly can’t remember the rest of that doctor’s appointment or the next few days and weeks. We would just laugh and keep saying- wait, what? We are having TWINS! (And actually as I’m writing this my twins are 6 months old and we STILL say that almost daily- “we have TWINS!?”)

We were about to delve into major unknown territory and something that many people cannot say they have experienced. We were going to have 3 kids under the age of 1 and a half and how in the world were we going to survive this!? I will tell you, regardless of the sheer terror of this situation I could barely contain the excitement of twins and the joy of having TWO babies about to come into our lives. Ready for the roller coaster of a lifetime?

The answers to many of your questions
– No, twins do not run in our family
– No, we were not undergoing fertility treatments
– No, we were not even trying to get pregnant- this was God’s plan, not ours (and his plan turned out to be better than ours- isn’t it always?)
– Colbie was 7 months old when we found out we were pregnant- that puts our babies 15 months apart 🙂
– The twins were what is known as di/di twins (Dichorionic/Diamniotic)- which means they each have their own amniotic sac and their own placenta. This is the lowest risk version of twins.
– Di/Di twins are most commonly fraternal, but there was no way to tell if ours were fraternal or identical until we had them and either had a DNA test or could just tell by looking at them

Clearly, I have taken QUITE a break from blogging. We captured every week of my pregnancy with Colbie, noting the feelings, the joys and the not so fun parts of being pregnant. My most recent post included a newborn photo of sweet baby Colbie, all her stats and my birth story. Since then we have been….. a LITTLE busy.

While I am now writing this almost 21 months after my last post it is titled 7 months later due to the big surprise we received when Colbie was 7 months old. Most of you are very aware of our big surprise, but to appropriately (well, at least vaguely) document those 1st 7 months of Colbie’s life I wanted to include some pictures and updates before we get to our surprise. 😉

Those first several months were filled with tears of joy, tears of “oh my God, how do people do this parenting thing”, and tears of sleepless nights, but really and truly mostly just lots of love and wonder that this tiny human is ours to take care of and love.

Here’s the fastest update you’ve ever seen:
(see our monthly update pictures for even more of the fun!)

Colbie…

*Has been smiling since 2 months old- such a happy baby!
*Has been LOUD since 3 months old when she found her voice- grunts, noises, squals, and now lots and lots of baby talking
*Is such a thumb sucker
*Has always been a BIG eater- started solids at 6 months and eats with loud sounds of joy and will eat just about ANYTHING
*Started crawling just after 7 months and life changed forever 🙂
*Started getting teeth at 9 months and they all started coming at once. Had a full mouth of teeth (minus her back molars) by 12 months

Now to the big surprise that is not such a surprise anymore! At just 7 months old Colbie found out she was going to be a big sister and mommy & daddy found out life was about to get a whole lot crazier, a whole lot tougher and a whole lot more fun! Not only did I find out I was pregnant, I found out I was pregnant with TWINS! What the what!? That story will be for another day.

In the posts to follow I hope to get caught up to current day and continue to track the fun and challenges our family experiences day to day.