My husband and I decided that we wanted to expand our family, and started trying for another baby. To our surprise (which really shouldn’t have been a surprise cause it only took us 2 months to get pregnant with Avery), we were pregnant the first month. I was super excited, feeling great and ready to have another baby. My husband always joked about and talked about how awesome it would be to have twins, but I never thought anything of it, cause there are NO twins that run in my family.
My family physician sent me for an early ultrasound around 6 weeks, and as I dropped Avery off at a friend’s house, she said to me, “Could you imagine if you have 2 babies in there?”. I just laughed at her and said it’s not possible, and was on my way to my appointment. The lab tech started to scroll around my belly, and then kept looking at the screen, and looking, and looking. She than said to me, “are there twins in your family?” I think my heart skipped a couple of beats, the tears started pouring out, and some words came out of my mouth (which I won’t repeat, as this is a G rated Blog!). How could this be? She found 2 gestational sacs, but only 1 yolk. She told me that about 20% of women may be pregant with twins and not know about it because they don’t go for an early ultrasound, and may experience vanishing twin syndrome. She told me not to get all excited about twins because of only 1 yolk being visable, and the possibility of experiencing the vanishing twin syndrome. I needed to come back in a couple of weeks for another ultrasound to confirm what type of pregnancy I have.
Get all excited?!? Don’t get me wrong, I understand it’s a blessing to be pregnant with twins, and I should be considered lucky … but when you don’t have a history of twins in your family, are expecting only 1 baby to be growing in you and you get the news that you might be carrying multiples … excited is not the word that I would have used to describe my emotions at that point. I couldn’t stop crying, I shouldn’t have even driven home from my appoinment as I couldn’t even see the road clearly. TWINS .. what? TWINS .. how? What are we going to do? I just started my own company, how will I still be able to run it? What about Avery? and a million more questions were going through my mind. I called my husband, and when I finally got ahold of him .. his first reaction was ” Sweet! We can get bunk beds!” Hmm… I don’t think he understood really what this meant!
We than went for another ultrasound around 9 weeks .. which I made sure Scott came with me this time. During those 3 1/2 weeks or so between ultrasounds, there was not one part of me that actually thought 2 babies were growing inside of me. I don’t know if it was denial, or me not wanting to face the reality that there might be 2 babies growing inside of me. The ultrasound tech was really sweet and kept my spirits up for no matter what the outcome was … than all of a sudden on the screen … we see 2 sacs and 2 little grape sized babies growing inside of me. Let the crying begin! So many emotions,feelings, and questions went through my mind. Twins … they are fraternal, but could still be identical depending on when the egg split at the beginning.
Around the 12 week mark, we started to tell more friends and family about our exciting news. I think everyone’s first reaction was to laugh, than scream, and some even cried! ( or they were crying with me!) My brother and sister – in – law actually have 2 sets of twins (but twins run in my sister – in – laws familly), so I have been around twins for over 10 years now .. but it’s different when you are now the one going through it, and you’re not just the auntie that spoils your neice and nephews!
We went for the 19 week anatomy ultrasound .. and everything looks great! Babies are growing at the exact same rate, super active and there seems to be no complications at this point (I hope and pray it stays this way!)
I have been really really blessed the first 23 weeks with very little nausea, vomitting, and any other pregnancy symptom out there. I honestly do forget that I am pregnant with twins all of the time, which I know will change once my belly continues to grow and grow and grow!
I continue to teach all of my pre and postnatal fitness classes, personal train my clients and do my own workouts! Pregnancy is not a time to eat for 2 (or 3 in my case) and is definetly not a time to sit around and do nothing! It’s a time to still continue to eat healthy and be active (given you and baby are healthy and you have the ‘ok’ from your health care provider)
SIZE OF BABIES: 1- 1 1/2 lbs
: 10-12 inches long
FETAL MOVEMENT: These babies are SO active .. kicking me all day long .. and night!
SLEEP: I have been sleeping aweful lately! I’ll lay on one side.. that baby kicks me, I’ll lay on the other side, the other baby kicks me. I’ll lay on my back (which they say you shouldn’t when you’re pregnant cause of the blood flow to the babies .. but it’s so comfortable for me) … my husband will wake me and tell me to lay on my side! Than there’s Avery who gets up in the middle of the night and ask for mom… I can’t win!!
