**Caution** This post contains total hormonally-induced honesty.
Here's how it went down:
One week ago, 19 weeks, first ultrasound.
Quick-talking Ultrasound tech: Hey guys, how's it going? (squirt squirt)
Me & Coach: Great! thanks!
Quick-talking Ultrasound tech: This your first? (turns on the monitor, types a few things…)
Me & Coach: Yep. Pretty excited.
Quick-talking Ultrasound tech: So you guys know you're having twins?
Me & Coach: Ha ha! Funny ultrasound joke!!
Quick-talking Ultrasound tech: Nope. I'm serious. There they are….
All I could see on the screen were tiny body parts.
Then I burst into tears.
We have no twins in our families, didn't do any fertility work… only heard one heartbeat many many times!
This week has challenged my emotional range more than any I can ever recall in my now, 36 years.
I will start this by stating the facts. I know this is a blessing. I know that most-likely, everything will be just fine. I know that someday, I will look back on this and be so glad it went down this way. And I do, in earnest, just pray that everyone using my body as an HQ, including myself, stays healthy and happy.
And if one more person says the word “miracle” to me I may end up on the news.
But for the better part of this week I have been terrified. We walked out of that office having everything we thought about our life, changed. We have spent the time since then recalculating, relearning and rerouting. We have had lots of talks, lots of check-ins, a few fits, many sleepless nights and possibly one panic attack. I won't say who It was me.
Deciding that we have had enough surprises for one year, we opted to learn the gender, which was actually one of the highlights of the whole experience. One boy. One girl. Both are healthy so far and good size. We will be a family of four in a matter of months!
My panic is wearing off as the news sits with me, and the babies and I have regular conversations about how nice they are going to be to me when they get here. (I firmly believe in the power of suggestion.) We are working on figuring out what we REALLY need two of, and if I am going to have to give up my beloved Mini Cooper (tear). We have broken the news to Lucy, and though she wouldn't come up in the bed for 4 days, she has now decided to sleep in the giant body pillow with me, which I am taking as a sign of acceptance.
I think the life part is getting easier to imagine, it's the physical part of all this that I am still freaked out about. Can I do this? Will my body still work? Can I keep them in there long enough? How the HECK am I going to deliver? There is a whole lot of unpredictability about it. Unpredictability and I are not super-good friends.
And I am HUGE. Which is all part of the process, I understand, but considerably awkward.
I promise this will be my only whining post. I fully plan on returning to my upbeat optimistic self shortly. I just needed to say out loud that this scares the shit out of me.
In fact, a clever reader posted a comment the other day after sniffing out the multiplicity going on over here asking if we had a nickname for the 'bump'. I jokingly said to Coach: “Yeah, it's “Holy Crap!”
So there you have it! Big news just got bigger! I am soliciting positive vibes, reassuring stories and lots and lots of laundry detergent. Send help! diapers!
Thanks for being out there in this moment!
xoxo
