Well we waited almost the traditional amount of time to tell majority of our friends and family we were expecting. It just so happened that the start of my second trimester fell around the same time that Joey was scheduled to have surgery at Shands for his back. So we knew we wouldn’t be seeing too many people while he was recovering, so we decided to take the opportunity to throw a little shin dig for Joey’s bday that was also disguised as his last hoorah before surgery.

We struggled with how to announce at the party, we wanted to tell everyone all at once, but everything just seemed so dramatic or cheesy. In the end, we decided to let our pups spread the news. I whipped up a couple of doggie bandanas, and ironed on the message that they were each getting a baby. It wasn’t perfect, our printer ran out of colored ink in the middle so one of them looks a little funky, but in the end it did the trick.

In the middle of the party, once most of the guests had arrived,  I pulled the dogs aside, popped on their bandanas and we let them loose. A couple of people screamed, I think Summer was the first to spot the twin part though, and catch on! haha. Then people really started to squeal.

It was so much fun, and I’m so glad we did it that way. The dogs seemed to really enjoy everyone’s excitement too, even though they didn’t really get why. Unfortunately in all the excitement, I didn’t get any pics of the dogs. Luckily, Summer did and has graciously shared a couple with me!! 🙂

It was still a little early, so we asked everyone not to post to social media just yet.

The following weekend Joey’s Aunt Carol and Uncle John came to visit on Joey’s actual birthday. They had never seen our new house, and we were so excited to share the news with them when we got to the soon-to-be nursery on the house tour! 🙂 They were thrilled and we had a lovely weekend together, we even went to Wakulla Springs!

Excitement pretty much stalled for a bit after this, we went to Shands the following weekend and had Joey’s surgery. It went great, but it was hard for both of us. I had just started the second trimester, but was not feeling any extra energy boosts that  I had been promised, and he of course had just had major surgery so we were a pretty lethargic pair for a bit. But slowly but surely, Joey was back on his feet, and doing much better. The timing of the surgery really couldn’t have been better!

I didn’t post anything to social media for quite awhile, mostly because we were busy, and because we couldn’t decide how to announce it. Finally one day we just bit the bullet and made a silly little meme to throw out there. I think it was cute, and it did the job, and most importantly my mom was thrilled that she could finally share our news. 🙂

I think that ultrasound was from week 13. We had a LOT of ultrasounds. Which was great, we were very fortunate because I know most people only get to see their little ones a handful of times. But we seriously had one at every appointment, which was a lot, considering we were seeing our OB every 4 weeks and a maternal fetal medicine specialist every 6. Then of course the closer we got to our due date, the more frequent the appointments became. So we had a good amount. I’ll only share my favorites here I promise. Also, the earlier ones are the best, once they get bigger it’s hard to see much.

Above: Baby B on the left, and Baby A on the right at 15 weeks.

Maternal fetal medicine was both interesting and stressful. Our OB refers everyone to a specialist for a first appointment, and then again for an anatomy scan which is the gender appointment. But because we were having twins that upped us to a “high risk” status, so that meant that we had to see them more frequently. Our doctor was an old nerdy guy with a really dry sense of humor. He was nice, but not particularly friendly. Our first appointment was overwhelming. We went into his office, and he handed us a sheet with a bunch of numbers, it was a statistical sheet of the odds of genetic disorders by maternal age. He crossed everything out and doubled it because it was twins. He spoke quickly and technically and it was very overwhelming. Walking us through every possible disorder and our odds and what it meant if testing showed these disorders. I understand why he went through this with us, but it was so quick and technical that if our results did show something wrong, I would have needed him to start all over from the beginning because it all went right over our head and just made us more nervous.

Above: Baby A on the left, and baby B on the right. 19 weeks

Thankfully, our scan showed that they appeared normal, and later testing also went well. At one point the specialist said I had the “bloodwork of an 18 year old.” Thanks Doc, you know how to make a girl blush…lol.

Week 19 was a big one, we saw both our OB and our maternal fetal medicine specialist that week. But the exciting part was that we found out the genders. 🙂

Baby A was a boy!! And baby B was a….

GIRL! One of each!

We were thrilled! We’d both suspected it was one of each, I’d had very few tell tale symptoms. I craved both salty and sweet, and just didn’t really have a strong feeling one way or another so I felt like they must be crossing each other out. I think statistically it’s more likely for fraternals to be boy/girl too but that’s just something I read somewhere, I have no idea if it’s actually true.

Either way, we were pumped and happy that our babies were healthy, and excited to know we were going to have a boy and a girl to complete our family!