And now, the reason I've been such a crappy blogger lately....

Introducing: the belly. Yes, I have jumped on the preggo train along with a million other people I know. How far along? About 14 weeks. Go ahead, say what you're thinking.

Why is she showing that much already? I mean, I know you show earlier when it's not your first pregnancy, but um, that belly is a little on the large side.

Well, I'll give you two reasons:

Reason A

Reason B

Yes, twins. Completely insane right? It took us awhile to process the idea. So here's the story:

I found out I was preggo right around 4 wks. (For those of you who don't get the whole "week counting" thing, 4 wks is when you'll miss a period. I'm sorry, but the concept of months just doesn't make sense to me. So, weeks it is!) I was REALLY sick with Brennan, so as ecstatic as I was to be pregnant, I had a feeling that my days of feeling good were limited. Around 5 1/2 wks the fun began. I was reacquainted with a long lost best friend - the toilet. I puked and dry heaved while Brennan stood next to the toilet and laughed at me. Because I couldn't keep anything down, my blood sugar was also in the toilet, so I had a hard time being vertical. This is not good when you have a toddler to take care of. It was so weird because I puked more when I was pregnant with Brennan but didn't have this problem.

Fast forward to 8 wks preggo. I had an appointment with my new OB doc, who scheduled an ultrasound for the next day for various reasons. So the next day, Brian met me at the doctor's office and we went in for our first "photo shoot" as Brian calls ultrasounds. Brennan was sitting on Brian's lap, but wasn't very happy that the ultrasound tech had turned the lights off and was messing with his mommy. So when the first image came onto the screen I was distracted. When I turned my head to look, I immediately saw two black circles and thought "Is that two (amniotic) sacs? No way, I must not know what I'm looking at." Then the tech said, "There's a baby. See that heartbeat? Now keep your eyes on that one ... because there is the other one!" Brian and I were in complete and utter shock.

We left the office with pictures of two little blobs and couldn't just get in our cars and say "See you later honey". So we decided to take a walk. We got some donuts and walked around the park, trying to absorb the news. Still unable to separate, we ran some quick errands with our heads in the clouds. Eventually, we began to call our families and share the news. Of course everyone was shocked and over-joyed.

Eventually the news sank in for both of us, but I have to admit that it took awhile. I'll be very honest and say that my emotions at first were very confusing. I've never been one of those people who thought having twins would be a fantastic thing. In fact, I thought the opposite. While every child is a blessing and I would never take it for granted, having twins just didn't sound like fun to me. So when I heard this news, I wasn't jumping for joy. I was overwhelmed, intimidated, and a bit terrified. I mean I already have one little, very active person to run after. How was I going to take care of two infants and him??

But at the same time, the minute I found out I was pregnant I fell in love with the tiny person growing inside me and that certainly hadn't changed now that I knew there were two. In fact, knowing what I know about the risks of a twin pregnancy, I was terrified to lose one of them. The risk of miscarriage of one or both babies in a twin pregnancy is significantly higher than in a singleton pregnancy. So I had this odd mix of emotions to battle, and felt a tremendous amount of guilt for not being able to muster the same amount of excitement as everyone else.

My doctor called after my ultrasound to congratulate me and to recommend that I read a particular book on multiples. I downloaded it to my Kindle a few days later and began to read. I eventually got to a section that discussed emotions. The book said that most mothers of multiples experience Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' Five Stages of Grief when they find out they are carrying more than one baby. And in fact, most do not feel excited at first because they are too overwhelmed with other emotions. This calmed my fears of being abnormal and helped me to work toward acceptance and eventually excitement.

Now that we've made it out of the first trimester and fully comprehended the fact that we'll be bringing home two babies instead of one, I'm excited. Still nervous about many many things, but excited that we'll have two times the baby to bring home and love. It will be a roller coaster for sure, but we'll make it through! And now we're working on training this guy to use some of his energy to retrieve things for mommy.....