We're Expanding our Family... but not just one! TWO... And they are IDENTICAL!

Our hearts are so full of this news! I mean, in the moment I think we were all completely in shock and disbelief. I look back almost four years ago thinking that we might only be a family of 3, and now here we are, a family of SIX! AHHHHH!!!! God is good.

Let me just stop and think about this for a second – is there someone who has completely changed your life, literally. Our surrogate, Heidi, has completely changed ours and we are forever grateful! She has the biggest heart! Fun fact, Heidi is carrying her 6th and 7th baby. That’s one strong woman if you ask me! Want to know how this transfer began? Well… you’re going to have to wait until my next post because it’s just so crazy. Suspense, I know!

Now keep in mind that we transferred just one embryo. The chances of it splitting are like 1%. Wouldn’t happen, right. WRONG. Funny enough, on the day of our ultrasound were joking that there would be twins.

As our eyes scanned the 7 week ultrasound, not really understanding anything we were looking at, Heidi was thinking she saw two… and I was thinking I saw two as well. When the ultrasound tech said...

“There are two babies. Two heartbeats.”

Heidi immediately burst into laughter… and well, I started crying! Tears of disbelief, excitement, joy, fear – all the emotions! I was already planning in my head how I was going to hold two babies at the same time.

Obviously with Covid restrictions, we facetimed Craig and told him the news. He thought we were pranking him! Even when we got home, he told us to tell him the truth already! I don’t think any of us could really wrap our head around this!

Once the news of identical twins settled into my heart, my thoughts, and my breath… I knew everything was okay. It took a few weeks for me to pray, process this, and share the news with our families, who were completely thrilled by the way! It was like both thoughts could barely coexist – that there were two little humans. I had to settle one before I could grab hold of the other.

Two babies to love. Two beating hearts. Two babies to cuddle. Two babies to bounce. Two mouths to feed. Four hands and four feet. Two little ones to complete our family.

We just had another ultrasounds yesterday at almost 13 weeks and confirmed the twins are healthy and Mono/di (short for monochorionic diamniotic pregnancy). Praise God! These monozygotic twins share a chorionic sac but have different amniotic sacs. This also means that they share the same placenta. Mono/di twins occur in about 1 of 3 instances of spontaneous twins. As of right now, Baby A (heartbeat of 141) is on the left and head down, and baby B (heartbeat of 153) is on the right with it’s head up. The tech told Heidi that the twins will be unlikely to switch sides, and will be getting ultrasounds every 2 weeks. Not only that but each ultrasound will be 1-2 hours! At this rate, our twins are going to be famous with all this camera time!

I think there may be a lot more tears in our future, if I’m being honest. Tears of all the emotions. For now though, we laugh, and we celebrate TWO!

I guess God had bigger plans for us in the works, and maybe our plans were just a little too limiting, because this news is the best news I could have ever asked and prayed for.

PS. UM, IDENTICAL TWINS! I’M GOING TO NEED ALL YOUR TWIN MAMA TIPS AND ADVICE. I’m going to be sharing on eidi chantelmy social stories AND PROBABLY ASKING LOADS OF QUESTIONS, SO COME JOIN ME THERE AS WELL!