A baby was the furthest thing from our minds. We had just moved into a new apartment, and I was trying to get a promotion at work. We figured we’d have children one day, but not anytime soon.

We had a vacation planned shortly after the move. One day, when we were away,  I noticed my breasts were, well, huge! But I didn’t think much of it. That should have been my first clue.

A second clue came -- or didn’t come -- a few days later. I was supposed to get my period while we were away, but it never happened. “Don’t worry,” Ryan told me. “You’re just stressed out. It’ll come.”

I spent the next few weeks waiting for my period and searching online for explanations. I wasn’t even thinking about pregnancy. Unfortunately, the other possible causes made me more and more anxious and seemed much scarier than becoming a new mom. I finally scheduled an appointment with my doctor.

Ryan was sick the day of my appointment, so he couldn’t join me. I kept trying to reassure myself the whole time while traveling to the office, waiting in reception, and sitting in the doctor’s office after I peed in a cup. So, I was a little on edge when the nurse knocked on the door -- and even more on edge when dropped the supplies she was holding as she walked in.

As she picked up her instruments, she said, “Honey, you’re pregnant!”

“Excuse me?!”

“You’re very pregnant,” she repeated matter-of-factly.

I shouldn’t have been shocked, but I was. I spent the trip home panicking about how this would change our lives, what it would mean for my promotion -- and what in the world Ryan would say about becoming a new dad.

As soon as I walked in the door, I blurted it out: “Ryan, I’m pregnant.” Now, he was both sick and stunned. He looked at me, said, “OK,” and went right back to bed.

It took him about a week to process the news. I tried to let him adjust to this change on his own time, but of course, I couldn’t help but watch him a little more closely. He spent a lot of time online researching pregnancy and fatherhood. And I could swear he developed a slight sweating issue.

As we both got used to the idea, we became more and more excited. “I always knew we would have children,” Ryan told me. “It’s just a lot earlier than we expected.”

We’ve had to make a lot of changes since our daughter, Ava, was born, including moving from that one-bedroom apartment to a house and giving up the weekends we used to have to ourselves. But Ava is our angel and has brought new meaning to our lives. We wouldn’t have it any other way!

Photo by Meryl Spadaro on Unsplash

My husband knew I was pregnant about ten seconds after I did, when I woke him up holding the positive pregnancy test. But neither of us knew at that point that we would be welcoming not one, but two babies into our growing family.

When I was about six weeks pregnant, I wasn’t feeling very well with cramps and light bleeding, and we were a little worried that something was wrong. Because it was a weekend, the on-call doctor advised me to go to the hospital. We were really nervous but hoping for the best. My husband had to wait in the exam room while they took me down to get an ultrasound.

As the ultrasound tech performed the scan, I couldn’t see the screen. She was asking me a lot of questions, and it seemed to be taking forever. Finally, she flipped the screen around and said, “Here’s the baby’s heartbeat. And here’s the other baby’s heartbeat.” I literally began laughing and crying at the same time. I certainly did not expect to hear that! She then printed a picture for me to take back to my husband.

When I came back into the exam room, my husband knew it must have been good news, because I was smirking. I could tell he had an immediate sense of relief but had no clue about the surprise pregnancy announcement I was about to reveal. I didn’t say a word and just handed him the ultrasound print out. Since it was still very early, you couldn’t see the babies, but you could very easily see two sacs.

He took one look at the picture and then looked up at me for confirmation. I held up two fingers. “And they both have heartbeats,” I told him. I will never forget the look on his face as he took this all in. It was a combination of so many emotions ranging from joy, shock, confusion, bewilderment, happiness, excitement, and perhaps a little bit of panic. He was too stunned to even say anything! Once he regained the ability to speak, we began immediately talking about the craziness of having two babies on the way and planning for their arrival. We celebrated with a milkshake on the ride home and couldn’t wait to spread the news to everyone about our quickly growing family.

Photo by Cassidy Rowell on Unsplash

Making our pregnancy announcement to our family was so much fun; I wouldn’t mind doing it again!  

My husband and I knew we wanted to tell our parents before anyone else. So, we invited everyone out to dinner, a common thing for us to do. We had everyone meet at our house, my husband copied the photo of the ultrasound onto a flash drive and was all set up to have it display on our TV. We also had a video camera secretly facing where they were going to be when we showed them. We chatted for a bit, and then suggested it was time to head out. That’s when my husband said, “Before we leave, I want to show you guys something on the TV.”

The screen turned on and displayed our ultrasound picture. My mom started screaming -- she instantly knew we were introducing our new addition to the family! My dad was super excited, and my husband’s parents were in shock. My husband then said, “Marci is 8 weeks pregnant!” Everyone was ecstatic. Then my husband said, “But wait…there is more: She is pregnant with twins!” Then the screaming really began, and all the crying began, too. It was so amazing sharing our pregnancy announcement with our parents.

We told our siblings next by showing them the ultrasound picture in a clever way. Both of our brothers did not believe us, which was funny that they had the same reaction. We then told as many family members in person as we could about our growing family and called the ones who lived too far. It was so much fun and hilarious to see and hear everyone’s response when we told them we were having twins.

We say that we wish we could have documented all the reactions -- but we’re happy we caught our parents’ responses on camera!

Making a pregnancy announcement to family members is always a fun experience. In our case, it was double the fun, because we were expecting not one, but two babies. My family and my husband’s parents knew I was pregnant, but it wasn’t until my first ultrasound around six weeks that anyone knew about the second baby.

They say “seeing is believing,” so I took a picture of the ultrasound print out -- with two sacs -- and sent a text message saying, “Two babies, and two heart beats!” Needless to say, my phone immediately started blowing up with calls and text messages expressing shock and excitement for our growing family!

After my next ultrasound confirmed that the babies were still growing strong (you get a lot of extra appointments with twins), we made our pregnancy announcement to my husband’s sister. He called her and told her we were going to have a baby, detailing the measurements and heartbeat of one baby. Then he said, “The other baby looks good, too.” Stunned silence on the other end of the phone!  Until she finally managed to say, “There are two babies!”

We told our extended family as I neared the end of the first trimester. It always started by telling the person I was pregnant, and they would express congratulations. Then we would say something like, “Guess how many babies there are?” or “The really awesome part is that there are two babies in there!” There was usually a second or two of shock before we’d get a standard response of “get out of town!” or “are you serious?”

We wanted to share with our immediate families the excitement of finding out the genders of the babies. Instead of the doctor telling us the genders at the anatomy scan, we had her write the gender of each baby on a piece of paper and took it to a bakery. We had two “gender reveal cakes” made. When you cut into a gender reveal cake, the frosting and/or cake inside is either pink or blue, letting you know what gender the baby is. So we gathered our immediate families into the dining room and made everyone guess what gender they thought each baby would be. The guesses were pretty split between boy boy, girl girl, and one of each. When we cut into the first cake, we saw a pink line of frosting. Then the second cake also had pink frosting! Two girls! It was a really wonderful moment—and even more special, because we got to share our news of the two new additions to the family with everyone.

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I was not “technically” ready to take a pregnancy test the day that I did, but I could not wait any longer and just had to take one and see. I remember reading the pregnancy test box that said it could detect if you were pregnant or not a week before your missed cycle. Of course, I thought I would just take it to calm my thoughts.  

So I woke up on that morning of May 2^nd, 2012, took a test, and left it on the bathroom counter for the five minutes you are supposed to wait. My husband was in the shower getting ready for work while I did all of this. I went back to bed to wait while he finished up in the bathroom. I just kept hoping I would find out that I would soon be a new mom.

I will never forget him opening the bathroom door and the look on his face. He asked me with a look of excitement in his eye, “What will this thing show if you are pregnant or not?” I said, it will say “Pregnant” or “Not Pregnant.”

I quickly jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom asking, “What does it say? What does it say?” He showed me the pregnancy test, and it showed I was pregnant! I screamed and jumped up and down. We then hugged and I kept saying, “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!” He went to work that day, and I actually had an appointment with my doctor already scheduled. This is when the real shock came.

I told the doctor that my home pregnancy test said I was pregnant. They took blood work, which would confirm if I was or not for sure. The nurse called me that afternoon and said, “You are really, really, really pregnant!” I laughed and said, “What does that mean?” She then told me my HCG levels were so high, the chance of multiples was very likely. I then thought holy cow!  I remember calling my husband at work and told him, and he just said, “Okay, when will we know for sure?”

Soon after, I had an ultrasound and found out we were pregnant with not one new baby, but two -- and it couldn’t have been a better surprise!

Photo by Meryl Spadaro on Unsplash