Twins?!

When Kurt and I went in for our first doctor's appointment, the doctor told us everything that I can and cannot do during my pregnancy, and what to expect. Then he took us in a room and we had our first ultrasound. At this point, I was about 9 weeks along. He said that at this early stage, the best image is taken through a transvaginal ultrasound. This was kind of how it went:

Doctor: "Ok, there's your baby"

(He pointed to a gray blob that was moving slightly)

Me & Kurt: "Oh, awesome!"

(Doctor moved the probe a little to the left)

Doctor: "Oh, and there's another one!"

Me  & Kurt: "Wait, what?? Are you sure?"

Doctor: "Yup, you're having twins!"

Basically everything he had just told me to expect of my pregnancy was out the window. No more exercise, very little hope for natural delivery, lots more weight gain, and lots more rest. He said we should expect more ultrasounds than normal for a singleton pregnancy, and probably more visits.

When we left the doctor's office, Kurt and I were still in shock, but we had these to prove what we just saw:

Baby A: measuring about 20 mm and about 8 weeks and 4 days old.

Baby B: measuring about 24 mm at 9 weeks old.

Even though they were measuring at different sizes at this stage, there was still no kind of confirmation of what type of twins they were. He told us he'd only be able to tell once we could see the sacs and placentas. So as of now, we're still not sure whether they are fraternal or identical, but I'm leaning more towards identical.

After the appointment, we tried to call our parents immediately. They were all in shock - we all thought that there was really no history of twins on either side. Through further digging, we realized that there is some history of twins in our families. Nothing overly significant, but still there. But everyone was so happy about this miracle, and it took us a long while for it to really sink in. 

My first trimester went really smoothly - pretty much no sickness, nothing alarming, just a little fatigue for the first 3 months.

However, the first day of my second trimester took a turn for the worst. I was throwing up constantly, and at anytime - while I was driving to work, in the middle of the night, whatever - and it was always just water coming out over and over again. After a long streak of this, we called the doctor again and went in for another check up. 

We knew we shouldn't expect an ultrasound at this visit, but after telling him of my unusual beginning to my second trimester, he wanted to take a look. He pulled our babies up on his screen, and we saw them moving all over the place. The ultrasound only gave us a good picture of the tops of their heads, but we saw their arms moving around and both strong heartbeats. They were doing well. :) 

Our babies at 13 weeks :) 

So far, the throwing up hasn't stopped. This trimester is turning out to be very different from the first. A lot of dry mouth, throwing up, and back pain. I have to be constantly resting. But we are so glad that we got to see our beautiful babies again :)

For those of you who may be interested in our timeline, I found this really cool pregnancy calculator that shows us everything week by week! (What can I say - I'm obsessed!)

Even though the 40 week due date says April 14, twins normally come no later than 37 weeks which puts our babies in March. We hope that they can continue to do well until then. We are so excited to meet them in just about five more months!