I kid you not... there are two

As I sit here on the sofa, drinking my second cup of coffee and watching my two, four and a half month old fraternal twin girls jump up and down in their jolly jumpers and squee with delight, I can't help but consider the stark contrast between my old and new realities.

When I went for my nine week ultrasound last December, I had a feeling something was... different. I had been sitting in the office of my midwife just a week earlier, telling her I was having a hard time realizing this was real. I felt a sense of nervousness and anxiety about the pregnancy - something I'm sure many first time moms feel. She suggested I go for a dating ultrasound, under the pretense of finding out my due date. Maybe seeing the baby would help make it real for me. My husband Orlando had plans on the evening of the ultrasound, but he reluctantly canceled in order to accompany me and boy is he lucky he did. As we drove to the ultrasound clinic, a thought crossed my mind for the first time: "What if it's twins?". I had never imagined myself with twins, never wished, hoped or dreamed of having twins. Never had I even considered the possibility of it. I always imagined myself with a single baby. But with this thought came a sense of peace, the anxiety just disappeared... and then I let it go as quickly as it came.

As I lay in the tiny, dimly lit room on that cold, dark winter evening, by myself with the lab tech (they made Orlando wait outside), I did not expect the following words to come out of the tech's mouth. She squinted, looked closely at the screen, then said, "I kid you not... there are two".

The next five minutes were the longest ones of my life. I will never forget laying there by myself as she left to find another doctor and confirm what she just saw. I was laughing, crying, cursing, in total disbelief. Two? Two? We have to move! Two babies, two toddlers, two kids, two teenagers, two carseats, two cribs, two college tuitions, two, two two! Finally the tech came back and brought Orlando with her. He saw my red eyes, the tears streaming down my face and quickly asked what was wrong. "There are two". "WHAT?" I could see his brain slowly absorb this news that had completely come out of left field. He looked at the screen, where clearly, yes, two little white beans blipped around in a little black circle. We just laughed and laughed.

At twenty-seven years old, my husband finally agreed that it was time to have a baby. I had always wanted one, but I was waiting for Orlando to say those magic words. He came home one night after hanging out with some dear friends and told me about an interview they had watched with the founders of a famous company. The founder said that he wants to live every day like it's his last. Orlando said to me, "if it was my last day, I would want to have a kid". That's all I needed to hear. And it was seriously five weeks later that we found out I was pregnant. Four weeks after that, we found out it was twins, and now our family has doubled in size.

While pregnant with twins, I accepted that I was unable to imagine what my life would be like once they arrived. I was right.