As my son’s 2nd birthday approached, my husband and I began to talk about adding another baby to our crew. The dog was not enthusiastic, but we had always wanted two kids, so we decided to go ahead with it anyway.

This time, we decided to attempt to time the pregnancy so that the beginning would fall when I was off work. This proved to be wise, as my Hyperemesis Gravidarum returned, much stronger than the last pregnancy. I spent most of the summer in and out of the hospital, depending on IV fluids to keep me going.

But I’d better back up a little bit. Before the hospital, before the first ultrasound even, we we were feeling pretty proud of ourselves. We were going to have our two kids, 2 1/2 years apart and it was going to be great. Okay, I would be sick again, but I had lived through HG before, and I could do it one final time. It was all going to be fine. Then we were thrown the curve ball.

The first ultrasound was scheduled for around 7 weeks, just to make sure everything was okay. I attempted to drink the required 2 glasses of water before going in, but kept throwing it up. (Thanks HG) Undaunted, my husband, toddler and I went to the ultrasound appointment. We were told that it would not be possible without a full bladder, so we were sent home and told to return in the afternoon. Ugh, fine. I slowly sipped water for the next two hours and resisted the urge not to pee or barf. (Or both.)

Finally, when it was time to go back, my toddler was still napping. He had had a couple of rough night sleeps around that time, so we decided it best not to wake him. My husband stayed home with him while I headed back to the ultrasound clinic.

“Don’t worry,” I called to him as I left. “The first one is really boring anyway. They don’t look like anything.”

Ha! Little did I know.

The ultrasound went ahead successfully, albeit slowly. In fact, it seemed to be taking much longer than usual. Why was she taking so long? Was there a problem? Was it because I didn’t drink enough water this morning and they were trying to punish me?

Finally, the tech flipped the screen toward me and gave me the biggest surprise of my life. On the screen I saw not one, but two tiny babies – two tiny flashing heartbeats.

“Why are there two?”, I asked. Yes folks, we were having twins. Our well-planned family of four was now a family of five and we needed a bigger car.

Walking out of the clinic with my ultrasound pictures in tow, I laughed and cried my way back to the car. I didn’t know what to do with my face. Was I happy? Sad? Terrified? Maybe all of it at once?

I found my husband at home, doing some tidying in the basement.

“Honey,” I called. “You should look at this.” Just what every expecting father wants to hear.

“Oh no. It’s twins, isn’t it?” he asked. To this day, I have no idea how he knew. He says, he just got a feeling as I came down the stairs.

“It’s twins,” I confirmed, handing over the picture that had just changed our lives.

So, our planned last child was going to be bringing a friend. After having most of the pregnancy to digest this, I am still not sure how to feel. While we are excited to meet them, and excited for our son to have some playmates, we never wanted to have more than two kids. Of course, we are grateful to have such a blessing, but that doesn’t mean we were completely ready.

We were going to be a family of 5, plus a dog. We were going to need a bigger stroller, bigger car and a lot of help. We were going to go from 1 to 3 children overnight – from man to man to zone defence. We had 9 months to get our heads wrapped around it.

Wish us luck!

More to come on the twin pregnancy, as well as going from 1 to 3 kids.