Wow, I can’t believe the holiday season is over with! It has been a wonderful and surprising one for my family. I hope you all had an amazing 2014:)

My husband and I got our own little surprise this holiday season. We found out a few months ago that we are expecting again!

This wasn’t something that we had planned at all, so we were pretty shocked by the news. We took those first few weeks to really soak it in and be thankful for Clute Baby #3.

We had an ultrasound at around 10 weeks. My midwife couldn’t find the heartbeat with the normal heartbeat monitor so she wanted to ease my mind before we left for our holiday vacation. I was measuring a few weeks larger than my estimated due date, but this wasn’t too concerning since I have a pretty sizable fibroid that was could easily have been causing that.

My midwife was making a joke to my husband about “wouldn’t it be funny if you were having twins…” My hubs didn’t find this very humorous. We always joked about getting pregnant with twins because of how insane it would be. Neither of us have twins anywhere in our family history so it was never something that we even thought about on a serious level.

Surprise! That ultrasound showed two little baby sacs, two little heartbeats, and two little Baby Clutes.

We are having twins!

I was laughing hysterically because that’s usually how I handle shock. My husband was keeled over, hands on his knees, like he was about to pass out.

I am about 14 weeks now and feeling quite large. The emotional and physical toll of this pregnancy is SO much different from my first two babies. I am slowly coming out of shock and accepting this crazy gift that we have been given.

We waited to tell almost everyone until Christmas because it was around my 12 week mark and we just needed some time as a family to take it all in on our own time.

twin pregnancy announcementI knew that everyone would be really excited and probably as shocked as we were. My family was almost in disbelief when I called to tell them the news. My mom told me that she even though she knew it would be a lot to take on, she was “so excited in a selfish grandma way”. 🙂

My mother-in-law screamed… no, that isn’t an exaggeration. She screamed and cried for a good five minutes. I had been pretty adamant about not wanted anymore children, which she wasn’t very happy about, so this news was the exact opposite of that!

I am really thankful for all of the support, love and excitement that we have been shown over the past month since we have let out the news. But, it has been a really hard adjustment for me to make mentally and physically.

I went from being about to exercise vigorously 6 days a week, drinking coffee and focusing all my energy into my two very active little ones, to having to change my life 180 degrees. I have been extremely sick, exhausted, only able to do light exercise a day or two a week and struggling to keep up with my girls.

It has been a huge adjustment trying to keep up with the changes in my own body. Twin pregnancies progress at a much faster rate than other pregnancies, so at 14 weeks I am about the same size that I was with my single pregnancies at 20-22 weeks. This is the progression from about 4 weeks, to 11 weeks, to 14 weeks.

twin pregnancy

The major changes that my family as a whole will have to make now is also very stressful and emotional. Sometimes my husband and I just look at each other like “what on the earth are we going to do?!”

I am really thankful for the blessing of two babies. I know some people struggle to even have one. I think that all children are a blessing, even if we have no clue what we the future is going to look like!

So, as we head into 2015, my family is preparing to get a bigger house, a bigger car, double of everything and to have 4 kiddos under 4-years-old. This is absolutely the time to find joy in the crazy.

On that note, how was your holiday? Any fun, exciting, or crazy news like ours?

I am going to start doing a weekly pregnancy update/mini-series this twin pregnancy. It’s a new experience for me and I hope it’s something that you all enjoy or maybe even take some information from, especially if you are trying to conceive or new to being pregnant.

*Cheers to taking all the surprises of life with patience and strength*

joanna at motherhood and merlot