17 Weeks: A Double Stroller, Pack N' Plays, and a Puppy OH MY

I hoped to be able to post the sexes of the babies by now but at my appointment last week the sonogram tech wasn't able to confirm either sex. The benefit of going to the doctor every 2 weeks though, means we get to try again next week! Fingers crossed! We celebrated Christmas over the weekend with family and had a lot of fun. For the first time in my life I think, I took a nap Christmas afternoon and boy was it needed! I've grown to really appreciate a good nap. We have been very blessed with kind and generous family members who got us the 2 cribs, a stroller, 2 infant carriers, and 2 pack n' plays for either Christmas gifts or just for the heck of it. It's pretty exciting to watch our home become filled with baby things!! Luckily Jeremy is as excited as I am and puts together everything as soon as we get it. Never mind the fact that we still have several months before the babies arrive.

Santa decided to get us a puppy for Christmas this year. He's a boxer puppy and his name is Charlie. He is super cute, loves to give kisses, and is ALL puppy! Some might think we're crazy or perhaps we temporarily forgot we're having twins but rest assured, that's not the case! We lost our 5 year old boxer, Hugo, to cancer in early November and the house just seemed to be missing something since then. Could be the mess, slight chaos, or additional vet and food bills. But for us, we love and missed all aspects of having a 2nd dog around. Zoey (our Boston Terrier) missed it, too. So now we have Charlie who will grow and change quickly over the next few months so look forward to seeing him appear in the blog!

17 weeks

Big sister Zoey and Charlie. She has no idea that he is quickly going to dominate her in size...

Charlie :-)

14 Weeks: Telling Family and Carrying Oranges

We told our families we are expecting several weeks ago but I thought it would be fun to share how we told them. For the family that lives in town, we (yes Jeremy assisted with baking) baked frosted sugar cookies in the shape of a baby rattle and I made little tags with the due date on them. We put the cookies in plain brown bags for each family member and included an appropriate baby brag book or picture frame (grandma's brag book, etc) to go in the bag as well. We invited family over to have dinner with us and although both families speculated an announcement might take place, they really had no idea! At one point during the evening we handed out the gift bags and let everyone open them...extreme excitement followed with some tears, laughter, jumping up and down, etc. Okay, so that was mostly our moms! Then after the initial excitement set in a bit, we handed out sonogram pictures containing both babies in separate shots as well as both babies in one shot which revealed the fact that we're expecting twins! We also had fun calling other family members we weren't able to tell in person and sharing the news with them as well! Both of our families are thrilled about the babies and the new roles they will have as grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. Ours will be the first babies in both of our immediate families.

I went back to the doctor yesterday and received the report that everything looks great! I'm including a few of our recent sonogram photos (and not sharing the 4d sonogram picture because this early on in the pregnancy makes for quite a unique/unusual 4d photo). I finally decided to take a pregnacny photo as well to start tracking the growth or shall I say expansion of my tummy. I've come across several people recently who have said I'm not showing yet...God bless them. In all honesty though, I've been showing at some level or another for weeks! According to one of my pregnancy books, the babies are each the size of an orange this week.

Cookies for the fam!

Baby A

Baby B

Hard to see, but this view shows one baby one top of the other. Really, I'm pretty sure they're side by side in me.

Starting to show!

13.5 Weeks: We're Having Twins!!

All I can say is that it feels amazing and completely unreal to know I'm carrying two little bundles of joy. Quick background: As most of you know, Jeremy and I have been trying for quite some time to expand our family. Some months we didn't have any idea how our family was going to end up growing (in a way other than the 4 legged tail wagging kind), we just knew it would happen when and the way it was meant to be. To say that I've learned the true art of patience and faith is an understatement at best! We found out I was pregnant on September 27th via a phone call from my doctor's office. Well actually, I found out and then decided to surprise Jeremy. I pretended the dr. never called and on my way home from work I stopped by Babies R Us (and parked in the expectant mom parking space!!) picked up an "if you think I'm cute you should see my dad" bib and presented Jeremy with the gift when I walked in at home. He was elated. We headed to the dr. for my first sonogram on October 10th and "twins are on the way" was revealed! Jeremy was a bit speechless at first and we quickly realized just how blessed and excited we were about the news. The excitement has grown....just as my tummy has!! :-)



The pregnancy has been deemed high risk but everything is going great! We love the check-ups every 2 weeks and seeing all the babies' little changes. Since my waistline is already measuring several weeks ahead of a typical pregnancy, I promise to spare everyone the view of my bare mid-section. Jeremy informed me this morning (he's been super involved in the pregnancy) that the babies will each double in size this month. Thanks dear....time to get your wife some bigger pants!!!

My plan is to track the pregnancy with this blog and share some other current events from the Bradley household. So welcome to our journey!

This is how Jeremy found out I was pregnant!