Oh, the irony!

After Sprout was born, I felt like there was probably one more child that was supposed to come join our family. This was an odd feeling, as after both Noodle and Spud's births, I was so overwhelmed that I felt very comfortable NOT thinking about any additional children for quite some time.

 We weren't in any rush to conceive #4, and as it turned out, it happened about 10 months ahead of what I'd decided was a good time. David had requested that I finish up with pregnancy by the time I was 35 as a safeguard to my long-term health, and I thought that was wise. We both felt good about the addition of a fourth child and the timing seemed pretty good, even though it wasn't according to our tentative plan. At my 17 week appointment, my midwife's assistant measured my uterus and the fundal height was measuring about 4 cm ahead. After having birthed 10+ pound boys, this didn't seem that unusual to me. I remembered having growth spurts during past pregnancies. And, in all honesty, as it wasn't my midwife doing the measuring, I felt there was some room for error as I didn't know how skilled the assistant was with that sort of thing.

Last Thursday I went to have my next appointment, and was 21 weeks 3 days along. The fundal height measured 34 centimeters! And I'd gained 20 pounds (which I knew from tracking at home). I was really frustrated as I've been diligently making an effort to eat healthfully and not an excessive amount of calories. Plus I have been exercising quite regularly. I had some thyroid issues likely caused by too much weight gained when I was pregnant with Sprout, so I am hoping to avoid that this time around. My midwife suggested that I might want to consider having an ultrasound to check things out.

Tuesday evening we went in for the ultrasound. As soon as the tech put the device on my belly, we saw two bums and knew what we were in for. It was surreal. I can't even accurately describe the variety of feelings that washed over me. There was excitement, relief at it being two and not one with any problems, gratitude, and I think around the edges of every emotion there was a bit of panic. David and I grabbed hands and held on for the rest of the ultrasound, which takes a fair amount of time when there are two babies to inspect!

They call the baby closest to the cervix Baby A as it will be born first, and the other baby is Baby B. When she told us (and showed us) that Baby A is a girl we were delighted. We had been hoping for a girl to help balance out the ratio of boys and girls around here. About 20 minutes later we got around to Baby B (we had to take a break in there as the reclined on my back position makes me feel light-headed after a while). And Baby B is a boy! Both babies are growing on track and look healthy. Baby B is actually about a week ahead in size.

Well, here's where the irony comes in. David and I have long agreed (ever since my sister had twins almost 11 years ago) that "Twins are God's way of saying you can stop." Since we've been very clear about this being our final child, it was obvious that it was our plan to stop at four. I guess this means God approves of this being our last pregnancy, but he didn't agree with us stopping at four. I guess we should have said we were going to have six, then pulled a fast one and stopped at four!

In all earnestness, though, we are excited to have both of these little ones join our family in a few months and are feeling pretty amazingly blessed. But still overwhelmed! I finally was able to fall asleep at 3:30 this morning, only to be wide awake again shortly after 6. I feel like I'm wired on an insane amount of caffeine, but it's just my brain going into overdrive trying to process everything.

So, yeah. Good times, noodle salad.