SURPRISE: PART I

For those who know us fairly well, you may recall we were planning on having three kids (cue laughter here).

When we were pregnant with Beckett, no matter if he was a boy or girl, we were done. We kept his sex a surprise (like we had done twice before with Emma and Finley) and would be lying if we didn't say we were elated to add this little guy to our now "complete" family.

Three kids just seemed like a good number. And, in all honesty, going from two kids to three was a much bigger change than we were anticipating, much harder than going from one to two -- you're welcome in advance for that bit of insider information to anyone thinking of having a third! We often found ourselves saying, "Who knew three would be SO hard?" (Again, cue laughter here).

Well, as it turns out, we've never been very good at planning. And, yes we do, to answer our least favorite the most common question we get asked, "You know how this kid thing happens, right?"

So, in order to tell the story of the twins, let's flashback to July 2016 ...

We had recently moved into our new home, were enjoying summer by just returning from a family trip to Table Rock Lake (thanks mom and dad), Beckett was 10 months old and overall we were feeling pretty good about where we were with things.

And, then I realized I. Was. Late.

Truth be told, I really didn't think much of it. Beckett and I were still going strong with breastfeeding and that can mess up the timeliness of things. But, just to be safe, I decided to take a test.

I went to the store over my lunch hour and bought the cheapest pregnancy test I could find because those suckers are expensive! I came home that night and, without telling Joey, took the test once we got the kiddos to bed. I waited the two minutes they recommend you wait before reading the results. Looked at it, and thought, "phew, it's negative!"

Buuuttt, then I started staring at it again, AND, if you stare at those things long enough, I swear you start going cross-eyed and all sorts of patterns start showing up. I was looking at it and thought, "Is that a line?... No, it can't be ... there's nothing there... totally false... it's just my eyes... isn't it?!"

I went to bed pretty confident that my eggo was in fact not preggo... but then I started googling "very faint blue line on pregnancy test" (I have to confess that often times in my life I think I would be far better off if my ability to google would be taken away from me, but, I digress). The search results came up, and there it was, right before my eyes, forum after forum, one positive pregnancy test story after another from people with extremely faint lines.

Crap.

I woke up the next morning with a mission to get to the bottom of this "situation." Joey, mind you, was still completely oblivious to all of this. I went to work, and for the second day in a row, left for lunch to grab a test at the store, but this time, I opted for the most expensive pregnancy test you can buy (a little tip to anyone in the pregnancy test buying business, ALWAYS just go for the digital. No more of this "is there or isn't there a line" mumbo jumbo. "Pregnant" or "Not Pregnant" that's all I need to know, thank you very much). 

I ran home, took the test... and there it was. That one word that changes your life in an instant: PREGNANT.

DOUBLE crap ... literally.

So, what's a girl to do when she finds out she's pregnant, is in shock, and it's noon on a weekday? Back to work it is!

I somehow got through the rest of day ... which is quite shocking considering the only thing running through my head was: "Four kids. Four kids. Four kids. How are we going to handle FOUR kids?!"

Again, cue the laughter.

Before I headed home, I quickly wrote on a piece of paper:

Hi daddy! I know you weren't expecting me, but I'm excited to meet you!


When I got home, I glued the fancy-dancy digital test to it, and found an old Kate Spade box to put everything in, and hid it for the night.

We somehow got through dinner, baths and bedtimes without me acting at all suspicious. Then, finally, when it was just Joey and I, I brought in the box, gave it to him and said, "I meant to give this to you earlier, but I got you something today." He gave me a weird look, and I'm fairly certain he was thinking two things:

1. What did you spend money on now?
2. And why did you get me something from Kate Spade of all places?

He opened it up, looked at it, then at me, then back at it, and said, "WOW!"

I started crying, he started laughing. The rest is honestly all a bit of a blur. What I do remember, though, was his reaction couldn't have been better. He was the calm in that moment and I was the storm of emotions (in fact, every time we've had a positive pregnancy test it's ended up that way!). He assured me we could do it, that having a large family would be so fun for the kids, and how neat it would be that we'd essentially have two sets: Emma and Finley, 16 months apart, Beckett and baby #4, 18 months apart.

Once again, cue the laughter.

We did a little math and decided we were probably around five weeks pregnant. The next day I called my OB office to call and ask for the fourth-pregnancy-haven't-we-already-paid-you-enough-discount (to anyone else with large families, wouldn't that be nice if it were a thing?!). They scheduled me for an ultrasound at seven weeks to confirm the pregnancy ...

And, that's where the story starts to get reaalllyyy interesting ...

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How and when did you find out you were pregnant? Did you tell your significant other before or after you took the test?