Rachel and Matt's Twin Maternity Reveal Shoot

First of all, I’d like to begin with I didn’t think we would get pregnant as fast as we did. I’ve had birth control for close to 6 years. Between what my doctor said, online blog posts, and even a close friends own experience with this particular birth control, I thought for sure it would take us at LEAST a year to get pregnant. Which I would have been completely fine with, because we had talked about maybe starting a family in the next 2 or 3 years. But you know how they say you get pregnant when you’re not even trying to? Yeah, that was exactly the case for us. Literally a month after I had my birth control removed I found out I was pregnant.

The week leading up to finding out, I was busy every single day with photo shoots and weddings, not to mention getting ready to head back to California on Sunday. So because I was so stressed and just constantly going non-stop, I wasn’t feeling the best. To be fair, I WAS supposed to get my period that Saturday, so I just kept brushing my symptoms off as PMS. But low and behold, Saturday afternoon I still hadn’t had my visit from Aunt Flo. “It’s probably because I’ve been so stressed and that’s why I’m late”, I tried to rationalize with myself. But in the back of my head I heard voice saying, “you should take a test, just in case”. Naaaaaaah, no way…but maybe I should?

Well, after a quick trip to the local drug store and a bottle of water later, the moment of truth was upon us. Again, I was NOT expecting anything to happen. Just your typical pregnancy scare, and then I would get my period the next day. But literally seconds after peeing on that stick, a bold, solid plus sign popped up.

Naturally I was very surprised and started crying. But they weren’t happy tears. They were freaking out tears. They were “I’m not ready for this” tears; “I had so much planned that I wanted to accomplish before this happened” kind of tears. I tried calling my husband, but he didn’t answer because #MilitaryLife. So with him not answering, I decided I should call my best friend and talk to her before I start to have a full freak out session. Well I called her, and it was some pretty ironic and perfect timing because she had LITERALLY just finished giving birth to her son. Wait, whaaaaaaaat? He’s not due for another month though! The phone call went as follows:

Me: Hey what’s up?

Logan: Oh just trying to feed the baby

Me: Oh wow you just had him?!

Logan: Yup!

Me: Well that’s funny because I just found out I'm pregnant!

Logan: You should’ve called like 5 minutes ago, we could’ve been pregnant at the same time!

Obviously I didn’t keep her on the phone for long since she had just given birth, but that short exchange made me feel so much better and helped calm me down a little. I tried calling my husband again and he still didn’t answer. When that happened I called one of his sisters. I told her, and she was excited. Then I tried calling him again, no answer. So I called another one of our family members. This went on the rest of the day until basically everyone in our immediate families knew, except for him. And that point I was heading out to do my last photo session before I left for Cali the next day. He finally called me back though when I was on my way to the shoot. On the way there, I had stopped at a drug store to grab a few more tests (just to make sure). He video called me and when he saw I was in a store asked me what I was doing. “Well,” I asked him, “do you really want to know?” So I told him, and he got the biggest smile on his face. Seeing that goofball smile and be so excited made me so happy at the thought of him becoming a father. His reaction made me feel so much better about being pregnant. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still in disbelief. But knowing I’ll have this guy who is more than ready to help me through this journey and so excited for his new role as a dad, I know it will all work out.

Almost 2 weeks after I went back to California, my morning sickness started. It was bad. So bad that I had to go to the hospital almost a dozen times. But one hospital visit in particular had us both scared. Matt had just gotten home from work and we were just chatting. We both got up to go into the kitchen when Matt looked down at my nightgown and noticed there was something on it. “Is that a blood stain?” As soon as he asked that, I reached down to touch the spot he had pointed out. It was wet and it was blood. I went to the bathroom and sure enough there was some blood in my underwear too. So we went to the emergency room to find out what was going on and if everything was okay. During the initial exam, it seemed like it was just old blood, which is very common during the first trimester. However, they still wanted to make sure that the baby was okay so they sent me back to get an ultrasound done.

For some odd reason, the nurse wouldn’t allow Matt to come back with me to the ultrasound room. Even the ultrasound tech was surprised when I told her. We got to chatting about pregnancy life. I found out she had a set a fraternal twins, and I thought it was ironic because I myself am a fraternal twin. And then we started talking about twin life and how interesting it is. She asked me how I had been feeling lately and I was honest about how bad the morning sickness was. And she got this little smile and said to me “Well, I can tell why you’re feeling like such crap. It’s because you’re having twins!”

Wait, what? You’re kidding me, right?

Then she turned the monitor around and you could see two little beans on the screen. Holy crap, TWO babies? I thought twins were supposed to skip a generation! I mean, what are the odds that a twin could also have twins? Well, it turns out the odds are pretty high if you are a fraternal twin, and if there are any other sets of fraternal twins on the mothers side of the family (spoiler: there are about 4 other sets on my moms side of the family). My tech printed out a picture, and as I waited for the nurse to bring me back to my room, I couldn’t stop staring at it. Twins? One baby was one thing, but two? Instantly my head was filled with so many thoughts and questions. We are moving to Hawaii next month. Matt is supposed to leave for six months shortly after they’re going to be born. How could I possibly take care of two babies by myself on an island so far from all of our friends and family in New York?

Before I could trail any further down that rabbit hole, the nurse arrived to bring me back. She asked how the ultrasound went as she wheeled me through the hospital. Twins! She was excited for me. And then we reached my room and Matt looked up when we came in. He asked me how it went, and all I did in response was turn the ultrasound picture around so he could see it. He squinted his eyes, and titled his head. He definitely looked a little confused. But then it dawned on him and he asked “It that…?” Yes, I said, twins.

Again, he started to get the biggest smile when he heard the news, and his excitment made me feel so much more comfortable with the idea of being pregnant and having to raise two babies. Matt felt like he hit the jackpot he was so excited. He started imagining all of the way to tell his family, especially his parents since his dad always joked about us having twins. I think he jinxed us!

~Rachel

Shout out to Cara for taking these amazing announcement pictures for us! <3