the happiest news: we're all kinds of pregnant!

Well, hi. Wondering what I've been up to since my Mexico post? I took the entire summer off from blogging to start growing a couple of babies.

Yes, it's true!

After struggling with infertility for several years, I couldn't be more thrilled to announce that Scott and I are expecting twins in the new year (insert heart and confetti emojis here)!

It's been difficult to keep this news a secret and I've had to bite my tongue many times over the past few months. We're beyond elated and I'm not sure there are words sufficient enough to describe how we feel and how grateful we are (which is ironic coming from a lady who usually has so many words). Our hearts are bursting with love, happiness, excitement and joy and yeah, we're scared and nervous too but we'll figure things out, we always do.

We're finally growing our family! And yet even as I type those words, it still feels surreal. Not a day goes by that I don't turn to Scott and say, "Can you believe we're pregnant, dude? With twins? I'm so excited for us." And then I usually start to cry, overwhelmed by all of the emotions that come with yearning for something for so long and then finally having it become a reality. 

I’m almost 16 weeks along and my energy and appetite are s l o w l y coming back. The first trimester was something else (I had some pretty intense morning all-day sickness)! If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you may have noticed that my food photos have faded to near oblivion over the past few months. That's because the majority of foods, with the exception of anything my mom made, A&W chicken strips, mangos and Bon Ton Bakery croissants, looked, smelled and tasted like roadkill. As someone who lives, breathes and sleeps food, it was rough going. That said, with every wave of queasiness and bout of exhaustion, I knew something amazing was happening in my body and that the IVF had worked. 

We're incredibly thankful for the army of friends and family who stood behind us during this oftentimes excruciatingly emotional and unpredictable journey. You guys are the best cheerleaders a couple could ever have and we love you. 

Thank you as well to everyone who left encouraging words of love and support on my previous blog posts describing our infertility challenges and our egg retrieval procedure. Your positive thoughts helped carry us through an emotionally, physically and mentally draining time. As I've said before, IVF is not for the faint hearted. But we did it. We totally did it. And did I mention I'm knocked up with two babies?! So crazy good.

And of course a million thank yous to our fertility specialist Dr. Motan, nurse Heather, embryologist Ryan and the countless other staff members we came into contact with at the Regional Fertility Clinic. What a gift it is to help couples like us start a family. You are the loveliest people, you made us feel comfortable throughout the process, allayed our fears time and time again and even put up with my wacky sense of humour. 

At the beginning of this journey, Dr. Motan had promised me twins and a 60 pound weight gain and he delivered. I'm hopeful the 60 pound weight gain is still negotiable. (; 

I'm in Vancouver for the next five days for BlogPodium but more details are to come next Wednesday for those of you interested in the IVF timeline and seeing pictures of our babes and my baby belly (fully clothed, I promise). I started writing that post back in June when we had our frozen embryo transfer. Since then, I've been keeping all kinds of wonderful secrets that I'm now ready to share. Hope to see you back here in a week!

Custom illustration by Mabel Garcia.

P.S. Scott and I were on CTV Edmonton today discussing our infertility journey as well as revealing our pregnancy. You can watch the video here.