Wake and Raylie!

Holly poop... I just need to share how awesome it is that our little Wake and Raylie are coming to us!!!

You see, when Manimal and I were dating, we would stay up for HOURS and HOURS just talking about what our pasts were like, what we wanted our future to be like, and other random things.... like what kind of boats he wanted. But it was during those talks that we realized how much we had in common.. and it got kinda freaky.  For example, we both pogo-sticked for our classmates at school. Who does that?? It even got to the point where we would just say, "Name your favorite _____ on the count of 3" because our answers were the same so often! Then we would just sit there and argue about why it was our favorite more than the other person... we still have this argument on a weekly basis about who likes water more.

Anyway, it was during one of these conversations that one of us brought up the names of our future children. It turns out, we had both fallen in love with the name 'Wake' for our first son when we were in High School!! We couldn't believe it!! I liked it because it sounded cool and it related to water, and Manimal liked it because of the relation to Wake-boarding. When we got married... we figured we were destined to have a son, because we both thought of the same name for him before we even knew each other! 

After we were done freaking out about how awesome it was that we both liked the name 'Wake' for our son, we brought up girl names. I actually hadn't come up with anything specific yet so I asked Manimal what he was thinking. Without hesitation he said something like, "I want my gril's name to be Raley!" I kind of started laughing because Raley (pronounced Ray. Lee) is the name of a Wake-boarding trick and I didn't think he was serious, but then I realized how adorable that name was and we made a pact, right then and there, that Wake and Raylie (we spell it better) would be the names of our first girl and first boy!



This is Manimal doing a Raley on the wake-board. (one of the things that makes him a manimal) This is is FAVORITE trick... and if we are anywhere near another boat while he is wakeboarding, he is sure to throw this one. (This was at a competition...so excuse is stressed face) I can't wait till Raylie can watch him do this! <3

Again, when we were first married, we both thought our first child would be a boy for sure because of how awesome the name thing was, but whenever either of us had dreams about our future children, we saw Raylie. Some dreams were more special than something our subconscious just thought up, so after a while, we had accepted that our first baby was probably going to be a girl. 

Finding out that both of them are coming to us is so so AWESOME!! There just isn't a word for how unreal it is :) Why both of them are coming at the same time is completely unknown...we would have happily accepted them at different times.... but it is just so cool to see Heavenly Father's plan for us matching up a tiny bit with something we planned. We still can't believe how blessed we are that our little angels are here and swimming around in my belly together!

The Reaction Heard Round the World (or at least the office)

It has been no secret that Manimal wanted one or both of our babies to be a boy.... He would literally tell everyone that, "one of them better be a boy!" and whenever I talked about the babies kicking he would say, "that's my boy!"

When people heard this, they would shoot me a quick worried look... They were probably a little embarrassed for me that my husband was being so obvious about what he wanted, or felt sorry for him if both of the babies were girls, or maybe they were worried that one of the babies was actually a boy and he would forget all about the girl! Well, no matter, I wasn't worried :) BECAUSE Manimal has an obvious soft spot for little baby girls. He is always commenting on how cute baby girls are and how much he loves their pig-tales. He even comes home from work with stories of little girls that he met and how cute they would say things. He almost never replicates this behavior when he sees little baby boys. So, I have always known that Manimal would adore our little babies, especially if they were girls.

But now the secret is out and we are, in fact, having one of each!!! A girl and a boy :) I couldn't be more excited!!! My reaction to the news was very subtle compared to someone I know.....

So we got to our Targeted Ultrasound. This is an ultrasound that is done by a Sonographer at 20 Weeks pregnant and they spend about 20 minutes (per baby) looking at their development and making sure there are no abnormalities going on. Anyway, we got into the room and I had to go to the bathroom, so I left Manimal and our Super Sonographer (she was so awesome) alone in the room together.... I found out later that Manimal spent the entire time that I was gone telling her that he wanted to make sure the babies were healthy, but he mainly wanted to see if the other baby was a boy. When I got back in the room Super Sonographer said, "I tried to ask him when your due date was, but all he seems to know is how much he wants one of them to be a boy" haha! Jordan and I both started laughing, and I was getting that worried look, and I told her my 40 week date is September 28th.

I am pretty good at reading people due to my introvert-ness, and I quickly got a good feel for Super Sonographer's personality.  She is a very smart and confident lady with a few extra doses of spunk and she isn't afraid to show her sense of humor (like I sometimes am). Before we started the ultrasound, she asked me if I wanted the freezing cold gel, or the heated gel with a straight face, but then started laughing and didn't wait for me to respond and started splurting the heated gel on my belly.

She started the ultrasound with Baby A. Apparently they name your twins Baby A and Baby B. Baby A is the one that is closest to the Cervix and will likely be born first, and Baby B is up higher and will probably be born second. Anyways, Baby A was just chillin there and she went straight to the pelvic area first.... she said, "This is a perfect view of the pelvic area! You can see the thighs and everything perfectly!" It kind of looked like the baby sat on a copy machine and that is the view we were seeing. I was unsure, but I thought I saw male parts haha... but Super Sonographer didn't say anything, so I happily let her continue so that I could see more of my baby! She concluded that Baby A is developing perfectly and everything looks well and moved on to the next baby. Manimal quickly inturrupted and said, "Can you tell what it is??" and I said, "Babe, I think she already knows..." (due to the clear view from earlier) and Super Sonographer said, "Well, I don't think we are going to be able to tell today because of the babies positioning" with her same straight face that she used earlier with the gel comment... Of course Manimal didn't catch on and kept intently looking at the screen (I love his random gullibility) and I looked at Super Sonographer and she quickly winked and kept going with Baby B.

"This one is definitely a girl" was the next thing out of her mouth, and oh how adorable that little girl is!!!!! She had her hands up by her face the whole time! She was kind of sucking on her hands at one point and then she was covering up her nose. Manimal was kind of panicked and asked if her fingers were stuck in her nose because she left her hand up there so long! Super Sonographer and I just laughed. Well Baby B looked just as healthy as Baby A and their heartbeats sounded great!

Manimal was not satisfied at all with the current results of the ultrasound, and I was getting a little anxious too because I still wasn't sure if I actually saw little male parts or not and needed Super Sonographer to confirm! Of course we were both very very happy that our babies look healthy and perfect because in the end that is what is most important.. but Manimal asked if he could shake my belly around to try and get Baby A to move. Super Sonographer just laughed and said, "Well let me just take another quick look and see if we can find anything" Within seconds little Baby A's male parts were very obvious on the screen... even to me... but not Manimal yet. I just started laughing and Super Sonographer finally said, "that is a penis". That is all it took....

Manimal kept his eyes glued on the screen and shot out of his chair to get closer to it. "WHAT?! ARE YOU SURE??" He let his eyes leave the screen for a second to get a confirmation from Super Sonographer, and she very assuredly told him that it was. I can't remember exactly what he did next because I was having my own very excited reaction.. but there was a lot of yelling and cheering and "THAT'S MY BOY" 's coming out of his mouth, along with running around and jumping up and down. I was just laying there laughing and smiling and just so thrilled with the whole situation. Manimal wasn't settling down, so Super Sonographer and I let him keep freaking out while we finished up the appointment. After we wiped all the goop off of my belly, Manimal came running over and put his hands on it and got close and said, "Hi Wake and Raylie!! I'm your dad!!" We hugged and kissed and were just so thrilled that we are having one of each!!!!! As we got up to leave, Super Sonographer leaned to me and said, "Good luck with all 3 of your children" haha!! I could only laugh because quite a few people have said the exact same phrase to me......

When we were finding our way back to the lobby, every Doctor, Nurse, patient, or worker that we passed was smiling at us. Manimal finally announced that we are having twins and just found out that one was a boy... a couple of them just started laughing and one of them said, "We know, we heard... Everyone heard!"  So much for confidentiality.... Our Dr's office definitely needs to install more insulation in the walls because when we found out we were having twins everyone heard that too! Trust me, it would be easier to ask the office to install insulation than to ask Manimal to keep his excitement to himself. (picture is blurry.. but accurate)

Words cannot express how much I love my new little family! The amount of how perfect everything is turning out is..."without fathom" (Megamind) I am going to post more about why it is so perfect in my next post, because seriously...its unreal.