5 months & halfway.

How far along: 5 months (20 weeks + 3 days). Our girls are just over halfway there!

Babies' size: They are as big as mangos this week.

Total weight gain: I hardly weighed myself before my pregnancy, and I don't now. I leave that to my OB. I listen to my body and trust it tells me what my babies and I need.

Maternity Clothes: Maternity leggings! I'm really thinking of buying a few postpartum and beyond. They're great core stabilizers and nothing digs into your middle. Form fitting maternity tops -- I don't believe in the long flowing types, they make you look bigger than you are. Lots of dresses.

Sleep: Never ever enough.

Best moment this week: There were so many! Monday night, Twin A, our active babygirl decided she wanted to play with me. I rested my hand on the same spot I feel her and search for her everyday and she lightly kicked me. I pressed down ever so gently, and she kicked me again. And I did this about five times and she responded with each nudge of my hand. We have an attentive little love!

Movement: Lots of prodding and twisting with from Twin A. Not as much with Twin B, but she will nudge me to say Hi Mama! every now and then.

Food cravings: There have been many over the months, but my most consistent are cereal and oranges.

Food aversions: Nothing specific, but too often it's the concept of food. Everything is uninteresting and it takes much coercion and idea throwing from Daniel to get me to eat something.

Sex: Fraternal twin girls!

My mama casted my belly for the halfway point. She will again at the end!

Pregnancy symptoms: Exhaustion at levels beyond measure, weepiness, allergies (so many sneezes!), back pain, lots of round ligament pain since my belly is growing so rapidly.

Bellybutton in or out: In -- I don't think it'll ever pop out.

What I miss: Sleeping on my stomach and high intensity workouts. Red wine, coffee, and medium cooked steak.

What I'm looking forward to: Staring into our babes' faces, knowing we made them -- that they are, in every entity, a product of our love, and mini versions of us! Smelling their sweet skin, their ears, under their chins and ever so slightly to the side. Rubbing my lips against their soft curls. Studying their Daddy's eyes as he looks at them, imbedding that memory in my soul. Seeing how they interact with each other earth side and daydream how what it was like when my body was their home. How I'll always be their home. Showing them the softness of the flowers -- of this life. Oh I could go on forever.

Upcoming appointments/events: Still monthly, so April. Soon enough it'll be weekly, and then twice a week.

Wedding rings: Still fit and not swollen!

Mood: Decisive, confident, sentimental. I developed this take no shit attitude when my 2nd trimester started and I love it.

Wisdom: It really does happen so fast. Sit and be present with your baby/babies! Feel their every move.


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My Favorite Feeling.

There's quite a bit I'd love to document about this pregnancy, and many things I want to keep sacred. Just between a mama and her children -- things I can reflect upon and share with them when they're older. When their fingers are stained with blueberries, or for a soothing story when they fall and I clean the scrapes on their knees, fasten a Band-Aid and tell them to hold on tight to mama, it'll be okay, I promise. Or when they run to their room because their crushes don't like them back, and I tell them their hearts and souls are beautiful and bigger than anything and no person or thing is worth tears on their cheeks. That they are, and always will be, enough. Brave and ethereal and always enough.

I keep these sacred moments in hand written letters to them inside a stunning cosmic journal, pages thick and edged in gold. A journal so fitting because they are indeed my universe. I have been writing these since I found out. Everything from the most loving spaces of my whole heart are etched in these pages to retrieve when they will need me.

I will share, though, what I have found to be the most precious thing I've experienced thus far. My favorite feeling. I have started to feel them. Our beautiful babies move and wiggle about and I can actually feel this. It makes time stop and I go inward, searching for them, longing for them in a delicious state of mindfulness and finding my loves in their butterfly dance. The movements are quick, in what can only be their little bodies stretching and growing, reaching and feeling -- perhaps even finding one another. Some of the sweetest moments took place at our most recent ultrasound. One of the twins arched it's back, taking a moment to stretch in a way all babies do. And then seeing them together, side-by-side, in early 3D images.

The harsh terrains of 2nd trimester hormones and constant weepiness though -- crying because I'm mad, crying because I'm happy, crying just for the sake of doing so -- are all soothed when I feel them. A bit like a catching a pastel sunset from the corner of your eye during a long drive, you forget conversation, forget where you are, and just stare through the glass. I find myself asking them, sometimes, to move for me. And when they do, it's at the most perfect moments. Just as they came, so perfectly timed, to bless our lives.

Two little sweethearts!

We have been keeping the sweetest secret for over 3 months now. Daniel and I are overjoyed to announce we are expecting twins come July 2016! We are deeply, madly in love already.

It happened quickly, and was clearly meant to be. We knew we wanted a family long before we quietly said our vows on July 31, 2015. Only 3 months later and I eagerly stayed awake as my husband left for work at 5:37am, to be exact. Palms tingling with excitement, I threw over the covers and padded off to the bathroom. Knowing good and well it was a bit too soon to test, but the two lines were there and my eyes brimmed with tears. I drove to work listening to my beloved fall mix cd, hand over my flat belly in disbelief. That specific string of slow, hushed tunes will forever evoke the most magical emotions in me. Every song will remind me of these past few months.

It was a secret I kept safe all day. I tucked the test in my purse and pulled it out methodically to make sure the positive line was still there. For hours I tried to wrap my mind around the precious thought that only me and the life I was growing inside knew of each other's existence. In the whole universe it was my baby and me -- a thought so intoxicating and a feeling I will cherish always.

Oh I was so nervously excited to tell Daniel! I showed him the test that night and we just both looked at each other and smiled with tears in our eyes. We wanted to shout it from the rooftops, but kept the secret to only be revealed through knowing glances, hushed conversations at home on the couch or in the pillows, a casual stroll through the baby sections of stores or a firm hand on my belly to let the tiny life inside know we are here. We know of you and love you so deeply already.

After telling our family on Thanksgiving (tears and joy all around) we had an early first scan at 6 weeks. Staring at the screen, the lab tech was quiet as she zoomed in on the wondrous little flicker of a heartbeat. There it was! A little blinking orb of the life inside me.

And then there was another blinking orb. 

There were two little forms next to each other and two precious heartbeats. Two!!! It was the best surprise of a lifetime. People talk about these things in a "wouldn't that be cool?" fashion, or, 'how cute would that be?" but never does it happen, right? But, it did! It made us want to keep this beautiful gift only amongst our closest loved ones for longer. Of course, twins. Of course. It was them all along. Since we were just 17, our love has been bigger than anything I have ever known so of course our little blessing was doubled.

My darling husband, that wonderful man. He's been the most gracious to me and it makes me so happy to see him so excited. He's so gentle with me -- he wants to know everything and reads about our pregnancy online. While I didn't struggle too terribly with nausea during my first trimester other than a few bouts every day, and though I didn't get sick once, I did have trouble with being interested in food at all. Nothing seemed appetizing and I was never hungry. With my strange cravings, which will be a post of its own, I think, and some protein shakes, he made sure me and our babies were fed. There were times I think I physically morphed into the couch from extreme exhaustion -- immobile and warm, but restless, and he understood.

He's always been everything I ever needed and he always just, vibes with me. We are in the house buying game at the moment, and if there is one thing triggering my weepy pregnancy hormones, especially during this second trimester, it's that. But he knows how to hold me and he knows what to say so it's not so scary. I love him I love him. I love him.

I am definitely showing now at 14 weeks and 3 days. I look down with sheer wonder, mostly in disbelief, how my body is home to our children. It's providing everything our little ones need to grow. That truly is something --  my body can do this, and is so automatically embracing. It is sure and nurturing and strong. My womb is home to the divine. I am in awe of my body, of all of its changes -- every growing curve, every slight ache and twinge. Because every bit of it is my babies and I love it all. And oh, my sensitivity. I was born with a sensitive heart and it has swelled astronomically over these past weeks.

I see life through a rosy filter and I am never alone -- it is quite the overwhelming sort of consciousness and I am loving every precious moment. I am journaling, I am dreaming, I am creating -- these two sweet souls are bringing out the best in me, and it is all for them. Two separate lives who will always be together no matter what. I just want to kiss their fingers and toes, noses, smell their sweet hair and ears. Feel their warmth. I am so eager to be their life source, their sun, their loving protector.

Their mama.