Hello Friend! I wanted to publish my first post as an introduction so that you have more of an idea of what you're diving into here.
My name is Cassidy Jane Robinson. I am a 30 year old native of Northeastern Pennsylvania. I've been married to my best friend Brian for over 3 years and we have a 1 year old son named Silas Holloway. We live on a 10 acre farm nestled in the Endless Mountains with our German Shepherd, 2 cats, and 9 chickens. I'm a Professional Engineer that specializes in Environmental/Civil Practices and I am lucky enough to work from home for an incredibly supportive consulting firm.
Our family loves being outdoors for all four seasons. We're avid gardeners, hikers, and explorers. We love skiing, snowboarding, and snowshoeing. We're passionate about living off the land and foraging. We have plans (down the road) to own a sustainable farming business. Our dreams are BIG... a little too big for our budget at the moment, haha!
Our family grew in May 2020 with the arrival of Silas. He was an incredible baby. The transition into parenthood wasn't easy, but I truly feel that it was as smooth as it could've been. He was a pretty good sleeper from the start. I was able to successfully breastfeed for 8 months. He met all of his milestones on time. Most importantly, he was (and still is) a very happy boy. Because Silas was such a great baby, there was no doubts in our minds that we'd be having at least one more!
I always intended to have children close together. My sister Jessie and I are 18 months apart in age and have an incredible bond, and I wanted that for my future kids. An age gap of 18-24 months sounded absolutely perfect, so that was our plan. We'd wait until Silas was about a year old (give or take a couple months), and try for our next baby.
You're gonna read in a lot of my posts the phrase: "you make plans, and God laughs." The older I get the more this saying applies - and it really is the damn truth.
Anyway, very much to our (welcomed) surprise, we found out we were pregnant with our second baby the day after Christmas. Silas was just a few days over 7 months old. Wow, 2 under 1.5 - this was going to be a challenge! But, with Brian's patience and my research/planning, there's nothing we couldn't handle. Maybe we'd get lucky and this baby would be just as easy/awesome as Silas. After all, Silas's pediatrician told us "chill babies come from chill parents."
I called the OBGYN's office and got a blood test to confirm the pregnancy. Once it was confirmed, they scheduled me for an ultrasound 2 weeks later. The doctor wouldn't be available for 2 more weeks following the ultrasound which was no big deal. This was my second baby, and everything was still so fresh in my head so I wasn't nearly as eager to talk to my OB, all I really cared about was seeing a heartbeat.
Due to COVID restrictions, I headed to the ultrasound by myself. I casually chatted with the sonographer about my son (whom she did many scans on not too long ago) as she got the machine ready. She picked on me for being "back so soon" - I rolled my eyes and laughed, knowing that was certainly something I'd hear a few times during this pregnancy. She asked if I wanted to FaceTime Brian and I declined. This was our second baby after all, and I was sure he was busy chasing Silas around. I told her, "I'll show him the pictures when I get home, it'll only look like a gummy bear right now anyways." I laid back on the bed and turned my head to face the monitor. She put the warm gel on my belly and began to move the wand around. Then there was silence.
The silence lasted for a couple of minutes, but it felt like hours. She continued to move the wand around. "Is everything okay? Is there a heartbeat?" I asked. "Yes," she replied. "Is everything okay with my C-Section scar?" now I sounded desperate. "Yes, everything is fine. I just need to show you something. You see this here? This is your baby with a healthy heartbeat... and this is a second baby with a healthy heartbeat! Congratulations, you're having twins!!!
I broke out into hysterical laughter. "You're joking. YOU'RE JOKING!! Are you serious? YOU'RE JOKING!" she could tell I was in complete shock. "I'm not joking," she replied. "Your babies are sharing a placenta and a sac, so between that and your short interval pregnancy, you'll be monitored very closely." I knew that sharing a placenta meant that the twins were identical. How wild! How exciting. How in the WORLD was I going to tell Brian?! She finished the ultrasound and said as far as she could see everything looked good. She said a nurse would be calling me about seeing a Maternal Fetal Medicine doctor to get looked at with a more detailed ultrasound.
I made it to the car and knew I wasn't going to be able to wait until I got home to tell Brian, so I gave him a call. "Hey! How'd everything go?" he asked. "Everything went good!" I replied. "This is definitely going to be my last pregnancy though."
There was that familiar silence again... "What do you mean?" he asked hesitantly.
"Check your texts" I said giggling. I sent him a photo with no words.
"YOU'RE JOKING!!!" he exclaimed.
I laughed and laughed and laughed...