Surprise, Surprise

Ok, we haven’t been blogging as much the past few weeks. Sure, we’ve been busy getting settled and the work trips have begun. But the main reason is that we’ve just been holding back. Since Easter Nicole has been feeling like complete crap. Lower energy, tired, not much appetite, stomach cramps, etc. For those of you who have experienced something similar, you probably already know what’s going on. If you don’t, I’ve just described symptoms of morning sickness. Yes, we are having another baby.

So Nicole has felt like crap, we didn’t have health insurance until last week to even allow us to confirm the pregnancy with a doctor, and we didn’t want to say anything without getting some confirmation (as a side note, to get private health insurance all three of us had to get health exams including blood and urine. Yes, Lily had to get blood and urine taken, not so much fun). Well today we got our confirmation. Nicole got a doctor recommendation from a friend in our building and the three of us made the short trek to the doctor’s office which is just off of Marienplatz, the main square of Munich with a famous glockenspiel with dancing figures which Lily loves watching. Anyway, we all got to see the ultrasound, but Lily was mostly distracted by the ultrasound mechanism itself as opposed to the cool pictures on the screen. Right away we were able to see the head and spine. And then the doctor said “oh, there’s a second one.” Yes. A second one. We are having twins.

Frankly we are still in shock. Even before we knew there was a second one we were questioning what we were thinking, an early pregnancy while settling into new surroundings and a due date just as winter is setting in with an energetic little girl who won’t be getting out to the park as much as she wants. And then to hear there’s a second one… what the heck are we going to do? We never considered having three kids! Will three car seats even fit in the company car we just ordered? Will we ever leave the (suddenly very small two bedroom) apartment again? We had a great support structure in Portland. Sure, we didn’t have family close by, but we have a lot of great friends there who provided a lot of great support through the years. And now we have… Nicole’s parents three and a half hours away and not necessarily able to jump right in and take a super-active role in helping. We’re slowly starting to make a few friends in the neighborhood, but we’re a long way from anything approaching a support network. So yes, we’re freaked out about what’s going to happen in six months. And yes, at the moment we see a lot of down sides and no upsides (anyone have any for us?). At least we have six months to get ourselves composed. Deep breaths…