Double Double Toil & Trouble 👨‍👨‍👧‍👦

Well, it has been a while since our last post, but we are happy to finally fill everyone in on some updates on our journey! Apologies in advance as this will be a long post with a lot of information we have been keeping to ourselves until now.

First off, we are so over the moon excited to finally announce that we are having TWINS!!! This little secret we have been keeping for over a year now and man has it been challenging not to spill the beans! We just had our gender reveal shower today with our families and got to surprise everyone with the news, it couldn't have been more perfect and we thank Ryan's mom and sister for organizing the event. It was so wonderful to have everyone together as we share the exciting news of expecting a BOY and GIRL ❤️

Everything we have previously posted might have led you to believe we were only having one baby, we just omitted some info on purpose to keep this surprise going. We actually knew from day one of meeting Jane, as she had already been medically cleared to carry twins, and had successfully carried twins on her last surrogacy journey. We were indeed on the single embryo list with our agency, and while waiting to be matched with a surrogate on our singleton list, Jane was matching with others on the multiples list. After interviewing other couples, Jane decided that she would prefer to work with a more local couple on her next journey vs out of the country. The agency didn't have many local couples on the multiples list since they mostly work with out-of-country couples, so they thought in a long shot they would ask us if we were interested in meeting her since they knew we eventually wanted to have two children. We of course jumped at the opportunity to meet her, and well you know the rest of the story from there as after we met for the first time, we knew she was the perfect surrogate for us!

So through this whole process, it has been so challenging to keep the surprise of twins to ourselves, especially when we had our first failed transfer, which was also two embryos, and we couldn't fully convey our sadness to friends and family yet. Even with our first ultrasound to confirm pregnancy, we don't think everyone understood why we were so so excited... because they BOTH stuck this time!! But it was so worth it to keep the surprise going, seeing everyone's faces at our reveal, and we are just very relieved to finally share this exciting moment 😊

Now, for the reason we haven't posted any updates recently.... our last update was our July 28th ultrasound and both babies were right on track, and the same thing for the next ultrasound which was on September 7th. The next major milestone was our big anatomy scan on September 27th, so we figured we would just post an update after that one to fill everyone in, but unfortunately, that anatomy scan came with some not-so-great news, and we just needed some time before letting everyone know.

Our full anatomy scan revealed that our baby boy potentially had a heart condition. The general anatomy doctor couldn't give us any definitive answers and referred us to a fetal cardiologist that specializes in this to take a closer look and diagnose the condition. As you can imagine our hearts sank a bit, a little in shock, and not really knowing what to expect or where this would lead... google didn't help ease our minds either 😆

We thought we would have to wait a week or longer to get in with the specialist, but we were able to get in with them just two days later on September 29th, so thankfully we didn't have to live with the fear and questions for all that long. We met with the specialist after another detailed scan of baby boys heart, and the doctor confirmed the diagnosis which is "Tetrology of Fallot", a rare condition caused by a combination of four heart defects that are present at birth. Please feel free to look it up as we won't go into too much detail here since there will be many unknowns until he is born. You might also find that Shaun White and Jimmy Kimmel's son have this same condition.

Of course, this is news no expecting parent wants to hear, but the specialist was so amazing in comforting us, explaining the condition in full detail, and mostly assuring us that with surgery our baby boy should grow up to live a very normal and healthy life. She also recommended that we start a relationship with Children's Hospital in Minneapolis, as there is a good chance we might deliver there to be safe and that is where the surgery will take place, but all of that will depend on the severity of the condition which won't be fully known until closer to the due date. In the meantime, Jane's appointments will be split every other time between Essential Health and Children's, and they will both work together hand in hand to make sure our little guy has the best possible care and outcome.

So for now, the pregnancy will continue as normal and all we can do is monitor his development at each appointment. There really is no way to know exactly how mild or severe the condition is until closer to the due date or even at birth, but no matter what will require surgery, generally within the first six months to a year after birth, yearly monitoring and most likely another operation when much older if needed. We remain hopeful that it will be on the mild side and will only require minimal surgeries to correct, but no matter what we will make sure he has the best care possible to live a happy and normal life ❤️

The good news is that both babies are growing great, they are right on track and as of now in the upper percentiles. Our next appointment will be with Children's on October 28th, we will get to meet the team there, and have our ultrasound checkup for both our little nuggets to see how things are developing along. As of today, we are almost 22 weeks along, Jane is doing well and says they both have started to become active and moving around.

We will do our best to keep everyone updated more now as we progress closer and closer to the due date, we will remain strong and positive. We just can't wait to meet these little ones but have to kick it into high gear now to get everything ready for their arrival as our little valentines babies will be here before you know it!!

Thank you again to everyone for all the kind words, wishes, and support throughout this very long journey of ours, we appreciate every single one of you!!! 💞

With Much Love,

-Ryan, Trent, Leo & Luna