The very beginning

As Julie Andrews sang in one of my favorite movies, Let's start at the very beginning ... that's a very good place to start.

Within months of meeting each other, Xilon and I knew that we wanted to marry and start a family. The marrying part went off without a hitch. (Well, yeah, I did almost lose my mind trying to plan a wedding in five months, sell my house, move, start fertility planning, and work full-time. But the day itself was absolutely grand!) The family part took a lot more time, planning and persistence. But oh, was it ever worth it!

Xilon and I learned in early June 2008 that we were expecting twins. Both grandmas, Xilon and I got to see the babies via ultrasound at the end of June. Amazing, when we looked at the babies that day, they were each the size of half a grain of rice! Ten months later, they are each an armful, and growing every day.

Olivia and Will were easy babies from the grain-of-rice days forward. I had practically no morning sickness. I had bursts of energy and sometimes felt like I could run a marathon while I was pregnant. The babies triggered the nesting instinct in me, and by the time they were born, I had purchased, washed, and organized clothing for the full first two years of their lives! All the duds are in tubs labeled by age range and child. Xilon was smart enough to stand back and stay out of the way during my nest-o-rama. (If he hadn't, he may have ended up in a labeled tub too!)

When the babes were 10 weeks along, I broke my ankle. Made for a rotten July and August, but it was probably a blessing in disguise because I was forced to lay flat on my back for almost two months and give our wee ones lots of rest. (As an aside, I will never, ever be able to watch HGTV again.) In September, I was laid off by Thomson Reuters and hired by IBM to do contract writing, which was a lot of fun. By December, my belly could barely fit through the shower door or in front of the steering wheel of a car. Will and Livie enjoyed kicking me and each other. By January, getting out of a chair was a feat.

On January 28, 2009, at 12:09 p.m., the ride of a lifetime began.