Andrea and I went in for the 12 week checkup. We were looking forward to hearing our baby’s heartbeat. When the midwife came in with the device, we jokingly mentioned that we only wanted to hear one heartbeat. Back story: A lot of our friends have had twins lately so we had that going through our minds.

The midwife found the strong 165 bpm heartbeat right away. Andrea said it was weird knowing that sound was coming from her. We then found Andrea’s heartbeat and compared the two. Very cool.

The midwife said she didn’t hear a second heartbeat but she wanted to confirm since we mentioned it specifically. She went into the other room and came back with a portable ultrasound machine. I held the monitor up while she spread the goo. A few seconds later, there he/she was. One head, one set of stumpy arms, two tiny legs/feet. Phew. The cool thing was that because the baby is still so small you can see all of him/her in one picture. When we have the main ultrasound the baby will be too big to fit on a single screen. Very cool for a week 12 visit. Too bad the small ultrasound machine doesn’t give pictures.

There are few secrets harder to keep than being pregnant, especially from the mothers, of which we have three. My mother was easy since she’s in Denver, but the other two were much harder, especially with casual conversations that began with “so when are you two going to have kids?” Andrea tends to get a little red when she’s nervous and especially when she has to lie to her mother. Not that I would ever advocate lying to your parents, but in our case we had a good reason.

Our goal: To let all the new grandparents know in person on Christmas.

The Plan: Wrap up baby bibs and give them as the last gifts for Christmas.

The Execution: Flawless. We surprised all six new grandparents with the news. We created a memory as well as a memento. Check out where our little bib ended up.

I think the picture says it all. We’re doing our part in contributing to red haired supremacy in the world.