A dad from Georgia was relieved to find out that his wife was pregnant with just the one baby—or so he thought.
Emily Richardson (@erich0621) shared a screenshot of a text conversation with her husband, Chris, from the early days of her pregnancy in a post on TikTok. At the time, the couple believed they were expecting one baby. “How did the appointment go?” Chris asked.
Emily confirmed that the ultrasound showed “only one, no twins, thank the LORD,” adding that she was likely around seven weeks pregnant. “I would have died if it was twins,” Chris responded. The pregnancy itself was planned, and the couple were excited to grow their family, but the idea of twins felt overwhelming.
“We have an older child and can remember how hard it was during the newborn stage,” Emily told Newsweek. “Doubling everything seemed like something we couldn’t handle.”
The possibility of twins had lingered in the back of Emily’s mind long before that reassuring first scan. Years earlier, she struck up a conversation with another mom at their neighborhood playground who mentioned that eight families in the same neighborhood had all conceived twins after stopping the same form of birth control. Emily had used it too.
“So the ‘what if’ was always in the back of my mind,” she said. Still, when she became pregnant and her doctor confirmed there was only one baby—double-checking at Emily’s request—the couple were relieved.
But things took an unexpected turn at her 12-week ultrasound. Emily said the technician asked whether her older child was excited to have a sibling.
“Well, siblings,” the technician said. “There [are] two.”
“I nearly got whiplash, turning to her when she said that,” Emily said. “We joked that if I came back for my third appointment and there were triplets, I wasn’t coming back!”
Her initial reaction, she said, was fear. Questions piled up quickly: how to carry two babies, how delivery would work, how to manage feeding and sleep, and whether she would ever rest again.
“My husband’s reaction was pure shock,” Emily said. “We never thought we would ever have twins.” Even now—two years later—Emily joked that he may still be processing the news.
Their twin daughters are now toddlers, healthy and energetic, and while life is undeniably more demanding than it would have been with one baby, Emily described the experience as transformative.
“Twins are challenging and things are definitely harder than having a singleton, but they are truly a gift and we are so thankful for these girls,” she said. “While our initial fears and worries were justified, I think back on it and laugh because yes, it’s hard, but it’s also the greatest thing to ever happen to me.”
