Allie in the South of Spain

I can't believe we are coming up on it being two months since the babies were born. Of course when you consider that they should have been born on April 8th, I like to think we have been lucky to have them in our lives for one extra month.  Napping This is just an FYI for people who haven't had experience with preemies before (like me pre-baby): parents will talk about adjusted ages which means counting from when the baby should have been born. For example, my girls are two months old, but one month adjusted (since they were born at 34 weeks). You make this adjustment to be more realistic for when they will hit different milestones. Vera and Laura very may well reach developmental milestones later than a baby born on time, although in reality it is all relative since there tend to be such big windows for when babies roll over, talk, crawl, walk etc. This last month since Laura came home has been a whirlwind of bottles and diapers. The girls are still eating every three...

I have never really been that into photos but since the arrival of my girls I have been taking a lot more. Ever since the morning after they were born when I still hadn't really seen them for more than a minute in the operating room and I made Jose take a lot of pictures of them in the NICU to bring back up to me where I was still recuperating from my C section, I have been documenting and sharing with my family and friends how they are growing and changing. Since those first days they have gotten so much bigger and look stronger, healthier. I like looking back and seeing how far they have come. They change so much, so quickly. When Fathers' Day arrived here in Spain I decided I wanted to do a professional photo shoot with the babies before they got too big and had thought to surprise Jose with it. However with Laura in the hospital and then my parents' visit our time was limited. I still pursued the idea after my folks had left and we luckily were penciled in for a sess...

My birthday is this Friday, April 8th. I will be turning 30, whaaattt??? Where did the time go? I feel like I just turned 21 yesterday. Some people know this but other may not: I started a list of 30 things I wanted to do before this birthday back in 2013. I have posted below the original list as well as all 6 updates that I wrote about over the last few years. I adjusted my original list a few times in order to keep up with how my life was changing and the goals I wanted to accomplish. I am a bit surprised myself but my last update was over a year ago.  Update 6 Update 5 Update 4 Update 3 Update 2 Update 1 Original list Here is how the 30 before 30 list was left as of my latest update in February of 2015: 1. Go on another cruise. We have been throwing around the idea of going on a cruise with my parents when the girls are a bit older. I think we would have a blast! 2. Learn to cook Indian food . 3. Start a family (read: have a baby).  Trying to accomplish this go...

Our babies turned a month old today! What??!!! It's still hard to believe that they have been with us for that long especially when you consider that they should have been born only last week.  Since our last update with their birth story we had Vera at home by herself for two and a half weeks while her sister stayed in the hospital until she was consistently eating out of her bottle. We were making daily trips to the NICU to visit Laura which was complicated since we also had another newborn at home. Those twoish weeks were some of the most frustrating and stressful of my life.  Laura in the NICU with feeding tube We couldn't bring Laura home until she was able to complete almost all of her bottles consistently. When she didn't she was fed through her feeding tube so she wasn't losing weight or becoming malnourished. It was difficult as a parent to see our little baby hooked up to monitors and with a tube in her nose. The nurses kept reassuring us that one day t...

Our twins were supposed to be born around March 17th which would have been when I was about 37 weeks pregnant. They did not cooperate with this plan. They must have run out of room and they came quite a bit earlier, at 34 weeks, on March 1st. They were almost Leap Year babies but missed it by exactly one hour since they were born at almost exactly 100am. Our first family photo in the NICU, a few days after being born Everything started on Sunday February 28th. We spent the day at my in-laws' house where we had lunch and spent time relaxing. I had quite a bit of pain in my lower left groin, enough that going over speed bumps was pretty uncomfortable and walking was next to impossible. Since the pain was constant and only on one side of my stomach I didn't think much of it until it started to get worse as the night went on and we were back home in our apartment. It got to the point around 100am that we decided to go to the emergency room at our hospital to see if I had pul...

Yesterday morning I celebrated my baby shower with a small brunch. My friend Cristina helped organize it and we had it in her association's club house. Baby showers are not common here in Spain, mostly people will give gifts after the baby arrives and the big celebration tends to be the baptism. I really appreciated all of my Spanish friends who embraced this tradition and I think they enjoyed themselves along with my American friends. The cake. It says welcome Vera and Laura We served brunch food (like bagels, muffins, small sandwiches, juice, coffee and of course cake). It is events like this that I am thankful for Costco. Not only can you buy in bulk but they have all kinds of foods that you can't find anywhere else (like bagels). We played two games as well. One was done in small groups. I gave each group a list of names of children from TV series. They had to name the series and they got an extra point if they could remember the surname of the family. I used series...

It's been a while since I last updated about how things are going with the twins so I wanted to take advantage today to share both that and our progress with their nursery. First of all, as of now I am in the 30th week of pregnancy. Word from my doctor is that these twins will most likely arrive (probably will be planned) between week 37 and 38, so really not that much longer to go. This is both exciting and terrifying.  We have been going to the doctor every two weeks to track how the girls are growing and we went yesterday for what will end up being one of our last appointments because things looked so good we won't be back for 5 weeks. Which puts us almost at the end...unless of course I go into labor or have some other kind of emergency before (which I am hoping won't happen). Yesterday Vera (who has always been a bit bigger) weighed in at 1.6 kilos which is about 3.5 lbs. Laura is more petite and weighs 1.3 kilos or about 3 lbs. They are both good sized babies for b...