Week 32

No news from SCI, but a few random thoughts in my head to share. Have been quite busy with the remaining preparations. Most of the shopping for the major baby items are done. Still need to pick up a few smaller things. I have to say the hardest decision was buying a double stroller. As other parents can attest, you would need at least two sets of car seats and two sets of strollers for babies throughout their childhood. The choices for double strollers get limited and can get expensive compared to single strollers.  After lots of research and visiting baby stores, we finally decided to start with a simple "Universal Baby Trend Snap N Go" stroller, where you can easily snap two infant car seats into it. Hopefully after a few months when we don't need to snap car seats into the stroller, we will buy them a double stroller (hopefully City Select or City Mini). Funny how these days I turn my head on streets when I see strollers, not only to check out the stroller, but also the babies inside! :)

In past few months we have got many great advice from parents from all walks of life. Interestingly we find many contradictions. What works for one parent may not work for another. For example, our neighbor keeps swearing the diaper genie is a must-have, whereas I hear from others it's waste of money! At the end of the day we have to assess each item to see if we really need it. We tend to lean towards the advice of other twin parents, specially those in NYC because they share similar challenges.  In past few months our good friend Stacey, an SCI mom, has been so helpful with her advice on so many things including stroller and car seats. I have relied quite bit on her because she has twins via surrogacy, and they live in a small apartment like ours.

Since we live in a two-bedroom small apartment in Brooklyn, at this point we are only buying things for newborns / infants below 6 months. For examples, we are starting with a mini crib and will eventually buy two cribs once the babies get bigger. That should give us time to make room and do the research and also knowing the gender will be helpful in making decisions later on. Definitely raising kids in a big city like NYC is quite challenging as space is limited. I love this storage ad that I recently saw in Manhattan:

Last week my sister and her family visited us from California (the Bay Area), and it was so wonderful spending time with my nephew and niece one last time before becoming parents. Those kids have been a major reason for us to pursue parenthood, and we would always love them and cherish the relationship we have with them even after we have our own kids, although I know we won't have as much time for them as we used to.  This weekend my sister surprised us by announcing that she's expecting her third baby in January! So I am thrilled our twins will have a cousin their age to play with :) My sister and I are only 16 months apart so growing up we were very close like twins. So in a way it's nice to have kids in the same age so we can share the experience. We were joking that once we all get together next year, people might think our kids are triplets! :) Interestingly we have about 7 friends from various cities that are pregnant within few months of us. This is in addition to all the friends expecting via surrogacy. So we should have plenty of support as we go through this journey.

Our next scan is due in 10 days. Time is flying fast. We are now focusing on buying a car, hotel and airline reservation. October 11 is supposed to be my last day at work.  Have a great September everyone.

Week 30: Shower Time!

Last Saturday, August 17th, five of our female friends put together a memorable shower filled with great food, fun games, music even dancing at the end. The party was at our apartment, so we couldn't invite too many people. But we managed to squeeze about 30 guests including 5 toddlers (two sets of twins)! My mom and sister were the only family in attendance. It was such a delight to see all, and we are very thankful to everyone for the gifts they showered us with. 

Baby shower gifts

At the end our wonderful hosts turned the shower into a disco event!

Construction is completed. Babies room painted light purple. Nursery setup is in progress

Shower party favors given to all the guests depicting our monkeys! :)

Our favorite gift of the shower arrived from New Delhi 3 hours before the party in the form of an email from SCI for week 29 scan!  Happy to report our surrogate and babies are doing well. The little ones have been putting on weight (in fact doubling since last scan). According to the scan, twin2 has now surpassed twin1, weight wise:

• Twin1: 3.1 pounds (1420 grams)
• Twin2: 3.3 pounds (1513 grams)
Twin1 is currently in breech position and twin2 is in cephalic position.
Hoping the next few weeks will go smoothly and the babies don't trouble Ms S too much.

While we are happy with our pregnancy and grateful for everything that SCI has done for us, we wish smooth journeys for other IPs currently pregnant as well as those who are trying. And still hopeful India will reconsider its surrogacy laws to include singles and gay people in a near future. Having a child should be everyone's right not a privilege for a few.

Welcome Third Trimester

No update from SCI but we are starting week 28, which is generally known as the end of second trimester, and we are very thankful for it. Although I feel for twin pregnancies the third trimester should be earlier! Time is definitely flying by as past few weeks have been quite hectic with multiple small and large projects happening in parallel. August madness is in full swing!

First off, congratulations to my good friend, Fred, for the arrival of his twin boys. On Sunday I had a pleasant and surprising Facetime session with him and got to see the little Chase and Camden. They are simply adorable babies!! We have been in touch for months and so happy to see him becoming father.  I always looked up to Fred for his advice as he was 9 weeks ahead of us. Now feeling the pressure that we are getting closer!

Here are some updates since my last posting:

• I shared the news with my boss and coworkers. The support has been wonderful. I'm working on planning my backup while I'm away on paternity leave (hopefully for 12 weeks).
• Fixing the apartment took longer than expected but finishing this week.
• Purging the house to make room for the babies stuff. This is painful!
• Last week I had to resign from my condo board membership as I won't have time anymore. Working on transitioning my responsibilities to my replacement.
• Researched pediatricians in our neighborhood and most likely going with TriBeCa Pediatrics which is in walking distance to us. We are attending their orientation / introduction session next month.
• Have signed up for CPR and Safety course - August 22.
• Have signed up for Essential Baby Care course - September 5.
• Introduced ourselves to the US embassy in Delhi and received a link with step by step info for the exit process.
• Started the DNA testing process by reaching to Chromosomal Lab in Arizona. Melissa Valmonte has been very helpful. Thanks to all who recommended her.
• Have started research on buying a car and hopefully will start test driving soon.
• Setup baby registries at Amazon and BuyBuyBaby.
• Our baby shower is set for August 17, and our wonderful friends have been very hard at work. We are grateful for their effort.
• Have created the list of baby items to buy but wanted to wait until after shower. The bigger items like stroller and car seats and the cribs will require more research and comparison shopping.
• Have started looking into setting up a will with a lawyer.
• Making travel arrangements seem too early at this point. But we are aiming to be in Delhi by week 37 which is October 13. That's when the babies are considered full-term. But I know we have to be flexible. So we will think about that in September.  For airline tickets, we'll look for direct flights from NY to Delhi either with United Airlines or Air India.

If we should be aware of anything else at this stage, please provide your feedback or email us directly. We appreciate everyone's support, and I hope my checklist can help the IPs behind us in their journey. Please reach out if you have any question.

Recently when people hear our news they usually give us such advice: "get plenty of sleep; take some vacation; go to nice restaurants now!!" My response to them: "I have rested, vacationed and dined for too long!" LOL Cannot be more than ready for this new chapter of our lives. Maybe I will sing a different tune next year at this time? :)

Our next scan is due in less than 2 weeks.  Happy August everyone.

Belly Images

So today we got our week-25 scan, and thankfully everything is ok with our surrogate and the babies. The twins weigh more than one pound each - that's twice their weight last month! Here is a video of what to expect during this stage of the babies development.

Also earlier this week SCI shared with us some belly pictures from our surrogate:

Every time I look at the pictures, I get very emotional, as it makes me realize what an amazing woman she is for doing this for us. We will always regard her as the angel that came to our life giving us our precious gifts!! We are planning to send a gift to her and her children this week as a token of our gratitude.

We have started sharing the pregnancy news with more people. Next week I am planning to tell my boss and coworkers the news as I have to plan my FMLA and backup plan. This week we have joined several parenting groups in our neighborhood including the Brooklyn Parents of Twins group. Very exciting!!

As we prepare for the babies arrival, a few projects are in full swing including the reconstruction of our living room and the baby room that was damaged two years back due to flooding, shopping for the babies, creating the registry, etc. Our friends are planning the baby shower in mid August. We have already spent a few hours at Buy Buy Baby store creating our registry and learning about their products. Time is definitely passing quickly and there is so much to be done!!

Also it is quite interesting to see how we are gradually changing our "extra-curricular activities" as we prepare for the arrival of the babies. Last year I had to stop playing tennis tournaments after 13 years - it used to be my passion for years. And last week, I stopped Bikram Yoga after 9 years of practice! Our priorities in life need to change to make time for the little ones. Will have to figure out creative ways to have a healthy life style while parenting.

Hope everyone is having a great summer (or winter for those IPs Down Under!).

Past Halfway Mark

Last week we received our 20-week scan. According to the report, our surrogate is doing fine and the babies are growing well. The only thing that the scan picked up was the presence of a tiny Echogenic Intracardiac Focus (EIF) in one of the twin's heart! The email from SCI mentioned that "in most cases there is no consequences, and it disappears later". Of course we panicked a little at first. However after some research and talking to a few people, apparently it is seen in 3-5% of all pregnancies during second trimester, and in most cases everything will turn out fine. As a follow up, this week SCI organized a more detailed scan by the Fetal Medicine Specialist, Dr. Vandana. We are happy to report the results are fine, and all the parameters are within normal range - a sigh of relief for the moment as we are past the midpoint of pregnancy. Very happy and grateful for reaching this milestone.

Recently we met up with a friend who has an identical twin sister. She told us when her mom was pregnant with her some 30 years ago here in the US, she had no idea she was carrying twins and her doctor apparently didn't notice! So at about week 26, the mom goes into early labor and everyone was shocked when they saw the second baby coming! Makes me wonder how much we have advanced in medicine and technology in past few decades and what the doctors are capable of doing these days. I must say we feel very fortunate for choosing SCI and Dr Shivani as they are carefully monitoring the pregnancy and taking a good care of our surrogate and babies. Speaking of babies, check out their recent 3D images!! :)

Baby 1 at week 20

Baby 2 at week 20

We have started compiling a list of all the tasks that need to happen before the babies arrive. I am treating this like one big project and assigning priority and due dates for each task (kind of like what I do at work!). I have categorized tasks into two groups: Essential and Non-essential. My goal is to complete all the essential tasks by week 30. Our biggest project that is about to start is fixing our apartment that was flooded 2 years ago from heavy rains, and we finally recently settled with our insurance. Also need to buy a bigger car as our old Acura CL won't be big enough for our growing family. Hopefully all these tasks will keep our minds off the pregnancy a little this summer...

Hope everyone in the blog land is doing well.