Finally....the Twins!

As most of you know, my friend Allison delivered her twins back on April 12th when they were just 33 or 34 weeks gestation (6-7 weeks early). The babies were small, but relatively healthy. Luke weighed in at 5 lbs and his sister Chloe weighed in at 4 lbs. Chloe had IUGR, which stands for Intrauterine Growth Restriction, which means that she stopped growing sometime in utero. She's gonna be a tiny girl for quite a while. Well, the twins were in the NICU for a while and then went home with monitors (to make sure their breathing and heartrate were fine). While there were some bumps along the way, both babies are thriving now. Lily finally got to meet her new friends last night and it was so precious!

Because of their preemie status and Chloe's growth restriction, both babies are small for 3 months, but they are like tiny dolls. Chloe weighs only around 11 pounds, while her brother Luke weighs in at around 13 lbs. Both babies are very alert and active, like regular 3 month olds. They coo and laugh and kick and play, but they are so tiny! It's actually really cool to see!

Here's little Chloe, hanging out in her papasan chair. She is very strong and kept arching her back and would end up sliding down the chair. She really is like a tiny doll, strong and alert, but so small!

Some of you may remember me telling you about Luke. When his mom was pregnant with him, she was told he would have hydrocephalus, but when he was born, that turned out not to be the case. He is actually missing a tiny part of his brain, a piece of the corpus callosum (he is not missing the whole thing, just a small part). They don't know how it will affect him long term, as every person is different. Some people can go their whole lives without even knowing that they have this problem. Luke will get physical therapy, but they expect him to develop normally.

Here's Luke, with a big sweet grin:

Lily thought that Chloe looked like a doll too, she wanted to play with her~!

We had to wait a long while to see these babies, but it was well worth the wait! They are beautiful and I'm so happy that they are both happy and healthy and doing wonderfully. I definately admire their mommy, because twins seem like such a challenge! I'm hoping that when I'm a Stay At Home Mom, I can hang out more with Allison and her gorgeous duo :)