Never in a Million Years

Lately I have been thinking a lot about my life, especially how much it has changed. You don't realize how much one action can impact your life forever. When we decided to have a baby babies, we knew our life was going to change forever. Becoming a mother is a BIG deal. Yes, everyone knows that! But never in a million years did I think it was going to change so many aspects of my life: socially, professionally and emotionally. The thing is we had no idea we were going to be having TWO little ones. While becoming a mother changes you no matter how many babies you have, in my case, it really did matter.

I know for a fact, that had we had a singleton, I would still be a working mother. Not a doubt in my mind about that. We decided that the amount of money we would spend in a daycare, while still bringing home some extra money, was not worth it. It was such a tough decision, but I'm so glad I did it. I truly love being a SAHM. You can't put a price on raising your children. I thank God every single day for allowing this to happen and being financially stable to do so. I had planned to stay home for one year with them, and well, I'm on year two =) Can I please do this for the rest of my life?



Why wouldn't I want to stay home with these silly, free spirited girls?  Messy house, happy children =)



Unless you've had multiples, you can't fathom how hard it is to take care of them while newborn. Having them brought me closer to my husband. I fell in love in a completely new way. I never realized how much I would need him to be involved with them. I swear he did everything a mother does, expect produce milk lol. We got up together for EVERY single feeding and basically did everything together. He had one baby and I had the other. We tried to remember who we had each time, so we could switch and have bonding time with both of them.  He was able to take 6 weeks off from work, which was perfect because that's when they started sleeping through the night. We did have some rough days and we were deprived from sleep. It's amazing how the human body can still function (somewhat) with little to no sleep. I'm so grateful they started sleeping through the night so early on. I think we would have gone insane, not to mention I had to go back to work when they were only 8 weeks old.

 

Had I not had twins, I would have never met some amazing MoMs that I'm proud to call my close friends. Seriously, it has been an amazing journey meeting and getting to know these ladies. They keep me sane and completely support me and make me feel normal. They can relate to everything that I'm going through, because they, too, have gone through it. I'm part of my local MoMs group (TBAMoMs) and I absolutely love it. I go on tons of play dates (which I coordinate for the group), meetings, and MoMs night outs. Hey, we all need a drink every once in a while.

 

I'm also part of a FB group for MoMs all over the world. We're a tight group where you can vent about anything without any judgment. I've meet some awesome MaMas from all over the world. It's a safe place to say how you're feeling and what you're going through when you don't want to talk to any IRL friends.

Never in a million years did I think I would be a mother of twins. Watching my girls grow with each other is such a blessing. There are so many things that they wouldn't be doing/saying if they didn't have one another. They love and fight and go through so many emotions together, but at the end of the day, they can't stand being away from each other ♥

May God Bless you!

I have been wanting to blog about the twins' baptism for a while and I just realized that it has been almost a year since they were baptized...oops!  So finally here it is.  We baptized the girls at 8 months old on September 16th, 2012.  What an unforgettable day.  Before the actual day, Brad and I had to take a course that explained everything about that day and why, as Catholics, we baptize our kids. 

We woke up that morning, ate breakfast and headed to St. Petersburg.  Once we got there, we changed our girls into their beautiful gowns.  They looked so precious!!! 

I was dreading having to sit through an hour mass with our girls, but had no other choice since we were told we had to do it.  The baptism ceremony would take place right after.  We've gone through it before with both of our nephews, so we knew what to expect.  When we arrived at church everyone was looking at our girls and smiling.  Those little girls can get anyone's attention.  They behaved so well during that whole hour.  They sat quietly on our laps, ate some snacks and played with some of their toys.  I was very nervous because the ceremony was right in the middle of nap time, but luckily our girls did not get cranky at all.  They seriously acted like little angels =) 

Once the mass was over, we had so many people come up to us and tell us that our girls were beautiful and how they behaved so well.  That seriously made my day!   Even a lady asked if she could take a picture of them, which was kind of awkward and creepy lol.  Usually they have several babies to baptize, but thankfully our girls were the only ones that day.  This made the ceremony much more enjoyable and intimate.  The priest was amazing.  He involved everyone in our family into the ceremony, specially my nephews and niece.  He made silly jokes throughout the process and was amazing with the girls.  I could not have asked for a better ceremony. 

 

During the ceremony two oils are used.  These oils are rubbed on the chest and forehead and are believed to strengthen the one being baptized to turn away from evil, temptation and sin. They smelled so good and made our girls smelled good for the rest of the day.  Brad didn't even want to give them a bath that night. 

Holy water used for the baptism

 

 

 One of the things that I absolutely love about having twins is that we both, Brad and I, get a baby to experience things with.  I held Juliana as she was being baptized.  I had tears of joy running down my face.  Brad held Isabella.  I love how happy Brad looked the entire time.  The girls didn't even cry.  They looked so peaceful and precious ♥

 

Lighting their candles!

 

 

Juliana and Isabella with their Godparents

 

 

 

 

Opening their gifts

This was such an incredible day. Everything turned out perfect. It was a day to celebrate with just my close family. 

 

"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Matthew 19:14

Say What?!?!?

OMG are they twins?  Are they identical? Are they fraternal? They look so much alike! They look nothing alike!  How do you not know?  ----Yup, those are the same questions I get asked on a regular daily basis.  If that wasn't exhausting enough, I hated not being able to give an answer.  Sometimes I would just say no they're fraternal just to shut people up, but honestly the "not" knowing was eating me alive.  As a mother, how did I not know what my little girls are? I know I always make fun of people for asking me so many silly twin questions but the truth of the matter is I don't really blame them.  Before I found out I was pregnant with twins, I didn't know anything about it either.  I, too, was ignorant about the subject.  So before I can jump into the whole finding out thing....let me give you a quick lesson on twins lol.

There are three types of twins:

• Mono/mono - This means both babies share a sac AND a placenta, therefore they are identical.  This means that they come from one egg. Identical twins can only be the same sex; girls or boys.  Boy/girl twins are NEVER identical.
•  mono/di-  This means the babies are in separate sacs but share the same placenta.  This also means the babies are identical unless they had different placentas but ended up fussing together.  In that case, they babies can be fraternal.  Yes, I know, a bit confusing.
• di/di- This means the babies are in separate sacs and separate placentas.  This typically means the twins are fraternal, from two different fertilized eggs.  There is however, a 20-30% chance that the babies could be identical.  This means one egg spit in half and separated very early on.

*Identical twins can happen to anyone.  It's a "freak of nature."  The egg splits into two. Your chance of having twins again does not increase.
*Fraternal twins is genetic or happen through fertility drugs.  Two eggs are fertilized.  This is also common in older mothers over 35.  If the twins were conceived naturally, then the chance of having twins again increases quadruples.  Fraternal twins may look similar or different, just like siblings, they just happen to be the same age.

My twins are Di/Di twins.  They didn't share a thing lol. In my head it made sense.  Twins run in my family.  Yup, I thought my body dropped two eggs and boom...TWINS!  I still knew there was that small chance they could be identical.  Once we found out the sex we still couldn't be 100% sure because both babies were girls.  Then we found out that they had the same blood type because Brad and I have the same blood type and therefore all of our children will have the same blood type.  Yup, still no answer. 

Once the babies were born I could tell them apart right away.  Still to this day they look so different to me.  But I also know that they have many similarities: same color eyes, same color hair etc.  So after thinking about it for a very long time, we decided to do the zygosity test. My friend recommended the same place she used to find out what her twins were, Proactive Genetics.  So I went online and bought the zygosity kit. It was so weird because I got really anxious as soon as I bought it. I even started to sweat lol. 

After a few days we finally received the kit with all of the instructions.  We had to do several cheek swabs on two different days. 

 

 

Juliana thought it was so funny to have that in her mouth.  Isabella hated it.  She's like get this thing away from me haha.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After I mailed it, the waiting game begun.  Deep in my heart I always felt my girls were fraternal.  How can my two distinct little girls be identical?  However, a part of me wanted them to be identical so that in the future we could have baby #3 and not worry about having twins again.  Then finally the results came...  I had to wait until Brad came home from the gym to see the results together!

 



Ahhh I didn't have to read this at all.  I could see right away in bold letters...IDENTICAL!!!!  Say What?!?!?! I cried.  I was so happy to finally know.  I was very happy with the results.  I mean how cool...to think that my egg split in half!!!!  Brad must have super sperm haha.  I spent the next few days thanking the girls for splitting lol.  I'm so lucky to be amongst the few to have di/di identical twins.  I'm so blessed that this "freak of nature" happened to me us.  I can't imagine life without my little twins!!!

♥I hear that identical twins share an even stronger bond ♥

Half Way to TWO!

Can you guys believe that our twinkies are 18 months old?!?!?! Seriously, time is flying by, which reminds me that I will be 27 in less than a month...eww.  It's so hard to picture life before the girls.  I feel like they have been around my whole life.  I can't thank God enough for blessing us with them.  They're beautiful, healthy and happy...it doesn't get any better than that =)  Yesterday we found out they are IDENTICAL (blogging about that soon!).  Here are a few pictures of our 18 month photo shoot.  Taking pictures of them is getting harder and harder.  They don't want to stop for a second.  All they want to do is explore and run around.  Enjoy!

 My beautiful family ♥

 We each get to play with one hehe

 Absolutely in love with this man!

 Mama and Isa ♥

 Dada and Juju ♥

 I love that the girls are smiling

 Juliana

They wanted to play with the flower

Isabella