They're here!!!!!!!!!!!

James William Thomas and Emily Isadora Adriana are born!!! They are both healthy, one a little over 4 pounds and the other one just 4 pounds!

I can not express our emotions besides: we were just sobbing on the phone and I am still crying my eyes out!

The most amazing woman we know is tired and doing fine, we are so incredibly thankful.

And also to you, some of you we've met, some of you only via the internet, but the support we've had has been so important.

After I get there we'll post a photo (the cable is in my suitcase.. here with me!) and more details of our babes.

We're just soooooo happy!

B-Day

Early this morning A called me, he spoke to dr Soni and today is birth day!

No later than 3pm Mumbai time will she perform a c-section... as mrs N is in labour already there is still a possibility that they're born through a natural delivery, either way, its unstoppable!

According to our doc the babes should be fine, but my nerves are uncontrollable.

I'll soon post more!

still waiting

A is still in hospital, just sitting around and waiting. He is bored! This morning his mobile phone was stolen (pick pocketed) so that was a bummer and then the hotel 'thing', we are early, we know that, but everything is full at the moment and when you're waiting its more fun to do so next to a pool than in a hospital:)

He did meet the Todds from Texas, their twins are born and as I understand it all goes well. If you read this: congratulations!!! Hopefully till next week!

Today I went to work again, but found it hard to concentrate and had the worst day in my career at this job. There was a decision made which I didn't agree with, but had to enforce it anyway; I do not like doing things I do not agree with and thats an understatement.

Meanwhile I was trying to get in contact with a stressed out A who was running around to see if he perhaps left his mobile somewhere, friends and family who are calling me at the same time to hear if there's any news, co workers who want to express their support and all I can think of at the moment is let me sleep! And I want to be with A!

It feels like being in a waiting room in another part of the world.

We are really glad that our surrogate and the babies are still doing fine and we're counting every single day as a bonus now, also we're a bit surprised because we didn't think it would last a day longer. So fingers crossed a little longer

who's in a plane?

Well, we both didn't sleep to much and I checked my email throughout the night about every half hour and not without result: at 0600 am we received a message that it is likely that the birth will proceed, we immediately jumped in our car and I drove A to the airport, and got him on the first flight. I couldn't go due to my very very stupid visa! So I have to wait a couple of days before I can go unfortunately. However, today I've been calling the clinic several times and the babes are still safe and sound! They are still trying everything to keep them in just a little longer. We are nervous as hell but prepared as heaven, A will land in 15 minutes in Mumbai and he will book in to the hospital (bloody hotel booking!) as soon as there is news I'll post again!

dilated

OMG. Today we received an email which stated that our surrogate has been admitted to hospital (again) and she was dilated with two centimeters... still a long way to go. But I can't describe the motions we went through once we've read this announcement. We know that if the birth will take place now, everything should be okay, but it's getting more than real now!

I was at work when A rang me and we put everything in gear to inform those who needed to know that there is a chance that we'll be on a plane either tomorrow or in the next coming days.

We phoned with our great doc in the hospital, and as many people have written before, she is so cool, direct, realistic and thus comforting for 'us' westerners. She told us to stay put and await her call, at the moment she is doing everything she can to keep the babes just a little longer in there and if labour won't be stopped, she'll know tomorrow and inform us direct. In any case, we're hoping for an extra week.

Both our parents were the once we called first, my dad's response was that he'll come over this week to finish the last bits in our house, A's mum phoned about ten times to talk about the stroller she's buying us and my mum was saying a dozen times that she will take us to the airport. And at first we didn't think to much about it, but tonight we called friends and all of them were telling us of things they would like to do whilst we're away, in all; everybody is so exited and everybody has the same nerves as we have.

Whatever happens; we're ready to go! We'll keep you posted and thanks everyone for all the support! Fingers crossed just a little longer

just a short, special, post

We just received this pic of our surrogate.. well we have one with her head of course. But just look at her belly! Our babes are in there!! In the pic with her face she looks so amazing, she is giving us the most amazing gift ever, at the moment we feel just very humble.

So fingers crossed for a few more weeks of an uneventful pregnancy!

short update+pics

It has been a time since my last post! This is all due to the fact that we're both too busy at the moment. Our surrogate has been in hospital, but is out of hospital since last week. We thought that she was released weeks ago already, but, the thing is in India someone is released from hospital after paying the bills. We did pay immediately the the itemized bill, but we had to pay an advance already for the delivery... nobody told us however so it took a little longer to get her released from hospital. Besides that, we've been working hard to finish the nursery (which still isn't finished lol). I have made a few pics but can't upload them for some stupid reason.

At work it has been incredible busy, I had to do the yearly evaluation of 28 people. They all deserve a well through thought written evaluation so I locked myself in an office for a few days to finish it all and after that I had all the face2face meetings so after a few weeks I feel emotionally drained!

But besides this, the 'getting ready mode' for India is really an emotional stretch at the moment. Regularly I wake up in the morning with the horrible thought that I slept the whole night and I didn't wake up to feed the babes and after just a minute reality kicks in and I feel okay right away... just for a minute to check our email to see if there's a message from the clinic... my heart races big time and so far: no message. If A is flying the next thing I do is check the news online to find out if all planes are still up in the air. I feel like a wreck! And this has been going on since our surrogate has been hospitalized. I am so glad that I have been so incredible busy at work otherwise I am sure I would have turned into a loony.

In a way it is all okay of course since my mind is just preparing for the change in our household. And I (never used too) pray, and I am not sure to whom I pray, but I just pray that our babes and our surrogate hang in there; it is way to early for them to be born already... also because we're still name juggling. I think we are having boys, but am not sure of course until they are born, so we have to have a set of names for girls as well. But since I feel so convinced that they will be boys, we haven't got an agreed set of names for girls. Wow, after writing this all I do feel like a loony. We did paint our own nursery painting for the babes, not finished.. but almost! And yes, I will post more regularly, because after all, this is a journey to remember. Anyways, I will try to add a pic of our nursery, here goes:

A rocky start of 2010

First of all a happy 2010 to all!

We spent Christmas with the whole family in Spain, supposedly for the nice climate but unfortunately we had the worst rain ever experienced in the Malaga area. We were actually stuck in the house for a couple of days as there were landslides (not as bad as in Brazil but still horrifying). There is some damage but nothing that can't be fixed.

This weekend we received a short message from the clinic with regards to our surrogate, she had some mild pain and some contractions so she was hospitalized... for over 6 days already! We were totally shocked by this. As of today she is out of hospital again and she and the babes are doing fine. The docs put her on some contraction stoppers (tocolysis meds), since we had to deal with the weekend staff we didn't get all the information we liked.

Dr. Google came in hand and so we know now that there is a top 3 of meds that can prevent pre-term labour, usually they have to work after 48 hours, so tomorrow we'll call to see why she had to stay for almost a week.

At the moment we're still kind of shocked because last week we had email contact with one of our docs and she didn't mention it at all. Perhaps they didn't want to alarm us to early, however we do want to know!

I've re-packed the suitcase with all the stuff for the babes, so if the time comes we'll be there in a jiffy. If they're born before February A will be there alone for a short while which I find shitty but that's just the way it would be.

But we just hope, every single minute, that the surrogate and the babes can stick it out for at least this month. The survival rate for this stage is quite high, around 90%, but every single day is another day in which they can grow and get stronger. So fingers crossed big time.

All the best for everyone this year and every good thought is appreciated for our babes.

Fingers crossed!