One

It's official. Alexis and Amelia are one. They are one, and they are healthy and thriving.  The past month or so had a lot of anniversaries of really unpleasant events. The first day I was admitted to the hospital. The day they transferred me to Stanford (which to this day remains the worst day of my life by a substantial margin). The day the contractions wouldn't go away. And finally, the day they arrived.  I wish I could say that was the happiest day of my life, but it was not. It was one of the worst, beat only by the preceding 3 weeks in the hospital. But since that day, every day has gotten better and better.

Today, the girls are happy and healthy. They crawl, babble, and do everything they are supposed to do.  In fact, at their 12 month appointment, despite being sick for the past 3 weeks (or 5-6 weeks as Boris claims), their pediatrician said that they are on track with a normal healthy 12 month old... UNADJUSTED! They are still on the small side for a 12 month old, but they are giant for 9 month olds! And their heads are giant, even for a 12 month old... 85th percentile unadjusted. Smart babies.

Over the past few months I've been hearing a lot of awful stories about the twins who didn't do so well. Lots of losses, of one or both twins.  Some delivered before viability, others stillborn at nearly full-term.  Which makes me think back to our own traumatic experience and think, maybe this wasn't so bad? Maybe the Stanford doctors were right after all -- maybe it was better to deliver tiny, weak babies at 27 weeks and let them grow into the strong healthy babies they are today.

For those who haven't seen it already, here's my recap of Amelia and Alexis's first year:

We had a super fun birthday party, which I will post about as soon as we get photos!