Ready and waiting

Hi everyone, Alan here.

Way back in April when we found out we were expecting we set a goal to be all ready by 32 weeks, just in case we needed to head off to India early. Well, here we are, a few days shy of that, and pretty much ready! The nursery is done, we've had our 3 (amazing) showers, we've got all our supplies for the trip and in general, so now we wait patiently...

We got a great update from Mumbai this morning. Zarina went in for a check up and everything is perfect - babies weights (3.3lbs and 3.5lbs) and heartbeats are normal, and Zarina is doing really well too. Here is the latest photo... she is still smiling which is a good sign!



Other than that, we've spent the last couple of weekends at Target, Costco, and Buy Buy Baby getting everything we need. We had a fantastic shower thrown by our families two weeks ago, and one from my work friends last weekend - a few photos from each below.



As always we're so touched by everyone's love and support. It's made this even more fun, so thank you all as always for everything.

More updates to come as we get closer to the big day.

29 Weeks!

Hi everyone, Alan here...

We realized we've been a bit too quiet on here for the last few weeks, so just a quick update to say things are moving along really well. Today we are officially 29 weeks, and with a scheduled delivery at 37 weeks, not much longer now!

Zarina is doing well, the latest update from Dr. Tandon was a good one: more good weight gain, lots of movements from the babies, and Zarina seems very comfortable.

All is going well in babies-prep world. The nursery at home is pretty much done:

The wall hanging was made by Andrew's grandmother for his nursery and goes really well with our safari theme. The furniture fits nicely, and once Baby A&B come home we can make it a bit more gender specific and not as unisex (unless A & B are different genders :).

We have also been making some progress with our search for an Au Pair and should have a decision by this weekend. The process works well - our agency (www.aupairinamerica.com) does all the vetting, background checks, and interviews to get everything you need to know about possible Au Pairs. Then we go online and search through different criteria (age, experience, etc) and narrow it down. Once you have a few you think could work you do Skype interviews and then make your final decision. We know two people in Atlanta who have worked with this agency and are very happy, so we're confident this is the right thing for us.

And we have dates for our trip now - leaving Atlanta December 4th and returning December 29th. This all assumes the delivery takes place around December 6th or 7th (as planned), that A&B are healthy and happy (lots of prayers for that, please!), and that our paperwork gets taken care of quickly. We may be able to leave earlier or may have to stay longer but we are hoping this timing will work. We also booked our hotel for 25 nights, our home away from home:  http://www.meluhafernhotel.com/. While we liked our first hotel we were looking for a more friendly location (able to walk around, grocery stores, restaurants, etc), and this fits the bill perfectly.

Other than that we have two showers to look forward to (our families are hosting one this weekend, and my work friends are hosting one next weekend), and we can't wait. Always fun to celebrate.

Once we have more updates and photos we'll be sure to post them.