I’m happy to announce the births of our twin girls, Chloe and Clara. They squealed enthralling cries as they were born the afternoon of Monday, July 18. (The emotion one feels seeing a baby violently expel air from their lungs for the first time, as her body successfully switches from water to air, is inexpressible.) They weighed 6 pounds 14 ounces, and 6 pounds 8 ounces, for about 13-1/2 pounds of baby between them. It was Lori’s easiest delivery, which was fortunate since this was unquestionably her hardest pregnancy.
It’s been fun having twins, our house has had an electric atmosphere ever since they came home. Unlike my previous experiences with parenting, I now have to spend a moment figuring out which of my kids I’m holding when I pick one up. And then I wonder if it matters if I know which child it is or not. We think they’re fraternal, but they’re both so close to perfect they’re hard to tell apart. : )
Welcome to our family, Chloe and Clara. We love you and are so happy to have you.
Congratz…wonderful news. The last pic is very endearing.
Congratulations all around. What beautiful babies! I hope you are ok, too. When my son was born last September, I ended up in the hospital with double pneumonia!
Matt, congratulations. The babies and mom look great! We’ll have to have a bloggernacle play date in a year or so with my son.
Congratulations, Matt! It looks like the score is now 5-0, and you and Lori are still winning!
Aaron B
Congratulations to you and Lori. They’re beautiful!
What cuties! I can hardly wait to hold my own sweet little one in another five months. Seeing those pictures made me all the more excited…
congrats!
Congrats,
As the father of 2 fraternal twin 16 month old boys I can say I have an idea of what you just experienced. I hope they sleep well and grow fast. They are really big for twins. Ours were 2-3 pounds each.
Its a great day when they are blessed. Because you get to bless two babies its a special experience.
Welcome to the twin club.
Yeehah!
Congrats Matt! Beautiful babies and mom looks like she’s doing well too!
Congratulations. I hope you and your wife get some sleep.
Congratulations!
Congrats!
A double miracle! Thx for sharing.
Congrats Matt! And I thought all this talk about having lots of kids was speculative :)
Congratulations. Cute kids!
Bubblegum cigars all around!!!
[although my one kid – the second – was equal to your two kids!!! ;-) ]
You rock!
Ivan, please tell me you’re exaggerating: your wife truly gave birth to a 13+ lb infant?! Heaven forefend…. (but there’s something sort of brashly wonderful about it too! :) )
Oh, and congratulations, of course, Matt! What a wonderful addition.
Congratualtions. You deserve the doublemint award for parenthood.
That last picture is cute beyond belief. Thank you for sharing.
And, of course, congratulations.
Rosalynde –
I exagerrate a bit – but Patrick was quite a bit over 11 lbs at birth.
However, I am 6’1″ and big boned – but my wife is 6’2″ and even bigger boned. She had him at home (on purpose – with no drugs) and he was out after just over 5 minutes of pushing. My wife Alexa is an amazing woman.
(It is funny, though – when Kara, who was just shy of 10 lbs. at birth was in the nursery at the hospital, she looked like a 4 – 6 month old, with all those 5 – 6 lbs babies around her).
But enough about me and mine – Matt and his wife deserve many many kudos!
Matt, congratulations to you and Lori. The girls are so beautiful! (And lucky, because you and Lori are such wonderful parents…) Thanks for sharing.
Congratulations! They’re both so beautiful.
Wonderful news! Twins are extra work but extra fun. We’ve had six sets born in our ward in the last three years or so — it’s been fun to watch.
Your baby girls are just darling! You’re right, they are perfect.
What makes you think they are fraternal? They look identical.
Wouldn’t they be sororital?
Hey Matt, congratulations! What a wonderful addition to your family! We wish all of you good thoughts and we’ll catch a few extra zzzzs in your honor! ;-)
Congrats again. They’re gorgeous! Tell Lori that she looks great!
Congratulations brother! I’m guessing sleep is pretty much out of the question for the next few months…
Congratulations – they are so adorable!
Matt, my hardiest congratulations! These are beautiful babies!
Matt,
have the Dr’s perform the test that determines if the are identical or not. We spent 16 months convinced that because they looked exactly alike that our twins were identical. This week the DR finally told us having had the info for 16 months that they were fraternal!!!! Now they can wear non matching clothes!!!!!
I vote fraternal.
(I noticed in the last picture that their ears are a little different.)
I’m voting fraternal, too. That’s fertility, baby!
Congratulations!! Now get off the Internet and go help your wife. =) (I have 4-year-old boy/girl twins and I know just how much sleep you’re not getting …)
Seriously, what a beautiful gift those babies are.
Congratulations! They look pretty identical to me. :)
Thank you everyone for sharing our excitement, and obliging this proud father.
As for the presumption that they’re fraternal: our babies were in separate sacks, and about 88% of twins in separate sacks are fraternal, so the odds pointed to their being fraternal from our first ultrasound (at Baby Insight, of course). And while we haven’t seen any identical twin babies to know just how identical identical twins look as pink swollen babies, we can tell our babies apart quite easily, all of which leads us to assume they’re fraternal.
Matt, the rest of your kids look so much alike, I can believe fraternal, but nearly identical. :o)
Happiest congratulations!!!! They’re adorable!
Maybe somebody has addressed this already, but I am going to give a little Biology lesson, which was actually presented to me in my Child Psych class.
There are actual three types of twins.
Identical where a sperm fertilizes and egg and this egg divides so that all of the genetic make-up is exactly the same.
Identical fraternal where the mother’s eggs divides before being fertilized so that the genetic make-up of the two babies are exactly the same from the mother but differ from the father as two different sperm passed on his genetic make-up.
Fraternal where the mother has two different eggs that are fertilized by two different sperm so that the children are no more identical genetically than ordinary siblings.
My paternal grandma had a twin sister who looked identical.
My maternal grandma had older sisters that were twins and younger sisters that were twins.
There is a special bond between twins. The last picture seems to give a glimpse of that bond.
Congratulations and best wishes!
Double congratulations.
Matt,
If they were in different sacks and look a bit different then they are almost for sure Fraternal. Congrats again and welcome to the club….
Gratz