How Much Would You Pay to Name Your Baby
Friday, June 22, 2007

Imagine if these people had twins, and had to come up with two names, that go together, and compliment each other, and don't rhyme!

Some parents are checking Social Security data to make sure their choices aren't too trendy, while others are fussing over every consonant like corporate branding experts. They're also pulling ideas from books, Web sites and software programs, and in some cases, hiring professional baby-name consultants who use mathematical formulas.

Denise McCombie, 37, a California mother of two who's expecting a daughter this fall, spent $475 to have a numerologist test her favorite name, Leah Marie, to see if it had positive associations. (It did.) This March, one nervous mom-to-be from Illinois listed her 16 favorite names on a tournament bracket and asked friends, family and people she met at baby showers to fill it out. The winner: Anna Irene.

Sean and Dawn Mistretta from Charlotte, N.C., tossed around possibilities for five months before they hired a pair of consultants -- baby-name book authors who draw up lists of suggestions for $50. During a 30-minute conference call with Mrs. Mistretta, 34, a lawyer, and Mr. Mistretta, 35, a securities trader, the consultants discussed names based on their phonetic elements, popularity, and ethnic and linguistic origins -- then sent a 15-page list of possibilities. When their daughter was born in April, the Mistrettas settled on one of the consultants' suggestions -- Ava -- but only after taking one final straw poll of doctors and nurses at the hospital. While her family complimented the choice, Mrs. Mistretta says, "they think we're a little neurotic."

Karen Markovics, 36, who works for the planning department in Orange County, N.C., spent months reading baby books and scouring Web sites before settling on Nicole Josephine. But now, four years later, Mrs. Markovics says she wishes she'd chosen something less trendy -- and has even considered legally changing her daughter's name to Josephine Marie. "I'm having namer's remorse," she says.

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Twin Babies, Different Moms
Tuesday, June 12, 2007

That's right. A set of identical twins, conceived through IVF were delivered in California via different Moms. The Daily Mail overhypes the story, I'd guess, to say that they're the first ever born on the same day, but the story is still interesting.

Born minutes apart and with almost identical looks, there seems little to set Lauren and Hannah Bernaba apart from any other pair of newborn twins.

But the girls are the world's first twins to be born on the same day to two different women.

First, biological mother Amy Bernaba gave birth to Lauren, weighing 7lb 10oz, then, half an hour later, surrogate mum Torry Keay delivered 7lb 3oz Hannah.

The double pregnancy happened after Mrs Bernaba and husband George had undergone IVF treatment for 12 years in an effort to conceive a baby brother or sister for their son Jeremy, now 15.

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Twin Lit!
Wednesday, May 30, 2007

The Feilerettes have always been very verbal, and have always loved books. Even before they knew the alphabet, they would sit on the ground and thumb through books, being very careful to turn every page. For some months now, when they arrive at the last page, they declare, "The end!"

Having recently turned two, one of our daughters has started thumbing through grown-up books. Ones without pictures. She was turning the pages on a book about New York real estate when she handed over the book to me today and announced, "Bruce Feiler." Bruce Feiler, it seems, is the author of any grown-up book.

Looks like it's time for her to meet the Mulgrays!

Like many identical twins, Helen and Morna Mulgray have always done everything together.

They have always shared the same bedroom, worn identical clothes and enjoyed the same books and television programmes. For three decades they had the same job -- though in different schools -- before retiring the same year.

But at the age of 68, the Mulgray twins, who have never been apart for longer than two weeks, created a minor piece of history yesterday when their first novel went on sale in bookshops across Britain.

No Suspicious Circumstances, a crime novel set in Edinburgh and featuring an intrepid female investigator from HM Revenue & Customs, is believed to be the first novel published in English by identical twins. The authors, from Joppa, outside Edinburgh, are described on the cover simply as "The Mulgray Twins."

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Started more than 14 years ago, it is the result of thousands of hours of painstaking writing and rewriting. Each of its 86,000 words was a joint endeavour.

"We have both spent 31 years as English teachers so have always loved writing," said Morna yesterday. Helen added: "We used to do it in the holidays, but back then it was just a hobby. When we retired we had the time to do it seriously."

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The Most Frightening Four Letters in English Acronyms
Tuesday, May 29, 2007

NICU. As parents of twins, we lived in fear of the NICU, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. We know they do amazing work these days and know many parents, and children, who have thrived after premature, in some cases drastically premature, births. And, of course, the number of cases among twins and triplets (a friend in South Africa had some over the weekend) is much higher than for singletons.

How interesting to read in the NYT this morning that the standard of care is beginning to change, away from all the isolation, tubes, and feedings, and more in the direction of maternal contact with the child. Here are the key grafs:

Hospitals are overhauling their neonatal intensive care units to transform open wards into private spaces that, in essence, restore the intimate relationship between the mother and child and allow the fragile infants to develop.

The momentum for the model occurs as more babies are being born prematurely and at an earlier stage. In 2004, there were 508,356 preterm births at less than 37 weeks of gestation, a 30 percent increase since 1981, according to the March of Dimes.

In addition, survivability rates for smaller preterm infants are increasing as technology and care improve. Now, infants with a gestational age from 23 weeks, and with some exceptions less, are being cared for. Because the professionals have become so adept at sustaining the infants’ lives, they now are focusing on their future development. “Their little brains are not as well developed, and there is a longer recovery period,” said Kathleen A. VandenBerg, a trainer in the Newborn Individualized Developmental Care and Assessment Program.

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Posted by B Feiler at 4:25 PM 0 comments

How Many Of Me
Monday, May 21, 2007

From my father, courtesy of www.howmanyofme.com.

There are 4,526 people in the USA named Eden. There are 1,237 people in the USA named Feiler. There are 0 people in the USA named Eden Feiler. (Wait, but there's one. Hmmm....)

There are 0 people in the USA named Tybee. There are 1,237 people in the USA named Feiler. There are 0 people in the USA named Tybee Feiler. (But, again wait....)

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:00 AM

Two.
Sunday, April 15, 2007

Two years ago, at this hour, Mrs. Feiler Faster and I were introducing our parents to their newest grandchildren, Eden Elenor and Tybee Rose, born 32 minutes apart on Friday, April 15th. Shabbat babies. Identical twins. No one is ever quite prepared for twins. They don't run in families, that turns out to be a myth. They don't come around that often. One percent of humans are twins; one third of those are identical. That means one-sixth of one percent of humans are identical twin girls.

One thing we heard often from parents of twins: "The first year is hell, but after two or three years twins turn out to be an advantage." When we hit one year, people told us. "Maybe it's two years." For us, after the first six months, which were impossibly difficult for a number of reasons not related to having two first babies, we could feel the work-fun ratio begin shifting every few months until, before long, the challenges had become so routine to us that we would forget we had two. Until we went to visit someone. Or someone came to us (and mind you, that was far less frequent than we had expected!)

Either way, reaching two felt like a milestone today. They are hyper-verbal, and becoming increasingly adept at expressing themselves, narrating the world around them, and depositing joy into every encounter through words, the sheer abundance of new words, unexpected words, and fantastical connections of words. "Tybee's fire truck," Eden said on Tybee Island last week. "What about Eden?" So today, in honor of their love of language, where letters are their friends, we decorated their home with inflatable letters. We stayed up for four hours last night, along with their maternal grandparents, blowing up these colorful letters and festooning them from the ceiling. It was what I always imagined it must feel like to stay up late on Christmas stringing popcorn or creating some magical surprise for your children. Of course by this morning three of the festoons had fallen and we had to recreate them. But by the time we brought them downstairs, uncovered their eyes to show them their Alphabet Birthday surprise, they understood instantly that this was a special day. "All the letters came to visit," Eden said. Our day was made. The alphabet cupcakes in early afternoon were just icing -- though in this case icing on their cheeks, not the cake. E for Eden. T for Tybee. V for a very special day.

Happy Birthday, girlies. Mommy and Daddy love you.

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Twins-watch
Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Former soccer star Mia Hamm, wife of Dodgers first baseman Nomar Garciaparra, delivered twin girls late Tuesday.

''Both are healthy and over five pounds,'' Dodgers spokesman Josh Rawitch said, adding the births took place in the Los Angeles area.

Rawitch said Garciaparra left the team late Tuesday to be with his wife, but was in the air when the babies were born.

''He was on a speaker phone with the delivery room speaking with Mia during the births,'' Rawitch said.

Garciaparra went straight to the hospital upon arriving in Los Angeles to be with his wife.

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The Tiki Barber of Soccer
Friday, March 16, 2007

Speaking of twins (as in here and here), Brazilian super twins Fabio and Rafael Silva have been signed by the premier Manchester United football squad.

The youth internationals, tipped as the next Cafu and Roberto Carlos, are currently contracted to Brazilian club Fluminense.

The brothers have been linked with United for the past year and are reportedly set to sign for the Premiership giants in the summer.

They claim they have negotiated a deal and Rafael says it was Cristiano Ronaldo who helped persuade them to join.

The right-back told The Sun: "When we were negotiating, Cristiano Ronaldo phoned us saying that Manchester United was a tremendous club and it was a wonderful place to play football."

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Were All Lefties Once Twins?
Tuesday, March 13, 2007

In the early days of the Feilerettes they first began to put food into their mouths with their left hands. Both of them. It was very cute to watch and seemed more, surefire evidence of the power of biology. Around that time Mrs. Feiler Faster and I went to buy a suit and the undeniably reliable scientific source of the suit salesman told us one of the more interesting things we learned during those early, sleep-deprived months: That all left-handers were once twins. The idea here is that anyone who is left-handed but not a twin would have had a twin who vanished somewhere along the way, a common practice before the arrival of the sonogram. Anyway, we repeated this endlessly because it was just too good to be true and too interesting to bother to verify.

Cut to: The other day I was trolling around the Internet and stumbled onto a twins site that had some interesting facts. Check out the fact of the left-handedness. Hmmmmm.........................

Did You Know?

· "Twin" comes from the German word "twine" meaning "two together."

· Gemini is the constellation or zodiac sign of twins.

Types of Twins

· Identical twins - result when a single egg splits. They share 100% of their DNA. They are the same gender and tend to look very similar.

· Fraternal twins - result when two eggs are fertilized at the same time. They share 50+% of their DNA. They can be the same or different genders, they can look similar or very different.

· Conjoined twins - are identical twins that occur when the egg does not split all the way when forming in the womb. 1 in 200,000 births are conjoined.

· Mirror-image twins - are identical twins that show mirroring traits instead of identical traits. For example, one is left-handed, the other is right-handed.

About Twin Births

· 1 in every 32 births is a twin. Since 1980, twins births have risen 62%

· Fraternal twinning occurs 1 in 60 births. Identical twinning occurs 1 in 150 births.

· A twin pregnancy causes normal pregnancy symptoms, such as nausea and morning sickness, to occur earlier. On average, twins are born 22 days premature.

· Multiple births are the most common in African American cultures. Multiple births are least common in Asian cultures.

· The nation with the highest number of multiple births is Nigeria.

Fun Facts

· In the United States, over 150 identical twins are married to identical twins. Genetically their children are brother and sister, but legally their children are cousins.

· Cryptophasia is when twins have their own "twin language" that only they understand. Many twins appear to have this so-called language when they are babies.

· Sometimes it is hard to tell if twins are identical or fraternal but look alike. DNA tests are an accurate way to prove if twins are truly identical or fraternal.

Studying Twins

· The scientific study of twins is called gemellology.

· 18-22% of twins are left handed, for non-twins the rate of lefties is only 10%.

· Studies have shown that identical twins tend to live longer than fraternal twins, researchers believe this is due to their close communication.

· Studies show that identical twins exhibit the same brain wave patterns.


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Posted by B Feiler at 8:01 AM 0 comments

Duh of the Century
Sunday, March 11, 2007

Okay, I'm not the kind of person who just rails against the stupidity of academic studies just for the fun of it. But THIS IS STUPID:

When children have sleep problems, their parents -- especially mothers -- often have sleep-deprived nights too, research shows.

In a study of families with children seen at a sleep clinic, researchers found that when children had multiple sleep problems, their parents were more likely to have daytime drowsiness.

Mothers were generally more affected than fathers, possibly because they were the ones who typically responded to their children's problems in the middle of the night, the researchers speculate.

"A child's sleep problem affects the whole family," said lead study author Dr. Julie Boergers, of Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center and Brown Medical School in Providence, Rhode Island.

This is important, she told Reuters Health, because research shows that sleep disruptions and daytime sleepiness have negative effects on people's mood, behavior and health. For parents, sleep deprivation may cause them to have less patience with their child or spouse, and be less productive at work and at home, Boergers explained.

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Here's One Way to Build a Farm Team
Friday, March 9, 2007

It's celebrity gossip day here on Feiler Faster! But all those daily readers in Red Sox Nation (otherwise known at my in-laws) should be interested in this:

A Brazilian website reported yesterday that Tom Brady's girlfriend Gisele Bundchen may be pregnant and, if so, the Pats QB is the father. According to the popular celebrity website Glamurama.com.br , Bundchen would be no more than two months pregnant, but may already have told select friends and family. The brief item was written by Joyce Pascowitch , who's the Brazilian equivalent of the New York Post's Richard Johnson . Brady's agent Don Yee did not return a phone call yesterday, and Bundchen's rep at IMG denied the report. Two weeks ago, Brady's ex-girlfriend actress Bridget Moynahan revealed she's pregnant, and Brady is the father. ( Moynahan's rep had no comment yesterday on the possibility of a Bundchen baby.) Brady, 29, and Moynahan, 36, dated for nearly three years before breaking up in mid - December. Soon after, the two-time Super Bowl MVP began dating the Brazilian supermodel. The pretty pair recently enjoyed five-star stays in Paris, Milan, and Rome, and Life & Style Weekly is reporting that Bundchen also took Brady to meet her parents in Porto Alegre , Brazil.
If all these reports are true, it might explain why the Colts zipped past the Pats in the playoffs to land in the Super Bowl. All of this action seems to have been gathered around late December...

Update: Giselle is a twin! That clearly brings this story under the Feiler Faster mandate:
Tom Brady’s seemingly endless baby-mama drama took a timeout yesterday when Gisele Bundchen’ family shot down reports that the New England Patriots super-stud had another completion - this time with the Brazilian supermodel.
The $30 million catwalker’s father as well as her sister, Raquel, told the media that the Brady baby buzz was bogus - Gisele is not pregnant with No. 12’s No. 2. (Last month, Tom’s ex, Bridget Moynahan, announced she is carrying the first heir to the Brady throne.)
“It is not true,” G.’s papa, Valdir, told O Dia gossip columnist Sabrina Grimberg. “I speak with Gisele every day and she would have told me.”
Meanwhile, sister Raquel told Ego.Globo.com that the family was shocked, just shocked, when they read the news on the Internet.
“It is clear that Gisele is not pregnant. She is well and has lots of commitments (meaning modeling gigs),” said the supermodel’s sis.
Raquel also told Ego that Gisele’s twin sister, Patricia, told her: “People are inventing things.”

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What Joe Wilson and President Bush Have in Common
Thursday, March 8, 2007

Twins! Here's the start of a post from Hillary Rosen, an old acquaintance and fellower parent of twins. (For what it's worth, Hillary is a very high-profile gay activist, so her twins have two mommies.)

I ran into Joe Wilson at Starbucks this morning. We hugged and thought neighborhood coffee was as good a way as any to celebrate Scooter Libby's guilty verdict yesterday. Seeing Joe looking happy and fresh made me realize that so many people outside of Washington see this verdict and the events of the past few years as just about politics, not about people.

Joe and Valerie are neighborhood parents. We both have boy-girl twins and our kids played together sometimes. Just like lots of my friends in the neighborhood, they are fun, friendly, smart, passionate and accomplished. Their kids are adorable and play well with others. They are certainly better behaved than my kids.

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:01 AM 0 comments

Two Thumbs Up For Eden and Savannah
Wednesday, March 7, 2007

The verdict is in, Mrs. Feiler Faster reports, thumbs up on Desperate Housewives' star Marcia Cross's decision to name her twin daughters Eden and Savannah. No less an authority than "Celebrity Baby Names" blog (insert "Wow, there's a blog for everything," line here), declares:

The name Eden is well-documented, and means “place of pleasure” in Hebrew.

“Savannah,” well-known as a famous city in Georgia, has less clear roots. One website believes the word, which means “grassy plain,” comes from the Native American word zabana. Another site claims “Savannah” is of Spanish origin.

Roots aside, I give Cross and Mahoney a “thumbs up” for the pair of names. It’s twice as hard coming up with names for twins, and Eden and Savannah has a nice, original ring to it.

Given the coincidence(!?) with the names of our daughters, Eden and Tybee, I can't say her this thumbs up is getting universal approval over here...

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Twin-splosion
Friday, March 2, 2007

When we first learned we would be having twins, we went scampering to the bookstore to buy up the half a shelf of books on the topic. That first night I read with increasing horror about the higher rate of complications during pregnancy, the higher rate of birth defects, the high rate of twins who begin to cannibalize one another in the womb. The worst of the books -- and I can't remember the name -- was so bad that I hid it in my office so my wife wouldn't take it with her the next day on a flight to South Africa. I knew she would go crazy with anxiety.

But one set of figures has stayed with me: Throughout history, one percent of humans have been twins: Two-thirds fraternal; one-third identical. In recent years the percentage has soared, perhaps as high as three percent, I've heard (though I've never done the research). The reasons: 1) Fertility treatment tends to send out more eggs, 2) In IVF, more than one egg is fertilized, and 3) Older women send out more eggs in general. This has increased the percentage of fraternals, of course, which involve more than one egg, and not identicals, in which one egg splits.

Twins are particularly prevalent in Hollywood, it seems, no doubt because the increase wealth produces a large number of women over 40 who can afford expensive treatments to produce children later in life. Last week, we had the extraordinary story of Marcia Cross, who named her twins nearly identical names to ours. And this week, USA Today runs a roundup of all the double births:

•Sean "Diddy" Combs, 37, and Kim Porter, 36
Relationship: The rapper, hip-hop mogul and fashion designer has been dating the former model and actress since 1994. (They broke up in 1999 and reconciled in 2003.)
New arrivals: Daughters D'Lila Star and Jessie James were born Dec. 21.
Other kids: The couple have a son, Christian, 8. Combs has a son, Justin, 13, with stylist Misa Hylton-Brim, and Porter has a son, Quincy, 15, with singer Al B. Sure.

•Marcia Cross, 44, and Tom Mahoney, 49
Relationship: The Desperate Housewives actress married the stockbroker in June.
New arrivals: Daughters Eden and Savannah were born Feb. 20.
Other kids: These are their first children.

•Angela Bassett, 48, and Courtney B. Vance, 46
Relationship: The How Stella Got Her Groove Back actress and the former Law & Order: Criminal Intent assistant district attorney married in 1997.
New arrivals: Surrogate son Slater Josiah and daughter Bronwyn Golden were born Jan. 27, 2006.
Other kids: These are their first children.

•Patrick Dempsey, 41, and Jillian Fink, 40
Relationship: Grey's Anatomy's Dr. McDreamy married the stylist in 1999.
New arrivals: Sons Darby Galen and Sullivan Patrick were born Feb. 1.
Other kids: They have a daughter, Tallulah, 5.

•Melissa Etheridge, 45, and Tammy Lynn Michaels, 32
Relationship: The singer, who took home an Oscar Sunday for her song from An Inconvenient Truth, exchanged vows with the actress in 2003.
New arrivals: Son Miller Steven and daughter Johnnie Rose were born Oct. 17.
Other kids: Etheridge has daughter Bailey Jean, 10, and son Beckett, 8,with former partner Julie Cypher.

•Diana Krall, 42, and Elvis Costello, 52
Relationship: The singers have been married since 2003.
New arrivals: Sons Dexter Henry Lorcan and Frank Harlan James were born Dec. 6.
Other kids: Costello has a son Matthew, 32, with previous wife Mary Burgoyne.

Photo taken outside my home, February 2007

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:00 AM 1 comments

Baby Einstein Isn't Smart
Wednesday, January 24, 2007

One of the odd things about the State of the Union speech on Tuesday night was seeing the woman who invented Baby Einstein sitting in the First Lady's Box. Like any new parent, I can easily find a stack of Baby Einstein videos around my house. For those of you who haven't seen them, they are smartly packaged, brilliantly named, inane videos that involve close-up, colorful shots of toys mixed with classical music. I hate them, along with most of the other videos. Mrs. Feiler Faster, it must be said, loves these videos. Let's just say it's a disagreement between us. I get that sometimes dinner simply cannot be cooked and the cab cannot be loaded for a trip to the airport without popping in a video. I'm not a total dope here. But for daily use, I don't like them at all, notwithstanding all the experts who recommend no television for those under two.


But still, the First Lady's Box at the SOTU?? The folks over at TPM Cafe have provided a helpful update about how the science is junk.

Sitting in the First Lady's box will be Julie Aigner-Clark, the founder of the Baby Einstein juggernaut. Aigner-Clark's great innovation was to take random "baby-friendly" images pair them with classical music and convince a generation of parents that this was good for your child. Oh, if it were only so!

The "Mozart effect" underlying these products has been proven to be a sham (not to mention that the original experiments never tested the effect of classical music on children). Exposing small children to television may be the cause for all those children running around with ADD. And some have gone so far as to blame TV watching among small kids for the uptick in autism rates.

In the reality-based world, Baby Einstein actually isn't that good for your kids. Yet, Aigner-Clark is given the seat of honor.It makes you wonder if someone in the White House watched too much TV growing up.

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Posted by B Feiler at 5:11 PM 1 comments

BlackBerry Babies
Thursday, December 28, 2006

I have been at parties were couples fought over whether one was permissable at the table (No!). I have been in arguments with my own wife over whether she's allowed to check hers while I'm driving and she's supposed to be navigating (No!). And I've stooped to using mine to steal five extra minutes of squirm-free time on a long plane ride (Yes!).

But I'm pleased to report, that despite exploding chattering among our 20-month-olds ("Dadddy read book 'We All Sing Same Voice'"), that unlike the trend reported in this WSJ piece, BlackBerry is not in the vocabularies of our girls.

Yet.

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Posted by B Feiler at 10:28 PM 0 comments

Motherlode
Monday, December 4, 2006

Having sat, wept, cheered, slept, and, at times, knelt on my knees in a rainy parking lot in Falmouth, Mass, and held my daughters in proper football position through yet another attempt at double-breastfeeding, I can certainly empathize with the plight, er, wonderful bonding opporturnity, of the breastfeeding mother. So how wonderful to read that Walking the Bible can help ease the way!

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Posted by B Feiler at 10:04 AM 0 comments

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