For twins, minutes turn into millennium

WENATCHEE - Twins Santos and Orlando Villafuerte have lots of things in common, from physical features to piercing cries. But the brothers do not share birthdays, or even birthdays in the same millennium.

Santos was born at 10:06 p.m. on Dec. 31, 1999, at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle. Orlando followed him at 12:15 a.m. Jan. 1, 2000.

Mother Mara Cruz Mova, 31, Wenatchee, has already plotted how the quirky circumstance will help the twins form separate self identities.

"When they are older and are fighting about who is the oldest and how they are different, I'll have a good answer," Mara, 31, said at her apartment in Wenatchee.

Mara's twins were among a handful across the world whose births fell on both sides of the stroke of midnight last New Year's Eve. Others were born in Enid, Okla., Fairfax, Va., and Berlin, Germany.

Julie Wallman of Indianapolis purposely gave birth by Caesarean section to a boy in 1999 and, moments later, to a girl in 2000. She wanted the children to be special, she said.

But Mara and husband Emiliano Villafuerte, 25, wish they could have postponed their sons' births. Santos and Orlando were about a month and a half premature.

Mara was admitted to Central Washington Hospital in Wenatchee on Dec. 18 after experiencing abdominal pain. She was flown to the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle two days later when it became clear the twins would arrive early. That hospital offers a special care unit for premature babies.

Mara went into labor Dec. 30 and gave birth to both boys naturally.

Cradling Orlando in one arm one recent morning, Emiliano said he thought less about the twins' timing in respect to the millennium and more about whether they would be healthy. He was relieved when they arrived, he said.

"I felt happy," said Emiliano, an employee at C & O Nursery Co. in Wenatchee.

The couple brought home the two healthy, yet small, infants on Jan. 20, Mara said.

Santos, who was named after Mara's deceased brother, weighed 3 pounds, 8 ounces at birth. Orlando weighed about a pound more.

Although they are not identical, the twins share similar features on their wrinkled faces. They sleep next to each other in a crib.

The couple said they knew early on, before an ultrasound was performed, that Mara was carrying twins. She and Emiliano have another son, 4-year-old Emiliano Villafuerte Jr.

Two of Mara's sisters and three of her cousins have given birth to twins, she said, plus Emiliano's grandmother also had twins.