1 + 1 = We Made It To 14!!!

Their birth was obscured by the anesthesia I was under. I recall waking up in the recovery room in such tremendous pain. My first thought was "Where are they? I can't see them. Where are they?". My mother read my mind as she leaned in toward me and quietly said "They're okay. I heard them crying from out in the hallway. Just take deep breaths. They're going to be okay." 

A few hours earlier, at 5:02am that Wednesday morning, back labor startled me out of sleep. I knew they were coming. It was time. We managed to stave off labor for the fourteen weeks prior to the seventh of May, 1997. But there would be no turning back this time. I woke my mom, and told her to call for paramedics. It was still eight weeks too early. By the time we arrived at the hospital, I was ten centimeters dilated, with Baby A laying transverse across the birth canal. My water broke just as they were prepping me for the emergency c-section that would bring two more angels into this world.

Moments after I came to, two flight nurses (who ironically, were also identical twin brothers) wheeled a single incubator in to my bedside. Everything was so fuzzy, and I didn't have the strength to sit up. I started to cry, because I could only see one baby. My mom took my hand and placed it on the other so that I could at least feel that he was there. In an instant, they were loaded into the awaiting chopper, and on their way to the nearest NICU. 

Three days later, I was released, and standing at their bedsides. Even now, the memory brings me to tears. It was the equivalent of standing directly in between life and death, and witnessing it from both sides of the fence. Born four minutes before his twin, #2 weighed 4lbs, 3.5 oz, and stretched 18 inches in length. #3 was a whopping 3lbs 13oz, and 17 inches long. How could someone so tiny be so incredibly strong? 


Our NICU journey lasted thirty one days. Thirty one days filled with oxygen, apnea, weight gains and weight losses, NG tube feedings, medications, CPR training, tears, and eventually laughter. And never had I been more terrified than the moment their neonatologist announced that they were able to finally come home. They graduated from neonates to newborns on June 7th. 


We learned very quickly that our crash course in all things preemie would not end there. That night, we experienced the first of many more emergencies to come when #3's monitor alerted us to the fact that he had stopped breathing in his sleep. The local ER began to recognize us on a first name basis. And such was our way of life for that entire first year. 

I began this entry with the intent of providing more detail than it contains. But even after fourteen years, I still can not bring myself to come that close to those emotions again. Maybe I never will be able to. It doesn't matter. What does is that they made it. We were of the lucky families, who got to bring our children home and watch them continue to surpass the devastating prognosis' given in one of the most intimidating yet necessary places on this planet. But I've never forgotten. Incubator 26, who's being was so fragile and so tiny that even phototherapy lights were too much stimulation. Momma to the baby boy in Incubator 11, who crumbled into the arms of the priest in the hallway during rounds one afternoon. And every parent of a NICU baby, past, present, and future, who has and will struggle every struggle and fight the good fight. Regardless of sleep, or food, or showers, or any familiar contact outside of those nurseries. When you kiss your child, and you silently count your blessings, think of them, too. I know I can never forget. 


And so on this day, May 7th, we celebrate not only the day of birth of our two boys, but an annual milestone of all milestones. #2 gave me my first laugh in that unit the morning that I walked in and saw him scrunched up against the bottom of his isolette, ass to the glass, mooning the world as if to say "Ha! Ha! Fuck you bitches! I'm outta here any day now!". His nurse said that no matter how tightly she swaddled him, or how carefully placed he was between his wedges, he just couldn't help himself. And #3 is still as feisty as he was during his first 'real' bath, when during each cry he let out due to his hatred of being naked, he pee'd a little further across the floor. No matter what their future accomplishments, or even lack there of, I couldn't possibly be more proud of anything than I am of their recovery. Of their will to survive. Of their lives. Of them.





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