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I guess you could say November 16th began with what we thought was the normal middle-of-the-night bathroom trip for Dita, my wife. We were at the 27-week point, and she came back to the bedroom at 4:15 a.m. and said, "I think my water just broke." As we discussed it and she thought that Carter was pressing down on her bladder, I convinced her to call the hospital and talk to the doctor on call since she was not having contractions. After some discussion we were on our way to the hospital at 4:40 a.m. and confirmed our worst fears around 6. Carter's amniotic sac had ruptured, but Orion was still fine. Both babies were doing fine, and so the doctors began trying to stop the labor. We thought for a while that day we were successful until 5:40 p.m.
Dita felt the urge to go the bathroom and as we rolled her onto the bedpan she threw it at me because she had the urge to push. Carter was crowning. He had unexpectedly made his way down the birth canal, and the entire birthing team rushed into the room and rushed us off to the OR for the crash delivery of our twins.
Carter entered the world at 2 lbs., 4 oz. (1000 grams) and was barely breathing. The NICU team intubated him and rushed him off while the anesthesiologist put in the spinal block and the OB did the Cesarean to get Orion who only weighed 2 lbs. (890 grams). The second team intubated him, and then the delivery nurse escorted me out of the OR back to our delivery room to wait for updates on the babies and their mommy. Dita returned to the room in about half an hour, but it was nearly 3 hours before we got the opportunity to see our boys for the first time since their birth.
We were so unprepared to see their tiny little bodies in the incubators, unable to be touched for any period of time because of overstimulation. It broke our hearts. My wife had waited her entire life to be a mother and could not even hold her children. This was the beginning of our 84-day ride though the ups and downs of NICU care. We spent every waking moment there with our boys. I took as much time off work as possible and worked half days the rest of the time. Dita never left the boys' side, and we moved into the Ronald McDonald house next to the hospital to be as close as possible. Two weeks after their birth, Carter began a series of apnea "spells," and we were called to the NICU in the middle of the night for a full septic workup. As we faced the possibility of losing our son, we prayed for help from above.
After re-intubation, a set of steroids and a week of antibiotics, he began to improve. Orion suffered through weeks of belly problems and feeding issues, but after 62 days, both boys came off of breathing assistance.
We continued the growing process for the next few weeks until we could eat and sleep with nearly no apnea or brady (heart-stopping) events. We were fortunate. Our boys did come home on monitors for a while, but today we are happy to report they are happy and healthy (even after contracting RSV after coming home). We cherish every day and share our story in hopes that someone will learn you can get through it. Being a parent of a preemie is a unique gift no one else can understand unless you have lived it.
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