In the Beginning

We knew from the outset that the babies were twins and that they were probably boys due to birth-family history.  We picked their names quickly.  My husband had a name he had wanted to use for years.  I had a family name that fit with it nicely.  Days later we realized we should pick girl names too.  Another few days later we thought of selecting a girl and a boy name.  We had only thought of a pair of boys or a pair of girls.  We really never settled on the mixed names before they were born boys.

Being born at 28 weeks didn't scare us.  We were so happy to have them we were oblivious to the dangers.  They weighed 2 lb. and 4 oz. and 2 lb. 4.5 oz.  The second was delivered by C section, all in 12 minutes.  We were driving from another city and getting updates by phone.

They were healthy considering their gestational age but had hurdles to cross.  We were fortunate to be in a branch of a large city hospital.  The NICU was small but had access to big hospital staff, equipment and procedures.  I don't remember more than 5 or 6 babies at a time.  One baby was smaller than ours  - 1 lb and a few ounces and he survived too.

As the days progressed there were some scares, in what we learned could happen, in waiting for tests, in watching their oxygen rate go up and down, and in one awful night when one stopped breathing many times.  That was the only night I lost my composure with fear.  We were assured they had a high probability of survival and cautioned they could have any number of health and learning problems.  They have had little effect from being "Very Low Birth Weight Babies, VLBWB).  More on that in another post.

We were allowed to be in the NICU as soon as our sweet birth mother signed papers and then at anytime there weren't procedures in progress that prevented visitors.  At first we could only lay a finger tip on them to avoid over stimulating them.  They were unbelievably small.  My fingertip covered most of their hand.  Their heads were about the size of a tennis ball.

They were on tube feedings and oxygen and diagnostic lines at first so we didn't feed them or change them.  But soon we could hold, change, feed, and even bathe them.  When I could tell they could recognize my voice I couldn't leave town for anything.  If having children in a NICU can be a good experience, ours was the best.