1 in 8 babies is born to soon...

Today is Prematurity Awareness Day.

To learn more, visit the March of Dimes.

Click here to read our NICU story (Cuddlebug and Bearhug were born 6 1/2 weeks early due to severe pre-eclampsia).

Here's a repost of my earlier prematurity awareness post (slightly edited):

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Did you know that 1 in 8 babies is born prematurely in the U.S.? In approximately 40% of cases, the cause of premature labor is unknown, and it can happen to anyone. I have shared our story before about Cuddlebug and Bearhug's premature birth, but I think it's worth examining what a difference it makes when a baby is able to be born full term. In contrast with his brothers being born 6 1/2 weeks early, Little Bitty was born 1 1/2 weeks late. Being pregnant with him a full 8 weeks longer felt like FOREVER in comparison, lol, but of course it was well worth every minute because I knew he was where he needed to be (and unlike the situation with CB and BH, it was safe for him to remain in the womb).

What a difference those 8 weeks made! Here is a comparison of their footprints:


I scanned them all together so they would be proportionally accurate. Every time I look at these I'm just amazed at how tiny Cuddlebug's foot was compared with Little Bitty's. The size disparity between Cuddlebug and Bearhug was due to TTTS.

In addition to their sizes, here are some other differences we experienced between our twins' premature birth and the full-term delivery of our youngest. I only have my own experience to draw from, so this may not be applicable to everyone, but I'm sharing it to highlight some of the benefits of full-term delivery and why prematurity awareness is so important.

1. Being able to hold your baby right away. We had to wait 8 days before we could hold Bearhug for the first time, and 2 days before we could hold Cuddlebug. I was able to hold Little Bitty within the first few minutes after he was born. It was an amazing experience!

2. Being able to bring your baby home with you. Cuddlebug and Bearhug spent 22 days in the NICU before we were able to bring them home. Some premature babies stay much longer, depending on how early they are born and their health. Some preemies have medical challenges ranging from mild to severe, while others just need a little extra time to grow.

3. Getting a little more sleep at night. Like most newborns, Little Bitty woke up to eat about every 3 hours when he first came home. Because of their small size, Bearhug and Cuddlebug couldn't hold enough food in their stomachs to last 3 hours and needed to eat about every 1 1/2 hours. Add to that the fact that the effort they had to put into eating often wore them out before they were full, and sometimes we didn't even make a whole hour before they needed to eat again. That's a recipe for exhaustion for mom and dad (although well worth it of course!).

4. Less susceptible to illness. Cuddlebug and Bearhug needed 6 months of RSV shots as a precaution since they'd had respiratory distress early on. We had to be very careful about taking them out and having visitors. We were cautious with Little Bitty also, but the risk level for full-term babies is generally not as high.


The March of Dimes has more on why getting at least 39 weeks is best for babies if at all possible. Did you know the March of Dimes is responsible for leading the call to develop Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU)? They also funded the research that led to the use of surfactant to treat respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). They have had many other successes as well, but for those two reasons especially, I will be eternally grateful to them!





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1 in 8 babies is born too soon...

Today is Prematurity Awareness Day.

To learn more, visit the March of Dimes by clicking the banner below.



Click here to read our NICU story (Cuddlebug and Bearhug were born 6 1/2 weeks early due to severe pre-eclampsia).

Here's a repost of my earlier prematurity awareness post:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Did you know that 1 in 8 babies is born prematurely in the U.S.? In approximately 40% of cases, the cause of premature labor is unknown, and it can happen to anyone. I have shared our story before about Cuddlebug and Bearhug's premature birth, but I think it's worth examining what a difference it makes when a baby is able to be born full term. In contrast with his brothers being born 6 1/2 weeks early, Little Bitty was born 1 1/2 weeks late. Being pregnant with him a full 8 weeks longer felt like FOREVER in comparison, lol, but of course it was well worth every minute because I knew he was where he needed to be (and unlike the situation with CB and BH, it was safe for him to remain in the womb).

What a difference those 8 weeks made! Here is a comparison of their footprints:


I scanned them all together so they would be proportionally accurate. Every time I look at these I'm just amazed at how tiny Cuddlebug's foot was compared with Little Bitty's. The size disparity between Cuddlebug and Bearhug was due to TTTS.

In addition to their sizes, here are some other differences we experienced between our twins' premature birth and the full-term delivery of our youngest. I only have my own experience to draw from, so this may not be applicable to everyone, but I'm sharing it to highlight some of the benefits of full-term delivery and why prematurity awareness is so important.

1. Being able to hold your baby right away. We had to wait 8 days before we could hold Bearhug for the first time, and 2 days before we could hold Cuddlebug. I was able to hold Little Bitty within the first few minutes after he was born. It was an amazing experience!

2. Being able to bring your baby home with you. Cuddlebug and Bearhug spent 22 days in the NICU before we were able to bring them home. Some premature babies stay much longer, depending on how early they are born and their health. Some preemies have medical challenges ranging from mild to severe, while others just need a little extra time to grow.

3. Getting a little more sleep at night. Like most newborns, Little Bitty woke up to eat about every 3 hours when he first came home. Because of their small size, Bearhug and Cuddlebug couldn't hold enough food in their stomachs to last 3 hours and needed to eat about every 1 1/2 hours. Add to that the fact that the effort they had to put into eating often wore them out before they were full, and sometimes we didn't even make a whole hour before they needed to eat again. That's a recipe for exhaustion for mom and dad (although well worth it of course!).

4. Less susceptible to illness. Cuddlebug and Bearhug needed 6 months of RSV shots as a precaution since they'd had respiratory distress early on. We had to be very careful about taking them out and having visitors. We were cautious with Little Bitty also, but the risk level for full-term babies is generally not as high.


For more information on prematurity, visit the March of Dimes. Did you know the March of Dimes is responsible for leading the call to develop Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU)? They also funded the research that led to the use of surfactant to treat respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). They have had many other successes as well, but for those two reasons especially, I will be eternally grateful to them!



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SEW & WW: Miracles

These were taken when Cuddlebug and Bearhug were 4 days old. They were so tiny and fragile! Last Friday, these brave and resilient little boys celebrated their 8th birthday. I am truly blessed and grateful to be their mother.

Bearhug


Cuddlebug


You can read more of their birth story here.


For more Special Exposure Wednesday, click here. Click here, here, and here for more Wordless Wednesday.




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Finding Courage through Sharing - Aug 2008

The topic for this month is memories and memory markers. Share about something that trips a memory in your journey with your child or children, or just a memory that is special to you. The memory can be happy, sad, or anything in between. If you don’t have time to write specifically for this prompt, feel free to share a post that matters to you from your archives. I’m looking forward to seeing what you have to share this month…

Michelle's post about her family's NICU experience got me thinking about our NICU experience. Our twins were born prematurely and were diagnosed with Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome. I wrote a series of posts about our experience a couple of months ago. Since the topic for today is memories, here is a glimpse of the experience in pictures.

This is a card that the NICU nurses made for me the morning after the boys were born (they were born at night). It meant so much to me that they took the time to do this, I am crying just thinking about it. I spent most of that day alone in my hospital room, as dh was in the NICU with the boys (where he should be!). I was unable to get out of bed for 24 hrs, so I couldn't visit them in the NICU. These are the only pictures we have of them from that first day.

Here is a chart the nurses put up on Cuddlebug's crib, I'm not sure why they didn't do one for Bearhug. I loved how it described him as a person, with his likes and dislikes. I enjoyed doing Kangaroo care with both of the boys when they were stable enough for it.

We didn't really start taking pictures until they were 9 days old. By that point, Bearhug was off of the CPAP and Cuddlebug was out of the isolette, they were able to co-bed, and we were able to hold them both. Here is our first family picture, along with each of us holding them. They were still attached to monitors and had feeding tubes, so we had a lot of "equipment" around but at least we could hold them :).

They spent their first Father's Day in the NICU, so the nurses made these cards for dh with their little handprints / footprints. Aren't they cute?

Here are a few more picture of the boys. The little orange tubes are their feeding tubes. They used to like to work their arms out of their blankies and pull out each other's feeding tubes, talk about teamwork LOL. I like how in this one, you can see Bearhug's little toes sticking out from his blankie :).

A close-up of their precious little faces. That's Bearhug on the left and Cuddlebug on the right.

Here you can see the little stuffed tigers we got to keep them company in the crib :). Those are appx beanie baby size, so that gives some perspective on how little the boys were.

These are the things I thought about when the boys have gone through their some of their more difficult times. Whenever I started to feel overwhelmed with trying to help our boys overcome the challenges that are part of autism, I thought about how they came into the world. Given the survival odds for babies with TTTS at the time, the fact that they are with us is nothing short of a miracle. Two miracles :). (And 3 1/2 yrs later - a third miracle!) When I thought of that, my feelings of despair would quickly turn to gratitude, and I felt immeasurably blessed to even have the chance to go through these challenges with my boys, because we very nearly did not have that opportunity.

TTTS is a disease of the placenta that affects identical twins with a shared placenta, in which abnormal blood vessels connecting the two babies develop in the placenta. When this happens, blood flows out of one baby and into the other, which if left untreated is life-threatening for both twins. In our case, the boys weren't diagnosed until delivery. They were born with >25% size difference, with Cuddlebug weighing 4 lbs 1 oz (he was the "donor twin") and Bearhug weighing 5 lbs 8 oz (he was the "recipient twin"). (back to top)

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Seven years ago today... (part 7 & final)

For the month of June, I decided to write a series of posts about my twins' first month of life to help raise awareness about prematurity and TTTS (twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome). This is the 7th and final post in the series.

Seven years ago today, after 22 days in the NICU, we were finally able to take our baby boys home! In a way, it was a little nervewracking. I'd gotten used to having those beeping monitors to let me know everything was ok with them, so I worried about how I'd know they were ok once we got home. We'd gotten used to having the nurses around too, help nearby if we had questions. Now we were on our own.More than that though, we were soo excited to finally bring our babies home. No longer would we have to visit them every day, no longer would their cribs at home be empty. They would be home with us where they belonged. Here they are on the day we brought them home from the NICU.


At that point, Cuddlebug was about 5 lbs, Bearhug about 6 lbs. They were still small and needed to eat about every 1 to 1 1/2 hrs so between feeding, burping, diaper-changing, and oh, maybe trying to fit in a little sleep here and there - they kept us pretty busy.

Seven years later, they are still keeping us busy :) but at least now they let us sleep! (Little brother is a different story, but that's another post!)

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Seven years ago today... (part 6)

For the month of June, I decided to write a series of posts about my twins' first month of life to help raise awareness about prematurity and TTTS (twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome).

Seven years ago today, Bearhug and Cuddlebug were finally able to co-bed in the same crib together in the NICU. They seemed much happier to finally be together again. They both still had their feeding tubes in... sometimes they'd get their arms out of their swaddled blankies and pull each other's feeding tubes out. Talk about working together :).

To be continued...

To learn more about TTTS, see http://www.tttsfoundation.org/
For more info on prematurity, see http://www.marchofdimes.com/

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