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Sunday, November 3, 2013

Prematurity Awareness Month

November is the month of preemies! November 17 marks World Prematurity Day and I'm happy to participate here on this little ol' blog of mine! I want to use this as a place for preemie parents, friends, family, supporters to connect so I'm hosting my first ever prematurity link up!

So for people new to my blog I'm going to give you a little bit of OUR story and how we got here...


Say hello to twin A and twin B when we first met them in January 2011! We were so excited to see 2 healthy babies and 2 heart beats. A bit relieved to see that very obvious line dividing them because that meant we were having fraternal twins (the lowest risk of anything dangerous happening)!

They gave me a due date of September 6 and sent me on my way! We were so excited. We found out soon after that we were moving to California in June and once again, I was relieved, because I'd only be about 26  weeks pregnant and would have plenty of time to get out there and get settled before the twins were born.

Well, it didn't quite work out that way.

In the middle of our move, while I was staying at my parents house in Pennsylvania and Tom was getting our lives settled in California, my water broke and landed me here...
In the hospital, very grouchy, hooked up to monitors pretty much 24/7. It was fabulous. My water broke at 26 weeks 2 days pregnant and the plan was to stay pregnant as long as I could.

As long as I could didn't last very long, because 1 week later I got an infection, was rushed into an emergency c-section and delivered my twins on June 9, 2011 weighing in at 2lbs 1oz and 2lbs 2oz.
Jackson was immediately intubated. Amelia was breathing remarkably well for being so tiny. I got to see them for a few seconds before they wheeled them off to the NICU.

From there, we spent 54 long days in the NICU. We faced many many challenges along the way that could have possibly derailed our departure, but everything seemed to work out in our favor to get them home so early. From there, we spent many months dealing with the complications of prematurity. Jackson was on oxygen for 14 months and spent a lot of hours at the pulmonologist. Amelia had to see an eye doctor a few times and has had some things come up with her heart (nothing serious, just things we need to keep an eye on). Both kids saw GI/nutrition to monitor their growth. Jackson has been in therapy for 2 years now and is doing well, but we still have a long way to go. Overall, they are both very healthy. A lot of things could have gone wrong and by some miracle, they all seemed to turn out ok. We're still not out of our prematurity days but as they get older, it's less and less obvious that they were born 3 months early.

I'd love for you to click around, check out the progress they've made, see how they grew, and you can find more details of their birth and our NICU stay if you go back to my posts from 2011. It's been quite an adventure, but I've found lots of love and support from other preemie parents so I'm hoping to add to the love and support by having this link up! It will run through the duration of November so check back frequently to see what stories have been added! Share with your friends so people can find my blog and the link up!

Thank you for everyone who has been a part of our story so far and for sharing the preemie love! Click on "Add your link" below to join in!




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