Signature Chefs Triangle

Three weeks after our positive pregnancy test our first ultrasound revealed we were having twins.... At week thirteen, we learned we were pregnant with monochorionic-monoamniotic twins. Meaning, our twins shared the same placenta and amniotic sac, making this an incredibly high-risk pregnancy for myself, and for our twins. 

We marched on with a fairly healthy pregnancy until week twenty-four... better known as viability. At twenty-four weeks and three days my blood pressure skyrocketed. I was admitted for observation, but knew deep in my heart I was going to have to have an emergency cesarian. We tried to control my blood pressure with multiple medications hour after hour with no success... At 5:04 a.m. our girls were born. Too small to cry, and immediately intubated, I had no idea they had been born until my husband told me. 

November third changed our lives forever. Addison Rose and Avery Lane made their grand appearance into this big world.

Both of our girls were less than one and a half pounds. Measuring at twelve inches in length. Imagine your shoe in comparison. It’s hard to describe or envision a baby so small until you’ve seen one. They were both hooked up to monitors that continuously beeped, on ventilators, with their eyes fused shut, red, jelly-like translucent skin beamed at us through their incubators. We truly had no idea what was lying ahead.

The complications for babies born at, or before twenty-four weeks is astronomical.  If you would of told us our babies would basically undergo them all we wouldn’t of believed you. Two weeks after birth, both of our girls developed necrotizing enterocolitis, a phone call you never want to get. “Addison needs emergency surgery.” You would think there’s no way to operate on such a small baby, but when there’s a will, there’s a way. Addison had her surgery, only hours later would Avery develop necrotizing enterocolitis... The girls weren’t in the same recovery room in the NICU so, we were bouncing back and forth between incubators. 

Sitting beside of Addie’s bed space, the cardiac arrest alarm sounded. Avery was in cardiac arrest following her surgery. I remember the fellow, Ryan coming to Adam and I and saying “you need to go and see her.” Adam kept asking why, but in my heart I knew why. Her heart rate was plummeting... We never thought we would sit in a room holding our child so lifeless, so peaceful, so still. Time stood still as Adam and I wept for what seemed like days. 

We had lost a child. Addison’s twin. Your normal, everyday average couple, to never be normal again.

Months marched on. Never getting to grieve Avery like we wanted to. We lived in the NICU. Day in and day out. Everyday we feared the loss of Addison. Months went by. She continued to stay sick. Physicians baffled at the cause of her illness. Surgeons operating with no answers. We felt helpless. Everyday the inevitable was going to happen we felt. We couldn’t help but to feel we were going to lose Addison too. A dark sick feeling overcomes your entire being, but the one thing remained – hope. Faith in Jesus that answers would arise, that healing would occur, and on my thirtieth birthday, indeed healing occurred. 

A new surgeon. A new set of eyes. New hands. New heart. New training. After four surgeries the perforation in Addison’s intestines was finally found. Addison lived with an ostomy for months before her intestines were so carefully placed back together. She had endured four surgeries at just one pound. 

Following her intestinal surgeries more trauma and illness occurred. She would endure: sepsis, cardiac arrest, ventilator dependency, pneumonia, ovarian cysts, hernias, chronic lung disease, patent ductus arteriosus, ventricular septal defects, multiple bone fractures, g-tube placement, over twenty blood transfusions, insulin dependency, and five eye procedures.

Two-hundred and thirty-nine days later we left the NICU. Addison in her car-seat.