Double Trouble - But All is Well

Let me start by saying that we are blessed to have two healthy baby girls. Now I will go on with the rest of the story because it sounds a little scary...

On Monday, Kasey went to her OB/GYN for a routine check on the babies. Kasey had a feeling to ask the doctor to check her cervix even though he was not planning to. After checking, the Dr said "oh, you are dilated to a four" and immediately sent her to labor and delivery at American Fork hospital. They gave her a steroid shot (helps pre-me babies develop quicker) monitored her for a couple of hours and checked her again. She had progressed to five and a half with a bulging sack of water. Being as how these babies were only 31 weeks along, Kasey needed to be transferred to a hospital with a better Newborn Intensive Care Unit. That hospital is Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo. So they gave her some medicine to stop the labor and sent her to off in an ambulance to Provo (Kasey felt less important because they didn't use sirens:).

This was probably the scariest point of the labor. Kasey had Jake about an hour after her water broke so we were worried that if the water broke in transit the babies might be in trouble. They were also hoping to give here another steroid shot on Tuesday. She made it to UVRMC and the medicine stabilized the labor. She was able to get the steroid shot on Tuesday.

At this point we did not know if she was going to have the babies in hours or weeks. Kasey was told that she would not leave the hospital until the babies were born. Obviously, the thought of staying at the hospital for weeks was depressing, but we knew that the babies would be better off the longer they cooked. They transferred Kasey to the "long-term labor" area. She had friends and family come with stacks of videos, books, and magazines. Volunteers (who had spent weeks at the hospital in labor themselves) came to encourage Kasey. However, the feelings about staying at the hospital soon became irrelevant.

On Tuesday evening Kasey started having contractions and her cervix started dilating. The nurse said that since this was happening despite her having the medicine to stop labor, she would probably deliver that night. I ran down to the hospital at about 12:30 am. Kasey slowly progressed, knowing that each hour delayed was good for the babies. Finally, at about 9:00 the doctor said that they were going to break the water. His logic was that they had been exposed to the steroids long enough, and that the babies were going to come soon anyways. He wanted to deliver the babies with everything (staff, rooms, NICU) ready to go as opposed to waiting until her water broke and rushing things. We were off to have the babies delivered.

We went to a very high-tech room that was attached to the NICU. At 9:21 am on Wednesday "Baby A" was delivered, followed by "Baby B" at 9:23. The doctor pulled them out, let the babies give Mom a quick wave and they were off to the NICU. Each of the babies had a staff of five stabilizing them. Both were struggling to breath (as to be expected). Each baby was given a "cpap", which adds pressure to the lungs so that the babies won't have to work as hard. Baby A did fine with that but her sister had a little harder time coming along. They had to inject some medicine into Baby B's lungs that acts a lubricant to help the lungs expand. After this and a couple of other complicates she was doing well on the cpap just like baby A. After a couple of hours, baby A was breathing so well that they took her off of the cpap and gave her a bath. Baby B accomplished the same feet a few hours later.

The NICU is pleasantly surprised at how well our girls are doing. Their lungs are stabilized and developing and that is the number one concern with pre-mature babies. The next challenge will be eating. They have explained to us that eating is one of the last things babies learn to do before being born at full term. So pre-me's brains, mouths, and bellies are just not prepared to eat and digest. The nurses need to teach them how to eat in the NICU and it will take weeks to do so.
For that purpose we will probably not be bringing the babies home for seven or eight weeks. This will obviously be tough, especially on Kasey. But we have a wonderful family and ward that are all so willing to help.

In summation, we are grateful. We are grateful to our Father in Heaven for blessing us with two of his children. We are grateful for the spirit prompting Kasey to ask the doctor to be checked at such a crucial point. We are grateful for the wonderful medical facilities, doctors and nurses, and medicines. The babies would probably not have made it without any of these. We are grateful for the love, support, and prayers of friends and family.

Thanks and we love you all,

Trevor and Kasey, Morgan, Jake, A, B (we're still working on better names!)

1st video - Baby B (maybe Claire) 2nd video - Baby A (Ashley, Lydia, or Sydney)

Baby B (1st) Baby A (2nd)