Born too soon: Can tiny fighters make it home?
By JAIME ARON, Associated Press Writer Sun Jun 15, 12:25 PM ET
DALLAS - Seventeen weeks premature, our twin sons were so small, so fragile. And already they'd been through so much.
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Josh had had heart surgery, Jake a life-threatening bowel operation — and that was just in their first week. They'd received blood transfusions, endured endless medical exams and procedures.
Both still had ventilation tubes down their throats, feeding tubes in their noses, IVs in their heads or arms and all sorts of monitors wired to their chests and feet.
Still, they'd cleared many hurdles since they were born — weighing 1 pound, 2 ounces each — the day before Mother's Day 2002. And now, five weeks and a day later, on Father's Day, we'd reached another milestone.
For the first time, my wife, Lori, and I were offered the chance to hold them.
Many times, we had watched enviously as other NICU parents got to do what's known as "kangaroo care," gently cradling their infants chest-to-chest. When our turn finally came, there was a catch: Only one of us could hold one of the babies. Lori deservedly got the honor.
It took three nurses to lift Jake and all his wires out of the incubator and to place him safely on Lori's chest. Scared of doing anything wrong, she cupped one hand under his feet, the other on his back, then hardly moved for more than an hour.
They say these sessions are therapeutic for the babies and, indeed, Jake's monitors showed he liked it. I think it's even more therapeutic for the parents.
As our tiny son slept, we cried tears of joy, whispering about this special moment we feared might never happen.
We even allowed ourselves another bit of imagining: The day we'd take our babies home.
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