Quad's Story
We weren't expecting to have our five babies,on May 17th. After all, they wasn't due until September 9, and from all indications, we were having a normal pregnancy. Nic was feeling pretty good and was working at the Music and Arts Center full time up until that point. In fact, we were surprised that the pregnancy was going so well.
On Sunday, April 7th, Nic mentioned that she hadn't felt our five babies move all day. This was unusual—they was normally very active in her belly, so it was a little worrisome to us. We made a doctors appointment for the next day, and the doctor used his Doppler to listen to the heartbeat. We could hear it, strong, rhythmic, reassuring. Nevertheless, he scheduled our second ultrasound for that Tuesday, just to reassure us and himself that all was well with the baby.
We went back to the hospital the next day for the ultrasound. There they were on the monitor, moving a bit, heart beating, looking good. Or so we thought. The technician said they was measuring a bit small, and she seemed pretty preoccupied while doing her measurements and listening to the blood flow through the umbilical cord. We had the uneasy feeling that she wasn't telling us something, but since they aren't supposed to make diagnoses, she couldn't tell us anything. Our doctor was off that day, but they sent the ultrasound results upstairs so he could review them the next day.
On Wednesday, Nic called first thing in the morning to see if the doctor had reviewed the ultrasound results yet. He called back mid-morning, and was a bit concerned and referred Nic to a perinatologist in Batimore. Nic called the doctor in Baltimore, and although they normally had a 6–10 week wait for appointments, they bumped some things so we could get in there on Friday, April 21st, now 6 days since she felt him move.
We arrived at John Hopkin's Hospital in Maryland at 11:30 am for an ultrasound with the perinatologist. They had a better machine, and they confirmed that there were some growth problems with our five babies. They wasn't getting the nutrients they needed through the umbilical cord. They moved very quickly, and within about five minutes after Nic was on the table for the sonogram, they performed an amniocentesis to screen for genetic problems. Their head was one week behind in development, their limbs were two weeks behind, and their torso was four weeks behind. Needless to say, we were terrified that something was very wrong with our babies. Nic had an ultrasound at 33 weeks and everything was on track at that point, so all of the lag in growth had happened in the last eight weeks since then. Nic had done a little research online prior to the second ultrasound and had read that clotting problems can cause placenta problems, so she mentioned that she had had a pulmonary embolism 5 years before, and immediately their diagnosis changed—where before they had been leaning toward Down's syndrome or some other genetic disorder, now they felt that it was a clotting problem in her placenta. The doctor told us she was going to admit Nic to the hospital, and she shouldn't expect to leave without having had the baby. They were going to try to keep them in her as long as possible, but they needed to monitor the fetus and the mother very closely.
In record time, we were whisked from the ultrasound room to a hospital room on the high-risk wing of the labor and delivery ward, and from there things moved even quicker. Fetal monitors were attached to NIc's stomach. Vials of blood were drawn, and they soon determined that she had HELLP Syndrome, preeclampsia, and that her liver was in bad shape due to the HELLP Syndrome. At the same time, they noticed a couple of dips in our babies' vital signs, and they were very concerned. The decision was made to deliver our babies via C-Section that day, at 33 weeks gestation, for both their and Nic's health. The doctor told us that we were lucky to have come in that day—if we had waited until Monday, she thought that our babies wouldn't have made it and that Nic would have had some serious health problems by that point.
The anesthesiologist came in to let us know what was going to happen. They wheeled Nic into the delivery room and Jared was outfitted in scrubs, hair cover, gloves and shoe covers. It was amazing how fast things were going, how scared we both were, and how many emotions can run through you at a time of stress like that! They kept Jared outside the operating room until Nic had her spinal block, then he was allowed in to sit beside her. They draped Nic's lower half so she couldn't see what was happening, and Jared didn't want to see what was happening, so he concentrated on Nic. At 1:05 a.m., we heard Noah Thomas crying—a more welcome sound cannot be imagined! It meant he was breathing! He had an APGAR score of 7, and five minutes later it was 8—good scores, especially considering his size! Unfortunately, because things happened so quickly and unexpectedly, we didn't have time to notify our family and friends that our babies's birth was imminent. Even more distressing, we hadn't thought to bring a camera with us to record any of our first images of Noah Thomas.!
A nurse took our babies to a warming table, where they decided not to intubate them since they was breathing pretty well on their own. They did some work on them, suctioning thir nose and mouth and tying off their umbilical cords. They invited Jared over to cut it, which he did with some trepidation! Noah was 1lb, 10.5 oz, and 13.8 inches long. He looked so tiny, so fragile, and so beautiful! The nurses talked softly to Jared, letting him know how everything was going and what would happen next. Then they bundled Noah. up warmly, and Nic was left in the delivery room while Jared and the nurses walked slowly to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. There, our babies was put on a warming table, surfactant was poured into their lungs, and any number of things was done. All Jared could do was stare at his children, marveling over him and feeling very fortunate that we were in that hospital at that time and that they weren't in any rush while they were working with him. It meant he was stable. After about three days, the nurse invited Jared to slip his wedding band over Noah's arm—a size 10 1/2 ring hanging like a bangle bracelet! It's one of the more dramatic pictures, and served to show family and friends just how tiny he actually was.
Nic spent 5 days in the hospital recovering from the C-Section and taking lots of medications to get her liver enzymes back to normal and her blood pressure under control. Mom and Dad drove out there nearly every day to spend time with them, hold them, bathe them, feed them, and let them know that their mom and dad were there.
Noah, Tori, Jared, Crystal, and Sean lived in an isolette to help control and maintain their body temperature. They were all on a nasal CPAP (continuous positive air pressure)Each of these steps was cause for celebration. They was fed through both and oral and nasal gavage. All this time, we alternated between feeling great about their progress to becoming despondent that they wasn't doing as well as we had hoped. Hydronephrosis, milk allergies, possible infections, staph aureus infection, worries about his kidney and liver function, retinopathy of prematurity (ROP)—all were hurdles they had to clear before they could even be considered for release from the hospital.
