Meet William & Aaron Conley, born 6/27/11 at 25 weeks, 5 days,
weighing just under 2 lbs each. They spent 93 days in the NICU and
battled almost every obstacle possible for preemies, but are now
thriving at home. Read their birth story.

Have your own preemie twins story? Share your story with us!

According to a survey by UKOSS, the UK Obstetric Surveillance System, the incidence of peripartum hysterectomy is 4 in 10,000 births (about 0.04% or 250 women a year in the UK). There is a strong association between hysterectomy and having a caesarean birth, and also between hysterectomy and multiple births. Having had a previous caesarean birth can increase the risk by 10 to 20 fold. The most common reason for having a hysterectomy following birth is because of placental problems such as placenta praevia and placenta accreta. (Source: ThirdStageofLabour.org).

So now, here I am only 27, and experiencing all the glorious menopause symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats and extreme mood swings. Add that to my post-partum depression and having twin babies in the NICU, and I’m one depressed mama! I think the worst part is knowing that I won’t be able to have any more children as I’ve always wanted a big family.

Luckily, there is the internet providing me with a vast full of information and support that helps me know I am not alone. I frequent forums and websites, such as GotMenopause routinely so I don’t feel so alone. I hate being so young, yet feeling so old (my mother hasn’t even went through menopause yet).

So I would love to hear from other moms that had to have a hysterectomy when they didn’t want one, especially from those that had to have one right after the birth of their baby (or babies). Leave a comment so we can sympathize! ~ Whitney

When I had my twin preemies at just 25 weeks, they weighed 1 pound 12 ounces each. When the fog cleared, I realized that I had to develop a way of coping with my new “normal”. The first thing I did was create a vision of who I needed to become to give my babies what they needed to survive and thrive. Below are five simple principles of P.E.A.C.E. I developed that helped me. They can guide you through the discovery process of going from discharging the NICU to admit a new you…both now and in the years to come.
The “P” in P.E.A.C.E. stands for Power: The power of intention is greater than any current reality.
Intention is defined as “an act or instance of determining mentally upon some action or result.” Simply put, it’s a tool to create whatever you want in harnessing an emotional advantage over the NICU and all that it brings. Make your intention clear and focus on it.

The “E” in P.E.A.C.E. stands for Energy: Everything is energy.
Everything is energy and energy is every thing, including your thoughts, feelings, words and actions. It doesn’t matter what your circumstances are at the present moment. Think positively, expect only favorable results and situations, and circumstances will change accordingly. It may take some time for the changes to take place, but eventually they do. If you feel any inner resistance when replacing negative thoughts with positive ones, do not give up, but keep looking only at the beneficial, good and happy thoughts in your mind.

The “A” in P.E.A.C.E. stands for All: All things will move into balance eventually.
You may look at your baby, attached to wires and monitors, and feel as though nothing in your life will ever be the same again. But with positive thoughts and positive energy, you’ll be able to find peace in the knowledge that all things will balance out in time.

The “C” in P.E.A.C.E. stands for Caring: Caring for you precedes caring for anyone else.
Caring for your premature baby is much like flying on an airplane; you’re told that if there’s a problem and a mask drops down, you need to put yours on first so you can help others. The same applies now; you’ve got to maintain physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health in order to be strong for your baby and those around you. You’ve got to nurture yourself if you want to be able to nurture your baby.

The “E” in P.E.A.C.E. stands for Everything: Everything is exactly as the Universe intended it to be.
As you embark on this journey as the parent of premature baby, remain open to opportunities for your own personal growth. Good things will happen and bad things will happen. Choose to focus on the good – those things you want to bring into your life – and the Universe will align to make them happen. Accept your situation, knowing everything is exactly as it was intended to be.

These principles are the foundation for being the best you can be for you, and ultimately, your premature baby; use them to help you transform the NICU to a new you. Take comfort in knowing that everything happens for a reason…even this.

Tami C. Gaines, the mother of four children (including premature twins born at just 25 weeks), has achieved national recognition as an advocate and spokesperson for parents of premature babies. With an M.B.A. from Columbia University and twenty-five years as an entrepreneur and executive, Tami could not have foreseen the events that would take her from the board room to the hospital room. Tami’s book, Preemie Parents: 26 Ways to Grow With Your Premature Baby helps other parents of premature babies learn to cope — as she has — by opening their hearts to learning life’s lessons. For more information and inspiration, visit www.PreemieParents.com .

I love stumbling upon other parents’ personal websites about their twins and/or preemie babies! For instance, yesterday I found Twin Mama Rama – Join the Adventures of a Twin Mom and her Twin Boys!

In this post (with the photo of her boys above), the author asks her readers whether or not they think her twins boys are identical or fraternal. With the history of mom being a twin herself and the boys in separate sacs, I’d go with fraternal, but looking at the picture, they definitely look like mirror-identical twins! What’s your take? I’m anxious for her to post the DNA results!

Do you know of a “preemie twins” worthy website we should check out? Contact us!

With an accomplished background as a marketing and business strategist, Tami Gaines has proven how individuals and business owners can achieve success from the inside out. She has been widely recognized as an expert and visionary among national media like The Wall Street Journal and has built an impressive client list that has included The Marriott, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Consumer Reports, Unilever and The Commonwealth of Virginia. With an M.B.A. from Columbia University and 25 years as an entrepreneur and executive, Tami could not have foreseen the events that would take her from the board room to the hospital room.

Tami believes that our will is a renewable resource and it is by sheer will that she was able to thrive during the five months of her life that she found herself: Unexpectedly pregnant with twins; Suddenly single after nearly 12 years of marriage because of the decision to keep them; Confined to a hospital bed for 5 weeks in an effort to maintain the pregnancy; And then an experienced mother in a new reality, fluctuating between prayer and advocacy for the health of the twins, born at only 25 weeks, weighing just over a pound and a half each. Her daughter spent nearly 4 months in the intensive care unit before coming home. Her son spent 15 months in the intensive care unit and 3 months in a rehabilitation facility before finally coming home in late August 2007, technology-dependent yet self-reliant. The twins join their older sister and brother, 10 and 7 years, respectively, in a home that had to be spiritually gutted and rebuilt to allow space for forgiveness of and gratitude to my former husband for leaving so that we could live from a place of faith and self-love.

Tami has used the lessons of her personal and professional journeys to restore her power and gain wholeness again. Developing an intimate connection with the Universe and then giving that connection a voice through the way she lives is her true devotion. She has expressed her truth in the way she gives context to experiences, takes action, makes decisions, in the people she chooses to surround herself with and the energy that she gives out and lets in. Her legacy will be one that empowers people to live their greatest lives, despite any challenge facing them.

At the encouragement of parents, doctors and hospital administrators, Tami has written Preemie Parents, 26 Little Ways to Grow With Your Premature Baby, to help other parents cope as she has — with heart wide open to learning life’s lessons. Both practical and inspirational, Tami has revolutionized the way people experience prematurity, divorce and other unexpected crises. Tami returns power to those who feel powerless as they go through their challenges by reminding them that “the context that we give our experiences is ultimately our defining story.”

“We never know how much power we have within us until we’ve gone through something, that before, we could never conceive of getting through.” — Tami Gaines

Mallory has been sick for over a month now with classic medical symptoms: headache, stomachache, sore throat. She was originally diagnosed with a sinus infection, but antibiotics didn’t help at all. She also said she felt like she was “blacking out” – my interpretation of “blacking out” was getting up really fast and getting that woozy feeling, which made sense since she was weak from being sick.

All medical tests had came back normal; she was negative for strep throat, mono, influenza, CSV, even carbon monoxide poisoning (that freaked me out, so I bought all kinds of testers for the house). She looked extremely pale, but all bloodwork was normal, so she wasn’t anemic. They finally did an MRI which showed “inflammation on the brain” which they wrote off as a nasty virus.

When Tatym, her younger sister, started to have the same headache/stomachache/sore throat symptoms, even both girls having a tender spleen and left ear pain, we figured it really was a contagious virus, and it would just have to run its course.

Tatym only missed a couple days of school, but Mallory had already missed three plus weeks of school. She actually seemed somewhat better last weekend, so when she was bawling that she didn’t want to go to school on Monday, Macy (her twin sister) and I chided her that she couldn’t miss any more days of school! Then during breakfast, her whole body “twitched” and Macy and I gave each other that “what the hell just happened” look.

Here, Mallory was calling those twitching episodes “black outs”. I knew the doctor’s office wouldn’t be open until eight, so I hopped into the shower. In the meantime, Mallory had another episode, causing her to drop her “fake baby” (she is taking a Child Development class and gave her baby a head violation in the process). We dropped the baby off at “daycare” aka school and headed to the doctor’s office.

Mallory had a few more twitches on the way there, and I jokingly asked if I needed to hold her hand to walk to the office. And within a second, Mallory was no longer beside me, but on the cement having full-blown convulsions in a pool of blood. I panicked. I couldn’t stop her or hold her still. No one was around to yell for help. I ran to the doctor’s office to send help.

Luckily a local businessman came to our rescue and used his coat to pad her head from getting any more damage. My daughter was having a massive seizure and there was nothing I could do to help her. But the scariest part was when she stopped convulsing and went limp. She was gray and lifeless, and I seriously thought she was dead.

–that feeling makes me cry every time I think about it, so I need to take a break in continuing writing–

When rescue arrived, I was happy that Mallory finally opened her eyes, but worried when she was in a fog and not responsive to me. My mom drove me to follow the ambulance to the emergency room. More bloodwork and a CT scan were all normal. So what was wrong with her?!

Mallory must have originally landed on the left side of her forehead as she has a huge bump there. The fall broke her prescription eyeglasses cutting her right eye requiring stitches to close the huge gap.

After the neurologist reviewed Mallory’s history and EEG, he diagnosed her with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME), and that combined with the virus that she has been fighting the last few weeks just exacerbated each other. She had all the classic symptoms of JME: febrile seizures as a infant, staring into space as a toddler, muscle spasms the last couple of years (which we were writing off as charlie horses). JME full blown seizures typically begin at ages 13-15. Since Mallory was a preemie and still is developmentally delayed, that makes sense that hers waited until she was 17.

Indications of a full blown seizure coming on are extreme mood swing (she was bawling uncontrollably) and “twitches” which are more likely to occur in the morning. Bingo. The neurologist put her on Keppra XR, sent her home, and said to come back in a month.

After doing research (aka google) and talking with our pastor (whose wife has epilepsy) and some good friends who know A LOT about epilepsy, I made an appointment for Mallory to see Dr. Madhavan who specializes in epilepsy.

A lot of Mallory’s history is starting to make sense to me now. For instance JME affects your short term memory and ability to learn. I had always wondered why Macy excelled above Mallory at everything when Macy was the sicker baby of the two by far. I now have hope that once Mallory is properly treated, we will see a significant improvement!

Thanks to everyone for all the prayers and concerns – your friendships are appreciated more than you know!

My friend’s daughter had “preemie twins” this past weekend – two beautiful, healthy baby girls, born at 33 weeks gestational age weighing a good 4 lbs 8 oz and 5 lbs 1 oz respectively. I will be anxious to see the birth announcement that she sends out!

When my twins were born almost seventeen years ago (gasp! I’m getting old), the birth announcements that we sent out were from a Hallmark store (it was hard to find ones especially made for twins) where we hand-wrote the baby’s information such as birth date, name/s, weight/s and parent’s names.

Nowadays, parents are lucky to be able to create their own announcements digitally with pictures and graphics with websites such as Naptime Productions that bring you unique cards for every occasion, from births to baptisms, baby showers to birthdays, even graduations to weddings.

One thing I wish I would have done that I would now recommend is framing one of your child’s/children’s birth announcements to hang up on the wall in the baby’s room. The card can become a keepsake to treasure as he or she gets older. I do have the cross-stitch samplers I made for my twins still hanging up in the girls’ room and think of them as itty bitty tiny babies often every time I look at it!

The Pampers Love Comes Early Twitter Party is scheduled for this Tuesday night (11/30/10). There are tons of prizes, and the party will centered around Baby Addyson (born at 25 weeks weighing 1 lb. 7 oz.)! So save a few hours on Tuesday night (7-8 pm CST). Make sure to watch the videos here, as the questions will revolve around them (you better grab a tissue). The twitter party will be under hash tag #LoveComesEarly and will last one hour. Come one, come all, no need to RSVP!

A request from my Facebook friend, Howard Gottlieb…

Please pray for our friends Scott and Erin. They delivered Jaxon at exactly 25 weeks, weighing 1 1/2 pounds and measuring 12 inches. He is a beautiful little boy fighting for his life and he can use all the prayers possible.

Baby Jaxon is definitely in all of our prayers!

I get lots of comments from people I know and people I don’t know (usually in stores when I have all four with me and am in a hurry) about how I have my hands full or one of the other usual remarks people make about having twins. The thing is that they just don’t get it. They don’t get to experience, to observe, to participate in the daily activities of two little ones of the same age. I must say that one of my favorite ages is 18-24 months, which is precisely where Carlton and Franklin are right now at 22 months. That is the age when they truly start trying to communicate and play with each other and start using their own “twinspeak” words. For instance, my boys call drinks “neh neh” and they both understood that long before I finally figured it out.

I get the impression that people are in awe of MOMs (with twins or more) and are happy that they are not in that position. I would say that I was one of those people before I had twins of my own. Now that I have twins, especially two sets, I really would not want it any other way. My husband, Hans, and I have talked about this many times since our girls were born, even as recently as this week. In our situation with the kids 3 1/2 years apart and the girls the older of the two sets, things flow very naturally in that we are able to assign one girl to watch each boy or hold a boy’s hand. When interaction between the two sets is not needed, each twin plays with her/his co-twin almost exclusively. Yes, we do have four (FOUR!) children, but we only have two ages to deal with. I honestly think that it would be much more difficult to have kids of four different ages than having two sets of twins.

OK, let me back up a bit here. YES, it was extremely difficult at first, especially our first time around. Taking care of two newborns is pretty much double the work of taking care of one newborn. It means double diapers, double feedings, double baths, double the chance of being awakened in the middle of the night, double everything. However, lets clarify that comment about feedings. Generally twin parents are able to feed two babies at once, so that’s not exactly double the amount of work required. MOMs can breastfeed or bottle feed two babies at once (I even know of MOMs who surfed the internet while breastfeeding their twins!). Once the babies are being spoon-fed (with a Baby Dipper bowl, of course), parents can prepare one bowl of food and alternate bites between babies, so while one baby is swallowing, the parent is scooping up a bite and feeding the other baby. The babies can be bathed together once they’re able to sit up, so around 5-8 months or so, thus saving some time there. A big time-saver is when both twins are thoroughly potty-trained. There is no way around it when they are both in diapers. Each baby’s diaper change is a separate event, some more involved than others, naturally.

Once the twins start playing together and sharing interactively, mom will suddenly find that she can actually slip away for a few minutes, though she still must listen in and check on them every few minutes as twins can sometimes get into more trouble than a single child. My understanding is that singleton babies require more parental attention since there is not a built-in playmate. This is not to say that parents of multiples should leave the teaching of things such as colors, shapes, letters, numbers, etc. to the kids themselves, but that this is another aspect of twin life that turns out to be easier than having only one child. Now that our girls are five years old, they play together just about all the time that they are not at school. There is very little arguing, surprisingly. They are really starting to realize how special it is to be twins and like to announce to people (even those who haven’t inquired about if they or their brothers are twins) that we have two sets of twins. I certainly hope that they continue to be close and get along well through their entire lives.

So, when others insinuate that having twins (especially two sets) must be incredibly difficult, I sometimes tell them that it is actually not that difficult, that my girls help with the boys, that each kid has a playmate all the time, that I only had to go through two pregnancies, that we only need to have two types of food/books/toys/clothes around at any given time. But sometimes I just humbly nod and move along, letting them remain in awe of us Mothers of Multiples and ignorant of the benefits that aren’t obvious to outsiders. Let’s not forget that from the time the babies are able to react, MOMs get double smiles, double giggles, double hugs, and double kisses.

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