My water broke unexpectedly at home on Saturday, May 10th around 2:45pm and after being sent to Iowa City by ambulance to try and stall labor, the twins decided they wanted to make their debut on Mother’s Day at 24 weeks and 6 days. 

Beckett Daniel Saulnier Lange was born at 12:51pm and his sister Juliette Rose Saulnier Lange was born at 1:04pm on Sunday, May 11th. Both babies were greeted by their own NICU care team (there were about 20 people in the delivery room with us) and immediately sent to the NICU, along with Dan, who was able to be with them while I recovered and joined them after a few hours. 

The twins aren’t expected to come home until their August due date at the earliest, so we have a long road ahead of us with lots of unknowns. I got discharged from the hospital on Tuesday and we went home that night to repack, regroup, and figure out our next steps. We are hoping to be in Iowa City as much as possible, but are also trying to figure out a sustainable way to be there for our babies without burning out. 

Both babies have remained mostly stable, with some expected spells here and there, but we’ve been told that they experience a “honeymoon period” after they’re born where they do really well with the steroids I received in labor and the surfactant they’re given at birth. Eventually, they realize they’re premature and have to start working a little harder and more spells are expected so we are bracing ourselves for that. 

Beckett came out a little bruised and had a lung that wasn’t fully functioning, which has been improving and inflating over the last few days. His lungs are having some issues with air leaking into other places, but keeping vent settings low has helped. They also discovered via an ultrasound on Monday that he was experiencing a brain bleed, which turned out to be slightly more serious than they hoped. He will be getting two scans a week to see how things develop. This has been the hardest news to hear because we don’t know the severity or what kind of complications this could cause long term, but we are trying to take it one day at a time. We won’t know a full picture of the severity for several weeks, but they’ve been monitoring brain activity and he hasn’t shown signs of any seizures, which is great. We were told that boys take a little longer to mature in utero, so a lot of issues can be attributed to just being born before he was ready. 

Juliette has had fewer complications overall, but is still being monitored very closely for nutritional intake and all other functions. Like any baby, both twins have lost some weight since birth, but we’re hoping to see them start gaining some back soon. Beckett was born at 1 lb 7 oz, 12.5 inches and Juliette was born at 1 lb 12.5 oz, 12.5 inches. They are such little peanuts that we would love to see them put some weight back on. 

There are a million other little things that they are monitoring closely in both twins, but we will wait to get into specifics until it’s necessary. We want to keep everyone updated, but it’s very easy to get lost in all the details when you’re dealing with complex, preemie babies. The University of Iowa hospital system has done an amazing job of giving us information, answering questions, and involving us in care as much as possible (Dan changed Beckett’s tiny diaper yesterday!). We have heard so many great stories from other people about their experiences with UIHC and we feel very lucky to have access to their support systems for NICU families. 

We are so overwhelmed by how supportive everyone has been and we appreciate you all more than you know! We will try and provide several updates a week, but may not give one every day. It’s going to take us a while to get the hang of this, but we are so happy to meet our little babies, even if it’s much earlier than expected.