Team Sam and Emma

Sam, Emma, Bryan, and I are excited to have become more involved with the March of Dimes the past few years, and we hope you all join us or help support the March for Babies on April 27th at the Meadowlands Racetrack! Team Sam and Emma is part of the movement to create positive change for moms and babies everywhere, especially those most at risk. With preterm birth and maternal death rates continuing to rise, we’re committed to raising funds so that every family gets the best possible start. And you can help us.

Most of you know our story by now, but for those of you who don't, our family has a deep connection to the work of the March of Dimes. In March of 2021, we were excited to find out that I was pregnant - with, surprise, multiples! We were so excited to find out that we were expecting a boy and girl - and I kept joking that I was very efficient. As a lifelong perfectionist, my family liked that joke. 

Little did we know that the surprises were just starting. On August 29, 2021, our one-pound miracle babies were born at 24 weeks. Emma Louise was 1 pound even, and Samuel Anthony was a whopping 1.5 pounds. Despite the wires, tubes, leads, and incubators, they both felt like ours right away. We felt so lucky that they made it to us at all after my water broke at 21 weeks. We had been told the chances were next to zero.

Sam and Emma battled countless trials and hurdles during our 11 months in the NICU. Preemies tend to have apnea and desaturations where their heartrate and oxygen levels drop quickly and can get terrifyingly low. This happened many, many times every single day. You never get used to that – I remember so many times wondering, is this it? Will they recover from this one? 

Each twin had their unique journey. While never intubated, Sam struggled to tolerate feeds in those early days and had a huge, distended belly, and needed hernia surgery. And, because he wasn't intubated, his desaturations were terrifying. Emma, on the other hand, had a very hard time. She was smaller and needed so much support. She was on an oscillator ventilator that had her vibrating all the time. We couldn’t even hold her for almost a month. They tried lots of different settings, different machines, and she still struggled. We had never even heard her cry (and didn't until she was almost 6 months old) and could only hold her with the help of three nurses. Even when we did, we held our breaths the whole time, worried one wrong twitch could hurt her. 

I could speak for hours about the twins' struggles, but I’ll share here the day that sticks out the most. In late November, pretty suddenly Emma took a scary turn for the worse, and over the course of a weekend went to maximum support – life support basically. There was nothing more they could do. They said they could transfer her to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, a level 4 NICU, but they warned us that they wouldn’t be able to do anything different. Nonetheless, we felt like we had to try – we had to do something. So on a day that is seared in my memory, they helicoptered my intubated baby to CHOP and we drove there, praying she’d make the flight and we’d see her again. I remember saying goodbye to Sam, feeling so torn, leaving him there to go with his sister. 

You’d think I’d say the next few weeks were a blur, but they’re so vivid. Pic lines, sedation meds, new doctors, new protocols and rules, new monitors and unfamiliar beeps, nurses we didn’t know. They completely sedated Emma, like she was in a coma – a sight I don’t wish upon any parents. But she was still with us. Slowly, she improved and over time she got a little better as her little lungs grew.  It’s amazing what you can endure. Finally, after 11 months, Emma came home, and my family was finally all home. 

The journey has been long.  Having medically complex kids is challenging and it’s still stressful. We've had multiple readmissions to the hospital with Emma - including one a few weeks ago. Everyone else gets a cold, and she ends up in the hospital. It's hard to stress enough to people around us how important it is that we don't get sick because of how quickly a sniffle can turn into a weeklong stay in the Pediatric ICU. And, it’s hard to become a parent and a nurse at the same time. Nonetheless, they are both doing miraculously well. They're running around like crazy, talking, developing their own twin language, giving our dog more hugs and kisses than she wants, and blowing us away on a daily basis with their personalities and spunk. We have every reason to think that they’ll go off to kindergarden like any other kid someday - something I would not have dared to dream of two years ago.

Preemies are fighters, and my twins show me that every day. And thanks to organizations like the March of Dimes, more babies like Sam and Emma have a chance. Preemies can do so well, they just need a little – or sometimes a lot – of help along the way.

Initially, the March of Dimes touched me so directly because of their work with preemies, but their work for moms is equally important. Getting more involved with the March for Babies this year has made me reflect on my own maternal health experience. At the time all of this happened, I was so focused on getting my babies here with the best fighting chance that I pushed aside the fears for my own health. A twin pregnancy is idealized by many, but it is inherently high-risk. Then, when my water broke at 21 weeks, I was a ticking time bomb, waiting for an infection. My OB made it very clear that when (not if) I got an infection, we would be delivering immediately, regardless of the twins' gestational age. For a while, I was taking my temperature every hour, obsessively monitoring how I was feeling. Ultimately, I went into labor before I developed an infection, thus beginning the twins' journey - and I was fine, medically-speaking. For plenty of moms, though, that's not the case, and the March of Dimes wants to change that.

All of that to say, I hope you consider joining us for the March for Babies this year on April 28th at the Meadowland. And, if you can't, I hope that you consider supporting the March for Babies and families like ours. In the twin-language words of Sam and Emma, "tee too!" (a.k.a. thank you!)