Born too soon: One dad's story of preemie twins

By Jaime Aron

updated 12:45 p.m. ET June 14, 2008

In the first part of a two-part narrative, Associated Press Texas sports editor Jaime Aron recalls the birth of his twin sons, 17 weeks premature, and the struggle to keep them alive.

DALLAS - The speech I was holding should only have been a backup. I knew the words by heart because I'd lived them.

It was the story of my twin sons and how their birth 17 weeks too soon changed everything for me, my wife Lori and our 4-year-old son, Zac.

I'd given this speech plenty of times, but never to an audience like this — other parents of preemies.

We were at a national gathering of March of Dimes volunteers, and there were about 30 of us in a hotel ballroom for a session called "Every Baby Has A Story.'' Because I tell stories for a living as a sports writer for The Associated Press, I'd been asked to help run the meeting.

I started with some basic advice, like "make your story uniquely yours,'' and gave some dos and don'ts.

Eyes widened when I held up red and blue Beanie Babies that were as big as the real boys. Heads nodded when I held up my wedding band — which a dime can just fit through — and described it circling one baby's arm like a hula hoop.

Then I got to the middle of page 3. To the paragraph I'd typed through teary eyes a few days before.

"I'm sorry,'' I said, my jaw quivering, eyes puddling. I reached for a tissue, trying to stall long enough to regain my composure.

"This,'' I continued, "is the part where I always give the update ...''

I tried again. And again.

But I couldn't get the rest out.

Baby Zac's birth
Until the birth of our twins, life had been good to Lori and me.

I grew up in Houston, a sports-loving kid determined to become a sports writer. A gofer job at the Houston Post my senior year of high school led to bylines while at the University of Texas, then a job with the AP in Dallas. That fall, I met Lori at a Rosh Hashanah service. We married a few years later.

When we decided to try having kids, Lori got pregnant pretty quickly. Staying pregnant wasn't so easy.

Pre-term labor symptoms forced her to go on bed rest at 23 weeks. She delivered Zac at 36 weeks, a month early. The birth itself was rough. Lori needed blood transfusions and spent the night in intensive care.

Zac turned out fine. He weighed just 4 pounds, 12 ounces, but that was no big deal. I'm only 5-foot-5 and Lori is 5-even. We were always the smallest kids in our grades, so we thought nothing of it.

He was a preemie, but that seemed about as significant as being brown-haired or right-handed.

Baby A and Baby B
Once we were ready to make Zac a big brother, scar tissue from his traumatic arrival blocked the path to pregnancy.

After five operations and a failed in-vitro fertilization attempt, we decided to give IVF one last try. If it worked, great. If not, we'd happily raise Zac as an only child.

It worked — so well that two babies were created. But the initial sonogram signaled trouble.

"Baby A will probably be gone in a few days,'' our fertility doctor said. "I'm sorry.''

But the next sonogram, a few weeks later, showed two normal heartbeats.

Because of Zac's early arrival, and because twins tend to come early, doctors watched Lori's pregnancy closely. Sure enough, her body began getting ready to deliver after only 17 weeks. She was back on bed rest, but not long enough.

I was covering an NBA playoff game in Dallas when a message popped up on my laptop.

"call lori asap''

Her water broke. Her sister, Tina, was taking her to the hospital.

Leaving everything courtside, I ran to my car through drenching rain. I crunched over orange cones to get out of the parking lot, racing to Medical City Hospital.

Lori was put in a delivery-room bed tilted backward to let gravity help keep the babies in, and an IV dripped magnesium sulfate — a "mag bag'' — to slow labor.

Only 23 weeks into what's supposed to be 40 weeks of gestation, the boys were "on the brink of viability,'' a doctor said. Even if they made it, their lungs, brains, eyes and ears were so underdeveloped, they might never work right.

The next day, neonatologist Dr. Eileen Milvenan sat down to go over the grim prognosis.

She emphasized her points by reading statistics on a folded card. We didn't need to hear the numbers. Her voice and look showed this was someone who'd seen more sad endings than happy ones, and she feared we'd be another.

Baby A was in jeopardy again. His water bag had ripped, depriving him of the amniotic fluid that's vital to development. No matter what, he was coming out soon. Baby B, meanwhile, was doing fine, his water bag still intact.

Doctors gave us three options: Focus on saving Baby A, focus on Baby B, or — their recommendation — "delayed delivery,'' having Baby A when necessary, then stopping the birth process and keeping Baby B inside as long as possible.

"We have to do what's best for both of them,'' Lori kept saying.

We refused to pick between our unborn children. Delayed delivery became the only choice.

Having a game plan was comforting — Baby A in days, Baby B in weeks, we hoped. Then it dawned on us: Twins? With birthdays so far apart?

It was the first time we'd laughed in days.

‘What's best for you’
Lori coughed all night. By morning, her skin looked green, her face puffy.

"It feels like encyclopedias are piled on my chest,'' she told her obstetrician, Dr. Kathryn Waldrep.

Dr. Waldrep listened through her stethoscope. Septic fluid was pooling in Lori's lungs, caused by a combination of the mag bag and the tilted bed; our two biggest allies fighting off labor had turned against us.

"We have to take the babies now,'' Dr. Waldrep said. "You are my patient, not them. I have to do what's best for you.''

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