Beautiful Healthy Girls

They’re here!!!

Here’s the short version (with the long version below) – we have two healthy, beautiful girls!  Baby B was born first – at 9:50 last night.  Baby A was delivered at 9:51.  You’re wondering about names and sizes, right?  B is named Belladia (“bella-dia”) Faith, which means beautiful day of faith.  She weighs 4 lbs, 11 oz and measured 18.5” long.  Little A is named Gloriana Joy, a reminder how God’s glorious grace brings joy.  She’s a little peanut, weighing 2 lbs, 15 oz and measured 15.75” long.  Both cried the moment they were delivered – the best sound in the world.  They are both doing quite well in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) – neither need ventilators or incubators, and we give praise to God for that!

What happened yesterday? (This is the long version of the story.)

We had our Monday afternoon appointment in Chicago rather than Crown Point yesterday.  Both girls looked good on the NST and scored perfectly on the BPP.  Part of the ultrasound included checking (what had been) a vasa previa that was first detected in Cincinnati while we were there for the surgery.  On the ultrasound, they found that the vasa previa was still there and was very prominent.  At first we thought that this simply meant that a vessel was across the cervix and that Lisa would be unable to deliver naturally.

But then we found out that it’s much more serious than that.  A vessel had grown out of the umbilical cord and had grown into the amniotic sac.  The resulting risk is that if her water (amniotic sac) were to break on its own, the vessel growing into the sac could tear.  Since this vessel is connected to the babies – it’s their vessel, not Lisa’s – a torn vessel would mean one (or both) of the babies could immediately bleed to death.  It was much more serious.

After getting checked into the hospital, we saw a steady stream of residents, doctors, senior residents, anesthesiologists, and nurses.  The more we thought about the seriousness of the situation, the more it made sense to get the babies out sooner rather than later.  The risk of death wasn’t worth the reward of a few more days of growth in the womb.  At 8:00 they scheduled a 9:00 c-section.  A flurry of activity followed.

Lisa was wheeled over to surgery while I put on scrubs, a hairnet, a mask, and booties.  I then held Lisa’s hand for a while as they worked on the delivery.  Hearing Belladia cry as she was born was incredible.  We were surprised at how BIG she looked, too!  Thankfully, I was able to take pictures of everything that was happening – to follow in a future update. =)

The c-section continued and baby Gloriana was delivered moments later.  She is little, but both girls are absolutely gorgeous.  I get tears in my eyes just thinking about them.  Incredibly our little Gloriana scored a 9/10 on the Apgar test, while Belladia scored an 8/10 – both scores are very good, as a 10/10 is nearly impossible to achieve.

While Lisa was in recovery (and snoozing) from 11 p.m. – 1 a.m., I snuck over to check out the girls in the NICU.  They each have a very small feeding tube inserted through their mouths so that they can maintain (and gain) weight.  They also each have an IV line to get preventative antibiotics into their systems.  Belladia had just a little help with oxygen, but she seemed to be doing quite well.

This morning they were both having an echocardiogram to check on the health of their hearts – we hope to find out by this afternoon whether Gloriana’s hole in the heart (VSD) has healed.  They will also both have ultrasounds on their kidneys – Belladia has had an enlarged one throughout the pregnancy, but they wanted to check out both sets of kidneys.

As of a few minutes ago, the estimated arrival time home is their due date: June 27.  I guess we’ll be hopeful that it will be sooner than that.

THANK YOU so much for all your prayers and concerns.  Before I kissed each of our girls goodnight last night, I told them that they were little miracles, that so many people have been praying for them, and that I was delighted to finally meet them.  They are precious… God is good, all the time. =)