despite being premature, the boys are in remarkably good shape. nicole and christian decide to name them jadon and anias. their names mean god heard and god answered. heard and answered the daily prayers for their survival. we felt like god was already with us and really had been with us. but then anias begins to struggle. breathing issues, vision problems, heart failures, even seizures. it takes four rocky months to stabilize the twins. february 2016, they are finally ready to go home. you re going home. you re going home. while every new parent has a steep learning curve oh, yeah, you shake that, jadon. the mcdonalds is steeper than most. just to move the boys takes two, one adult holding each baby in
hi, baby. jadon has come a long way. he s moving, talking, back, nicole says, to his pre-surgery self. jadon is now even more rambunctio rambunctious, and he loves everybody. like he smiles at everybody. he wants to play with everybody. he s got 900 girlfriends on the tenth floor. he s out of control. anias has not come as far. it s okay. nobody s here to touch you but me, in a nice way. no pain. when you understand what s happened in the last month, you ll understand what s going on here. anias is sadly still shy and reserved, but now has this fear component because every time people approach him that aren t our family, it s a pain thing. anias continues to fight
he is ready for something his parents had only dreamed of. he can be picked up and cuddled for the first time. it s as if nicole sees him for the first time. as a mother, you know when you hold your child, you know every bit of their face. well, his face also encompassed anias . so it was my first moment of relearning his face. when he looked up at me for the first time in that way, i got to see that he was reassured, and he was comforted in my arms, which is something i was scared o of. i was scared he didn t want to be held because they had never been held. he melted in, and it was wonderful. i just couldn t stop talking to him and telling him how beautiful he was and how strong he was and how proud of him i am.
ideal number. by spring 2015, the dream is progressing nicely. married with one child, asa, nicole is pregnant again. but something is different this time around. we went for a jog when i was four months pregnant, and we got halfway, and i said, something s wrong. what did you think at that time? i just thought, well, you know, she s pregnant. maybe she s getting older. but nicole is only in her late 20s, healthy, physically fit, what we doctors call low risk. on may 20th, 2015, she gets her first routine ultrasound. what she hears comes as quite a surprise. two heartbeats. and within ten seconds, she goes, huh, there s two babies in here. and i go what?
dozen operations. sweet boy. a result he hopes for with jadon and anias, and there s no time to lose. if you don t get them separated by 3, you ve kind of lost that window. the mcdonalds know the clock is ticking. are you my little munchkin? but just looking at their twins, this he appear to be thriving just the way they are. laughing, singing, even fighting over toys just like all siblings do. i know. anias is playing with it. for nicole, they re perfect. they looked at me like their mother. they they reached for my face, and they they did everything a baby that age would do, except they were stuck. they were individually perfect, and i knew that cutting through