Donovan's Story

My son Donovan is just 17 months old, has just had spinal surgery and is now wearing a halo. He is a twin. His brothers name is Dillon. My husband and I consider them our special gifts. From the very beginning of Donovans' life it seemed he had a challenge. My pregnancy was a high risk one. I had to have a special test done where they take a sample of of something, which I seem to have blocked out, memory wise, to see if there are any abnormalities. It is the test they can do before they can do an amnio. It is dangerous to the babies and I was afraid. But a previous blood test they had done indicated that there may be abnormalities. As they are doing it, we could watch them on a moniter on the wall and see where they were in the uterus. As they were making their way around to where they needed to go, the scope actually bumped one of the babies on the head! We were appalled! When the test was over and they were sure they had enough of the sample that they needed, my husband turned to me and said, "That was the most horrible thing I have ever had to experience!" At that point my jaw dropped open since I was the one who had her legs up in stir ups with a doctor exploring away inside of my body! All he had to do was hold my hand! The test results came back that everything was okay -thank God! So onward we move! The next problem was I developed gestational diabetes. We tried to control it with diet but that wasn't working. So, we added medication. As we were trying to get that to work I went into active labor. It was eight weeks too soon. I was hospitialized and they tried to continually battle the labor and the blood sugar. This went on for 2 weeks. Then one of the babies was getting larger than the other and they decided it was time to deliver them. They were delivered by c-section and were 6 weeks early, they had to stay in the NICU(neonatal intensive care unit). They needed assistance with oxygen and were getting their feedings by way of nasal tubes. It was horribly nerve racking. Although they take you through the NICU (or show it to you through the glass) before your baby is born so you can see it and have an idea of what it all may entail, it is so very different when it is your precious baby in there.