Real Life, Real Health in Ventura County

“I started to bleed a little bit,” Leslie continues. “I was afraid I was going to lose the baby.”

Dale rushed his wife to Community Memorial Hospital. “Luckily the ultrasound looked good,” Leslie shares, adding, “Then the technician said, ‘Wait a minute . . . there’s two!’ We went from thinking I might be having a miscarriage to knowing we were going to have twins.”

Dale interjects, “In just a few seconds we went from a real low to a real high.”

The roller coaster ride of emotions, however, was just beginning. More dips, curves, lows and life-and-death worries lay ahead.

On a Sunday night in early May, two-and-a-half months before the twins were due, Leslie’s water broke. “We were shocked and confused. It was too early in the pregnancy,” says Dale, who at 1 a.m. rushed his wife of nearly six years to CMH. “It hit me square between the eyes: something’s terribly wrong. I was worried sick.”

“I hadn’t had any contractions yet,” explains Leslie, who was only 30 weeks into her pregnancy - a dangerous 10 weeks shy of the full 40-week gestational age. “They wanted to hold the contractions off and delay delivery as long as possible. Every day you can wait is important for the babies’ health. We were hoping to keep the girls in there for a month . . . but the girls had other plans.”

Twenty-four hours later, on May 9, Leslie’s contractions came on quickly and intensely. She immediately underwent an emergency cesarean section. Ella Rose was delivered first by Dr. Terry Cole at 2:03 a.m. weighing three pounds, one ounce. Anna Marie – “We call her our ‘Bonus Baby’ because we were planning on three kids,” shares Leslie – was one minute behind, coming into the world at two pounds, eight ounces. Both critically ill preemies went directly into CMH’s highly regarded Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

“At that point it was so risky because they we’re so young,” Dale says. “There were so many unknowns. It was extremely emotional. I was not only worried about the babies, I was worried about my wife.”

Indeed, Leslie wasn’t well enough to see her premature twin daughters until 20 hours later at 10 p.m. “I was in a wheelchair in the NICU,” she recalls. “It was traumatic to see them so small with so many tubes and wires on them.”

On a positive note, neither Ella nor Anna ever required a ventilator, for which Leslie credits CMH’s expert doctors. “Right when I got to the hospital they gave me steroid shots 12 hours apart to help develop the babies’ lungs. It worked because both girls were on room air right from the get-go, which was reassuring.”

However, as with many preemies so young, both twins had heart conditions. “When they talk about a heart problem, that really scares you,” Dale says, his voice filled with emotion three months later.

Specifically, Ella experienced patent ductus arteriosus, a condition in which a small blood vessel near the heart doesn’t close. If medication fails to correct it, surgery is required. “That was extremely stressful,” Dale says of waiting to see if an operation would be required. Fortunately, the medication worked.

Anna, meanwhile, was born with a tiny “hole” in the wall between the two lower chambers of her heart. “They think it will close by itself, maybe within a year,” explains a hopeful Leslie, noting the condition is being carefully monitored by a pediatric cardiologist. On top of this, Anna also experienced an infection that required antibiotics.

Dale, understandably, didn’t leave the hospital for the first five days and nights. (Leslie’s sister Erica, who serendipitously was visiting from Utah, cared for three-and-a-half-year-old Cole and two-year-old Tanner.) “I found a really cozy chair to sleep in,” Dale says.

Truth is, sleep was hard to come by because he was so worried.

“Like I said, it was an emotional roller coaster,” Dale continues. “They’d have a good day and the next day something is wrong. The next day things look better; then it’s something else. It was up and down so fast for the first couple of weeks. After I went home, I’d still visit twice every day but that doesn’t stop the worrying. Nighttime was the hardest. First thing in the morning I’d rush to the hospital to see how they were doing.”

Often, Dale would nervously phone the NICU to get the latest report before going to the hospital. “You always fear the worst,” he confides.

Both parents praise NICU Medical Director Dr. John van Houten, Dr. Bengt-Ola Bengtsson and the rest of the dedicated and attentive staff that provided expert around-the-clock care.

“They were great at telling us what was happening every step of the way and at the same time trying to reassure us,” says Leslie.

“As stressful as it was, it was reassuring to know we have such a great NICU right here in our community,” adds Dale, who grew up in Ventura and Oxnard, and has two sets of grandparents with local roots.

Even as the twins’ condition greatly improved, the roller coaster ride of emotions was far from over. “Seeing babies leave the NICU and go home was a mixed emotion,” explains Dale. “It’s hard because your babies aren’t ready, but you feel good too. It made us realize our day would come.”

Yet when that homecoming day arrived after two months in the hospital – July 3 for Ella, who now weighed five pounds, eleven ounces, and July 7 for Anna, who was up to five pounds, five ounces – it brought another emotional dip.

“Bringing them home was actually very hard,” Dale recalls, adding sadly: “The day before we brought Ella home, a twin born the day after our girls, died. That hits you hard. You realize how fragile the girls really are.”

Adds Leslie: “It was scary, but the doctors and nurses reassured us they wouldn’t send the babies home if they weren’t ready – and if we weren’t ready to care for them.”

Leslie quickly surprised herself. Actually, the “Bonus Baby” did. “Anna had never nursed in the hospital,” Leslie shares, “but her first feeding at home she started nursing. We truly feel blessed.”