Call me she of little faith if you must, but when my twins were born I had little reason to believe they would live. The doctors told me it was unlikely; the internet told me the same. I needed to see that it could happen—I needed a real example of 22 weeker* twins, so I started to search. I didn’t want more statistics, I wanted a real person—and I didn’t just want a real person, I wanted a real person with twins. This was a tall order, for sure, because there aren’t that many of us.
A search on Instagram for the hashtag #22weeker twins at the time of this blog post yields only two results—neither of which are of sets of twins where both survived. In December of 2019, there was just one photo. This was not comforting, but I gave it one more try. I searched for #22weekers, and right there—in the first 9 photos—was the most beautiful set of twins I had ever seen. A blue-eyed Ema Rose and a green-eyed Luna Raquel stared back at me.
On that day I was reminded that God had done impossible things before. I was reminded to pray for impossible things.
Every time my faith would falter, I would scroll through every photo of Luna and Rosie (as I would later come to know her). I would look at where they came from and look at how far they had come, and I would keep praying for impossible things. Every nurse on our service saw pictures of the Ibarra twins during our NICU stay because I wanted to show them that, even though our hospital had never discharged a set of twins born this prematurely, it was possible.
On January 17, 2020, a month after Margot was born, I sent a message to the twins’ mama, Kayla. I told her how her story renewed my faith almost daily. That conversation was the beginning of one of the most important friendships in my life.
When you’ve been through trauma, it feels like no one can understand you unless they’ve been through the same kind of trauma. And when I did an instagram search for #22weeker twins and found two results—both of which were non-reassuring—I thought I was in this alone. Kayla made me feel like I wasn’t.
Not long after my twins were born, Kayla went full force with TwentyTwo Matters, an organization she founded to shed light on the fact that 22 weekers can survive and thrive, but only if they’re given a chance. Kayla and her team work with mothers in labor at 22 weeks (and even earlier) to get them to hospitals who will give their babies a chance. Together with her network of 22 weeker parents have put together a map of hospitals that intervene at 22 weeks.
I was given the option to intervene for my twins. Many parents—including Kayla—have to fight for it. Kayla spent four days in labor at a hospital that not only wouldn’t intervene, but wasn’t even providing Kayla adequate care. (Check out Kayla’s full story on her blog.)
Having 22 weeker twins and becoming a part of the TwentyTwo Matters community sparked something in me. For the first time in my life, I understand why awareness matters—you don’t know what you don’t know. If my doctor had told me there was nothing he could do for the twins, I may have believed him. If he had told me they weren’t viable, I would have believed him. If I had never found my second favorite set of twins on Instagram, I may not have had the faith and the stamina to get through.
My church has this saying that was started by our original lead pastor: your story told truthfully is good news to those who hear it.
I am perpetually grateful for the medical care the twins and I received and for finding another mom who had been down this road and survived it, but I know it’s not case for every 22 weeker mom. And I know there are so many people—just like me—who will believe their doctors when they say 22 weekers aren’t viable. I know there are people—just like me— who never thought about the importance of delivering at a hospital with a level three or four NICU.
And the only way those people can do better is if they know better; it’s why I tell my story—it’s we we tell our stories.
I know that my story and Kayla’s story are not the norm. But you don’t know what side of the statistic you’re going to end up on—even preemies with significant disabilities don’t rate their quality of life as any worse than full term kids with no disabilities. ( The evidence in favor of saving micro preemies, even if the people behind the medicine haven’t caught up yet. Check it out.)
*For the sake of simplicity, I call both of my twins 22 weeker twins, even though technically one is a 22 weeker and one is a 23 weeker.