My First Year with Premature Twins

October 18, 2011, By Josh Katzowitz 1 comment

Josh Katzowitz

Sometimes when I’m reading in bed or surfing the Internet—or when I just happen to be watching old highlights of the 2010 Winter Olympics—I think back to the day when everything changed.

It’s not often that your life switches so suddenly from one sundown to one sunset, from one heartbeat to the next. This, however, was one of those days, one of those moments. It was freezing outside, and my wife and I were vegging around the house on a Monday afternoon as the city shut down because of a snowstorm. Inside, we were warm and lazy and relaxed, watching the Opening Ceremonies from Vancouver and thinking about mostly nothing at all. My wife had a glass of cranberry juice on the coffee table. I had my legs stretched over the arm rest of our easy-chair.

A moment later, pandemonium. One of the sacs containing one of my twins—Stella, as it turned out—had burst at 29 weeks (in effect, my wife’s water broke) and we needed to get to a hospital as soon as possible. When I think back to that moment—even now as I’m writing about it—my mouth goes dry. I was a different person back then, didn’t really know what I was doing. I didn’t know the horror and the joy that was to await me for the next week.

My car was parked on the street, but I couldn’t move it because of the snow. Like my life at that moment, there was no traction. My wife and her big belly waited outside in the cold, the panic setting in, as I shifted into reverse and then into drive and then reverse and then drive again. I mashed the gas petal, rocking my body against the seat and willing my car to move forward. Nothing.

I stumbled to the garage, fumbled with my wife’s keys for her car and zoomed out of the driveway and into the icy street. I blew through red lights in the snow. I prayed that we wouldn’t crash on our journey. I tried to keep calm in what were some of the most intense moments of my life.

Five days later, as much as we wanted to keep the twins inside my wife’s warm, safe body—please let her make it to 34 weeks at least—the kids decided they were coming. It’s tough to describe my thoughts. Joy, worry, excitement, regret. I slipped on the scrubs that I was to wear while witnessing my newest loves entering the world. With hands shaking, I went to tie the drawstring. It wasn’t there. I searched again. Not there. I looked down, felt around the backside, and there they were. My scrubs were on backward. I took them off, tried again, and I succeeded the second time.