On January 30, our handsome twin nephews were born!

Sometimes life's blessings come before you're quite prepared to receive them. That was the case for my Brother and Sister-in-law when they gave birth to their twins two months early. 

Many friends and family have offered to help in many ways, which is very much appreciated. At this time, the greatest need for the family is financial. Amanda will be staying at the NICU with the twins and Alec will be offering support in various places - in the NICU, with Owen - and won't be available for full time work. Help covering medical, travel, and food expenses would benefit their family greatly at this time and help alleviate stress as they focus on the health of the twins, Archer and Ethan. If you continue to check-in on the GoFundMe page, we will do our best to update everyone with the twins' progress. 

Here is the story of Archer and Ethan told by Alec and Amanda:

We found out God was blessing us with twins in September 2019. Being a twin pregnancy, it automatically qualified as "high-risk", meaning Amanda and the twins would need additional monitoring. Of the types of twins, Archer and Ethan were "mo-di" - they were in separate sacs, but shared a placenta. In late October, at a routine Ultrasound appointment, we discovered they had a unique condition called Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome. This meant that one twin was "donating" fluids and nutrients to the other twin through their shared placenta, leaving one twin dehydrated and with lack of nutrients for proper growth and the other twin with an overload of fluid that can cause organ failure. We immediately started to visit the wonderful, highly knowledgeable Doctors at Evergreen Maternal-Fetal Medicine in Kirkland twice a week so they could monitor the situation.

By November 11th, the negative consequences of Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome had progressed to the point of Amanda and the twins needing inter-uterine surgery.  Although scary and stressful, there was no question as to whether or not to get the surgery. Without surgery, the chance of the twins' demise was 80-90% and if they did survive without surgery, they most likely would have physical and mental disabilities. With the surgery, the statistics flipped, and the chance for survival of one or both of the twins was 80-90%. On the morning of November 12th, Amanda underwent Laparoscopic Laser Photocoagulation and Amnioreduction to correct the imbalance of fluids. Doctors placed a thin camera and laser into Amanda's uterus and used the laser energy to "burn or sever" the shared connections on the placenta. They also drained 1.7 liters of excess fluid. The surgery went great and the twins went back to weekly monitoring. As things stabilized, we had our eyes set on the date of our scheduled C-section and were slowly marching towards it.

But in the middle of the night on January 30th, Amanda woke to find she had been bleeding. Paramedics rushed Amanda to St. Joe’s Hospital in Bellingham where they informed her that she was having a placental abruption (when the placenta pulls away from the uterine wall) and that they were going to have to perform an emergency C-section.  The surgery went well and Amanda, Archer, and Ethan all did as amazing as the medical staff that surrounded them. Just a couple hours later, both Archer and Ethan were delivered to UW Medical Center in Seattle - Archer via ambulance and Ethan by plane. The twins were born at 32 weeks gestation and require both respiratory and feeding support as their brains and nervous systems continue to grow and develop. This means they will be living in the UW NICU for the next 6-8 weeks.

Thank you for your love, prayers, and support.