Twin Glock Girls
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This page is for Alex and Emily Glock and their new twins. These preemie girls were born at 29 weeks and are currently in the NICU at OSU Hospital. The road to get the twins here has been a tough and unexpected journey. Many weeks have already been spent in the hospital but the girls still have a couple more months before they can go home.
The family will use the money for the multiple medical bills beginning to accumulate. We appreciate any support you can give.
Please continue for their story...
In the spring, Emily and I were blessed with the news that we were having twins! At first we were thrown off. How could it be twins? Was this for real? As the Ultrasound tech confirmed there was in fact two babies growing! Our hearts started doing swirls. As much as we kidded each other about having twins, we were in fact.... having TWINS!
Little did we know that over the next 7 months things would change so drastically? Within the first couple weeks of ultrasounds, the babies started having trouble. It seemed like every ultrasound gave us more bad news. The amount of bad news started to pile up. It seemed like we weren’t getting any ‘good’ news at all.
What we did know was that both babies were alive and breathing.
Soon the monthly checks turned into weekly, then daily. Each day there was some new event added to the pregnancy. Each appointment brought another factor that turned the pregnancy into a riskier one. We ran into problems such as Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR). The complications: the babies did not having much space to move, cords were being pressed and blood backflow was occurring, the placenta was not being shared evenly and a host of other issues.
Then we got hit with the worst news possible. “Baby A might not make it”, “if not handled now, both babies can be at risk for death”. We were told this along with the diagnosis of TTTS. TTTS (Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome), is an acronym that Emily and I will have embedded in our brains forever. A brief explanation of TTTS is when the blood/fluid doesn’t go to both babies’ equally- one baby ends up with reduced amniotic fluid and the other has too much which is bad news for the health of both. In our case Baby A (Alia) was the donor baby and passing all nutrients to her sister Baby B (Erin).
Once given this prognosis by OSU, we were lost. A prognosis of a disease we knew nothing about? What do you do? What should we do? What’s the next plan of action? More questions on top of questions.
OSU sent us down to Cincinnati to be seen by the wonderful teams at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. There, Emily underwent numerous tests. Often multiple tests in one day and some even three or four times a week. It was not uncommon to have an appointment in Columbus one day, then the next day one in Cincinnati. All while trying to work around our jobs.
Then it became clear that the babies were becoming more and more affected by the TTTS. Fluid started decreasing when it shouldn’t have been. Numbers started to change when they should have stayed the same. We were told that Cincinnati Children’s Hospital would be the best place for Emily and the babies to be. This allowed the doctors to keep a close eye on them at all times. There, they would ultimately decide if we needed a lifesaving surgery for the babies. This is where the babies would have divided fates....
Emily went into the hospital in Cincinnati on October 30th and has been in the hospital ever since. The Good Samaritan hospital was our main hospital in Cincinnati with frequent trips to Cincinnati Children’s to evaluate the babies’ hearts, lungs and detailed ultrasound scans. Emily was on a monitor the majority of the time while in the hospital to help keep track of the baby’s heartbeat rates etc. Even those monitoring sessions were worrisome with every beep or long deep tone.
After weeks of detailed monitoring and ultrasound scans. The doctors told us that we were no longer surgery candidates and that the babies would now have a better chance at surviving outside the womb. Emily and I took this news as AMAZING NEWS! That same day we learned that our little miracle babies were continuing to gain weight! More great news!
After three weeks in Cincinnati hospitals, we were transferred to OSU Hospital. Now we would be closer to home and we would deliver at the hospital we wanted. There, Emily continued to be monitored around the clock and have ultrasounds every couple days to make sure the babies were still growing and moving around as expected. It was a rough ride for many more weeks.
Then, on December 8th, 2020, Alia and Erin made their MIRACLE debut! Born at 29 weeks (the norm is 40 weeks) both babies are healthy and in the NICU weighing in at 1 pound 10 ounces and 2 pounds 12 ounces. Even though they are relatively healthy, they are not out of the woods yet and they will continue to stay in the NICU for a couple more months.
We tell our story to give hope to other families out there that are enduring super high risk pregnancies. This was one of the most emotional roller coaster rides we have ever faced. We never knew so many complications can happen in one pregnancy. We faced the very real possibility of death of one or both of our girls many, many times during the last 5-6 weeks. We have shed millions of tears and asked as many questions, but one thing we NEVER did, was give up believing that we were going to have BOTH of our girls. Many of these stories do not end with two babies in the end and we are truly sorry for those families.
We want to thank all the doctors, nurses, techs, pca's ..anyone we came in contact with at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati and the Ohio State University Hospital in Columbus. This was truly a joint effort as all the hospitals coordinated together to give us the best end result.
We will be forever grateful to every single person we met along this wild journey.
Although we feel so very fortunate to have had both of our girls, we will also have many hospital bills coming in. We have both missed a lot of work and our income has dropped considerably. Emily was in the hospital for 5-6 weeks with multiple tests and High risk monitoring. Our little preemies will be in the intensive care unit for at least 2 months (providing all goes smoothly).
The family will use the money for the multiple medical bills beginning to accumulate. We appreciate any support you can give.
Please continue for their story...
In the spring, Emily and I were blessed with the news that we were having twins! At first we were thrown off. How could it be twins? Was this for real? As the Ultrasound tech confirmed there was in fact two babies growing! Our hearts started doing swirls. As much as we kidded each other about having twins, we were in fact.... having TWINS!
Little did we know that over the next 7 months things would change so drastically? Within the first couple weeks of ultrasounds, the babies started having trouble. It seemed like every ultrasound gave us more bad news. The amount of bad news started to pile up. It seemed like we weren’t getting any ‘good’ news at all.
What we did know was that both babies were alive and breathing.
Soon the monthly checks turned into weekly, then daily. Each day there was some new event added to the pregnancy. Each appointment brought another factor that turned the pregnancy into a riskier one. We ran into problems such as Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR). The complications: the babies did not having much space to move, cords were being pressed and blood backflow was occurring, the placenta was not being shared evenly and a host of other issues.
Then we got hit with the worst news possible. “Baby A might not make it”, “if not handled now, both babies can be at risk for death”. We were told this along with the diagnosis of TTTS. TTTS (Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome), is an acronym that Emily and I will have embedded in our brains forever. A brief explanation of TTTS is when the blood/fluid doesn’t go to both babies’ equally- one baby ends up with reduced amniotic fluid and the other has too much which is bad news for the health of both. In our case Baby A (Alia) was the donor baby and passing all nutrients to her sister Baby B (Erin).
Once given this prognosis by OSU, we were lost. A prognosis of a disease we knew nothing about? What do you do? What should we do? What’s the next plan of action? More questions on top of questions.
OSU sent us down to Cincinnati to be seen by the wonderful teams at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. There, Emily underwent numerous tests. Often multiple tests in one day and some even three or four times a week. It was not uncommon to have an appointment in Columbus one day, then the next day one in Cincinnati. All while trying to work around our jobs.
Then it became clear that the babies were becoming more and more affected by the TTTS. Fluid started decreasing when it shouldn’t have been. Numbers started to change when they should have stayed the same. We were told that Cincinnati Children’s Hospital would be the best place for Emily and the babies to be. This allowed the doctors to keep a close eye on them at all times. There, they would ultimately decide if we needed a lifesaving surgery for the babies. This is where the babies would have divided fates....
Emily went into the hospital in Cincinnati on October 30th and has been in the hospital ever since. The Good Samaritan hospital was our main hospital in Cincinnati with frequent trips to Cincinnati Children’s to evaluate the babies’ hearts, lungs and detailed ultrasound scans. Emily was on a monitor the majority of the time while in the hospital to help keep track of the baby’s heartbeat rates etc. Even those monitoring sessions were worrisome with every beep or long deep tone.
After weeks of detailed monitoring and ultrasound scans. The doctors told us that we were no longer surgery candidates and that the babies would now have a better chance at surviving outside the womb. Emily and I took this news as AMAZING NEWS! That same day we learned that our little miracle babies were continuing to gain weight! More great news!
After three weeks in Cincinnati hospitals, we were transferred to OSU Hospital. Now we would be closer to home and we would deliver at the hospital we wanted. There, Emily continued to be monitored around the clock and have ultrasounds every couple days to make sure the babies were still growing and moving around as expected. It was a rough ride for many more weeks.
Then, on December 8th, 2020, Alia and Erin made their MIRACLE debut! Born at 29 weeks (the norm is 40 weeks) both babies are healthy and in the NICU weighing in at 1 pound 10 ounces and 2 pounds 12 ounces. Even though they are relatively healthy, they are not out of the woods yet and they will continue to stay in the NICU for a couple more months.
We tell our story to give hope to other families out there that are enduring super high risk pregnancies. This was one of the most emotional roller coaster rides we have ever faced. We never knew so many complications can happen in one pregnancy. We faced the very real possibility of death of one or both of our girls many, many times during the last 5-6 weeks. We have shed millions of tears and asked as many questions, but one thing we NEVER did, was give up believing that we were going to have BOTH of our girls. Many of these stories do not end with two babies in the end and we are truly sorry for those families.
We want to thank all the doctors, nurses, techs, pca's ..anyone we came in contact with at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati and the Ohio State University Hospital in Columbus. This was truly a joint effort as all the hospitals coordinated together to give us the best end result.
We will be forever grateful to every single person we met along this wild journey.
Although we feel so very fortunate to have had both of our girls, we will also have many hospital bills coming in. We have both missed a lot of work and our income has dropped considerably. Emily was in the hospital for 5-6 weeks with multiple tests and High risk monitoring. Our little preemies will be in the intensive care unit for at least 2 months (providing all goes smoothly).
Organizer and beneficiary
Melinda Howell Reynolds
Organizer
Columbus, OH
Emily Glock
Beneficiary
