Introduction

Our identical twin boys, Drake and Leo, were born 2.5 months premature on November 9, 2007. Drake was born at 8:31pm, and weighed 3 lb 10 oz, and Leo was born at 8:33 pm and weighed 2 lb 7 oz.

This is their story.

The boys are currently 3 weeks and 2 days old (33 weeks 4 days corrected gestational age), and they are currently in the neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU. Both boys are doing well, but Drake is a few steps ahead of his brother. Drake takes some of his meals by bottle now, and has been completely off oxygen for 2 weeks, while Leo isn't quite strong enough or coordinated enough to suckle, so he gets his meals by a gavage tube. Leo also needs a tiny bit of help breathing, so he has a very low-flow nasal cannula supplying just a small amount of extra oxygen to his nose. Both boys are getting stronger and bigger every day, and we expect Drake to start taking all of his feedings by bottle and for Leo to be off the cannula and to start taking some of his meals by bottle within just a couple of days.