HereCare – Rory & Vivi’s Story

On August 15, Brittni woke up in pain and found that she was spotting. Brittni was seven months pregnant with twin girls so she and her husband, Alan, raced to the closest emergency room. 

Upon arriving, they learned that Brittni was in labor. Due to a known complication with one of the twins, Brittni needed a C-section. At 8:47am and 8:48am, Brittni and Alan’s twins, Rory and Vivi, were born at 31 weeks and four days.

While Brittni recovered from her C-section, the twins were transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Dell Children’s. Four days later, on the same day Brittni was discharged from the hospital, Rory and Vivi were transferred from the NICU at Dell Children’s to the NICU at Ascension Seton Williamson.

Days after their birth, Brittni and Alan finally got to hold the twins and Brittni got to be with her babies for the first time.

“It was rough to have the babies in the NICU. These are our first kids so we didn’t have anything to compare the experience to, but everyone was extremely nice. The nurses made it all better,” said Brittni.

Both of the girls were struggling to eat and had to have feeding tubes. Vivi was also having issues with episodes of a sudden drop in heart rate. Brittni and Alan found it really hard and scary to leave the girls, but as they got to know the nurses and built relationships with them, they knew they could trust them to provide the best care to their girls.

“I always felt welcome and like I could ask any question I wanted. Sometimes, we would wake up in the middle of the night and call to check in on the girls and they would always reassure us that they were doing well,” Alan said.

After three months in the NICU, Brittni and Alan got to bring Rory and Vivi home. Rory had a nasogastric (NG) tube for feeding until she was able to take her bottle consistently. Changing the NG tube regularly was really taxing on not only Rory, but Brittni and Alan as well. A few months after leaving the NICU, Rory went an entire weekend feeding solely from her bottle and Alan was able to remove the NG tube for good.

The girls had many follow-up and specialist appointments post-discharge, but they are doing well and their personalities are shining! 

Brittni and Alan describe Rory as having “a big personality” and Vivi as being “laid back and go-with-the-flow.” Both twins are full of laughter and very social, which Brittni and Alan think is at least partially due to all the interaction they had with nurses in the NICU.

Brittni and Alan still keep in touch with the girls’ nurses and occasionally take them to visit the NICU. “There’s no words – the nurses were amazing. We were learning how to be parents and to advocate and they supported us in that and helped us get to a point where we were comfortable saying yes or no to different things,” Brittni shared.

“I don’t think we could have imagined a better situation,” said Alan.

Published: October 21st, 2024