In The Blink Of An Eye

Toughest Decision

When my mom and dad found out they were having not only one but two babies at a very young age, they panicked as most teenagers would do. They didn't know what to do or how to handle the situation. As stressful as it was they were happy and excited to become parents. Without the help of their parents, they were forced to make decisions and come up with solutions all on their own. As each day passed and my mom and dad became more aware of what they had gotten themselves into, the harder things got. As if it wasn't hard enough being all alone and now expecting two babies, things got worse.

During one of the routine ultrasounds my mom had, she received the news that me and my brother weren't growing the way we were supposed to. There were complications that arose which led to one of the babies not getting enough oxygen in order to continue to survive.

As you can imagine, my parents were faced with the toughest decision of their lives. Either they save one baby and kill the other one, or they try and save both babies with the risk that we would both die. As a parent how do you ever make that kind of decision? No matter what decision they made, they felt like they were on the losing end because either way it was bad news. Not being able to pick between their own children, they made the decision to try and save us both. The doctors and nurses warned them of the possible complications but they had made up their minds and nothing was going to change it.

Some would call it luck and others might say that it was just meant to be, but my mom carried us both to 30 weeks. At that stage of pregnancy the babies rate of survival is as high as 95%. However, things get more complicated and those survival rates go down with twin pregnancies.

Both my brother and I had to be placed in the NICU for a couple of weeks. It is said that female babies do better as preemies than male babies which ended up being the case for us. I was the stronger and heavier baby out of the two of us. I started breathing on my own much faster than my brother did and I got taken out of the NICU sooner than he did as well. My parents had multiple scares with my brother as he would stop breathing and got infections a couple of times that he had to be treated for. As you can imagine, the stress of going in and out of hospital and watching if your children were going to survive another day was very stressful on my parents, not to mention all those hospital stays cost a lot of money. Since I got out of the NICU sooner than my brother, my parents had more time to connect and spend time with me one on one than they did with him.

Finally, when we were both out of the NICU my parents realized that as much as they wanted to take both of us home and care for both of us, it was impossible. They were both young, all on their own and now all the medical bills were stacking up with them being unable to pay. It was at this time that my parents had to make one of the most difficult and heartbreaking decisions of their lives, they decided to choose between my brother and I and put the other baby up for adoption.

As I mentioned earlier I was much more healthy and came out of the NICU sooner, my parents spent more time holding me and taking care of me then they did my brother. So... when the time came for them to make the decision, they chose to take me home and put Brayden up for adoption.

They had done that in order to be able to provide my brother with a better life then the one they knew they couldn't give him at the time.

Of course, things weren't easy. They spent many days and nights crying and wishing that things were different. Every time they would look at me they would think of Brayden and their hearts would break. Now...they weren't the only ones who were having a hard time. As it turns out, Brayden didn't get to be one of those lucky babies that gets adopted by an amazing family. Actually, as my parents found out after many years, Brayden never got adopted. My parents had tried contacting the agency and asking to have my brother back but they always told them that he was already adopted and that it was illegal for them to ask for my brother back. Being teenagers themselves, they believed it. However, when they found out that my brother had never been adopted and instead got moved from one foster home to the next, they broke down and hated themselves for not trying to find him sooner.