Double the Blessings
By Anna Cannon / Photos by Blueberry Hill Photography
For years, they prayed for at least one. They prayed that even though the doctors said it wasn’t possible, they might have a baby one day. For years, nothing seemed to be working, so for a while, they gave up.
But good things come to those who wait, and sometimes, those good things are double what you first expected.
Brooke and Todd Marshall were blessed with unexpected twins John and Luke in April. The twins were born prematurely and had to stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at CHRISTUS St. Michael Health System for several weeks, but are now home and healthy.
“I felt like this whole pregnancy wasn’t my plan; it was God’s. I wasn’t trying to get pregnant, I was old and probably wasn’t going to have more than one kid, and I guess He decided that I needed two,” Brooke said. “We had gone to see a fertility doctor about a year earlier, and he told me there was no way I would get pregnant without some help. Not only did I get pregnant, I got pregnant with twins. Everything fell into place, and we were very fortunate for it not to be planned and for everything to happen the way that it did.”
Brooke, who works at Texarkana Emergency Center, found out she was pregnant on November 10, 2016, when she had tests run at the Emergency Center to check for a stomach ulcer. Her doctor took a urine sample to determine whether or not she was pregnant before doing a CT scan. When the test came back positive, they did an ultrasound and found out that she was 3 ½ months pregnant.
“To say that I was in a little shock is an understatement!” Brooke said. “I had not been trying to get pregnant, and I knew that I couldn’t.” But she was.
Twins are always more high-risk than single babies, but Brooke’s pregnancy was especially high-risk because she was 34 at the time of conception. Her pregnancy was trouble-free at first, but she developed placenta previa and preeclampsia in the last month and was put on bed rest.
“I felt really good and thought this was the easiest pregnancy ever. I couldn’t believe I was going to have twins, and never really even felt pregnant,” Brooke said. “I had indigestion and that was about it, so whenever they told me that I needed to be on rest, I thought ‘there’s no way.’ I still felt so good that I never dreamed they would come as early as they did.”
Brooke was hospitalized twice when her health problems started showing up in the last few weeks.
“On the 27th [of March] I got the phone call from Dr. Bingham’s office saying that I did not need to go back to work,” Brooke said. “I freaked out because my desk was piled high with things I needed to do, so I begged her to let me go back to work for two days for a couple of hours each day. Instead of going back to work the next day, I ended up in the hospital, and I had a nice, four day stay at CHRISTUS St. Michael, and after my stay that time they got everything under control, and I came home for two weeks.”
At her first stay in the hospital, Brooke was given steroid shots to help develop the boys’ lungs. She was hospitalized again on April 9th, and had a C-section on April 11th.
“Her doctor came in and said, ‘You need to call your family in; it’s probably going to happen tomorrow. We’re going to do a few more little things just to make sure, but it’s probably going to be tomorrow,’” Todd said. “So we got geared up for that, and we called everybody, and they were up there the next day.”
Pregnancies with twins are rarely as long as single babies, and the Marshalls’ ideal due date was 36 weeks. However, Luke’s placenta had begun to attach to Brooke’s uterus, and he was no longer growing. If he had stayed in utero for much longer, he might not have lived.
“Dr. Bingham said she don’t know if he would have made it. Every day they were in utero now was hurting Luke, so they needed to come out,” Todd said. “She said big brother, John, might have been the one looking out for little brother because he was the reason she was in the hospital both times. It was just kind of like, oh my gosh, we’ve been thinking that we’ve got to make it to 36 weeks, and the whole time the Lord’s like no, they’ve got to come out now; you’re praying for something that’s hurting your baby that you don’t even realize. It was definitely a blessing that God was looking out for us. His will is perfect, and we have two perfect babies because of that.”
“There have been so many things we’ve seen along the way. We couldn’t have planned it better.”
Both babies were taken to the NICU right after they were born. They stayed on oxygen for less than 24 hours, which is credited to the steroid shots that Brooke received to help develop their lungs. By the time Brooke was able to visit them after her recovery, they were off oxygen and only had IVs and nasal cannulas.
“I can’t say enough good things about the NICU we have in this area,” Brooke said. “They are there 24 hours a day, and it doesn’t matter if you’re there or not, they are doing everything for your baby. Everyone said it’s going to be so emotional to leave your babies, but I knew that this is what my babies needed, and for them to come home, they had to be healthy. They made it the best experience that they could, and we are so fortunate to be able to stay in Texarkana and have that service.”
The NICU estimated that the boys would have to stay for six to eight weeks, but John came home after three and a half weeks, and Luke came home after four.
“We believe that because of everyone praying for our babies, we definitely know why they came home four weeks early,” Todd said. “Prayers change things. We know that God is definitely involved in our lives, and we’re both stronger Christians because of this.”
There’s a lot of work involved with any new baby, but the Marshalls have had double the workload with twins.
“There are days when I don’t even brush my teeth; I don’t ever do anything but hold a baby all day and feed them and change them. There are days when I look up, and I took a shower on Monday, and it’s Thursday!” Brooke said. “Life has changed as we knew it before. You know, a fun Friday or Saturday night is sitting on the couch with the babies getting their milk drunk instead of going to have dinner and drinks.”Premature babies’ immune systems are typically weaker than other babies, so the NICU advised the Marshalls to limit the boys’ contact with visitors in order to keep them from being exposed to extra pathogens.
“When a lot of people come home with babies, everybody’s flooding them with visits, but for us, we were lucky enough to have two babies,” Brooke said. “Family cannot go to the NICU without you, and you can only have two people per baby. Whenever we came home, they did not want anybody to come. They wanted us to limit our visitors and really just have our parents and immediate family.”
Even though the boys weren’t planned, the timing has worked out perfectly for the Marshalls. The boys haven’t had any more health problems since they’ve been home, and Brooke’s mother and brother have been able to stay with them and help out.
“There have been so many things we’ve seen along the way. We couldn’t have planned it better. If we took a book and wrote down ABCD in this order, we couldn’t have done it as well as it’s worked out,” Todd said. “We know that God has had His hand in this. Stay faithful. Keep trusting the Lord because He’s going to take care of you. You learn as you go, and we make it work. We can’t imagine our life without them now. It is hard, but it’s so worth it.”
