Tiny Twins Go Home for the Hollidays

Norman and Lola Holliday are blessed with a heart-stopping sense of timing.

They were born during their 25th week in the womb of their mother, Jan Holliday, just one week past the time that doctors consider premature babies to be viable.

After beefing up by a couple of pounds and recovering from a host of critical illnesses, the pair were ready Monday for discharge from Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center in Fountain Valley, just in time for Christmas.

“That was Jan’s prayer ever since they were born--she wanted them home for Christmas,” said the baby’s father, a computer specialist who asked that his first name not be used. “When we think of Christmas, 1996 will stand out in this family.”

The Holliday family will spend part of Christmas Day performing what they plan to make a yearly tradition--visiting the neonatal intensive-care unit to see the nurses who have cared for the babies since they were born Aug. 24, weighing 1.7 and 1.8 pounds. Each year, they will show the hospital staff how well the babies are doing, Holliday said.

Norman and Lola still appeared tiny Monday, even at their newly attained weights of 5.14 and 5.7 pounds respectively, while they nestled inside some bright red Christmas stockings the nurses had given them.

“They had to go through many hurdles to get to this stage,” said Jagdish S. Bhatt, their neonatologist.

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Lola nearly did not survive that first August night, her father said. At midnight, she stopped breathing. Doctors asked the parents if they wanted the life-sustaining machines turned off, but just then the infant’s fingers brushed her mother’s hand and the parents opted for a chance at life.

“I cry and I pray to the Lord,” said Jan Holliday, a Thai native who came here with her husband three years ago and still speaks little English. “I really, really pray.”

The babies wore minuscule diapers for the first weeks. Norman needed intestinal surgery but doctors had to wait two months for him to reach a safer 2-pound threshold.

If they had been born 15 or 20 years ago, they probably would not have survived, Bhatt said, but with modern technology they were given a 70% chance of survival.

Neonatal experts agree that before the 24th week, a fetus’ lungs are too undeveloped for the baby to live. But with the use of artificial fluids for the lungs, and with medical technology that has evolved over the last few years, babies weighing as little as 1.2 pounds can be saved, said Sudeep Singh, a neonatologist at Children’s Hospital of Orange County.

Monday, Singh had his own Christmas-time visit from a pair of twins he helped save about a year and a half ago. “It was such a joy to see them,” he said.

Only three weeks before the Holliday twins were born did the parents learn that their first baby was going to be two babies.

Then, when Jan Holliday went to her doctor for a scheduled checkup, he found that she already was showing signs of early labor. Doctors unsuccessfully tried to stop the early birth, and the Hollidays were thrown into the frightening world of neonatal specialists, intensive-care incubators, monitoring devices and life-threatening ups and downs.

“I was shocked,” Holliday said. “The baby’s whole body could sit in my hand. All my life I’ve seen babies but they always weighed 5 pounds or so. . . . It was awfully emotionally draining. It’s still very hard.”

The hospital bills have mounted at about $2,000 per day per baby, and will total $250,000 to $300,000 each once visiting nurses and check-ups are added in. But that is one topic that makes Dad smile. He is thoroughly insured by his employer.

“Boy, that’s the best buy I ever made,” Holliday said of his insurance. “People talk about real estate deals they’ve made and General Motors stock they bought, but I talk about my insurance.”

When the day came for the couple to take the babies to their Cypress home, they were prepared.

The nurses had taught Jan Holliday what to feed the twins, how to hook up Lola’s breathing monitor and how to administer CPR. The nurses had to be sure that instructions about medication and other necessities were understood, so they would call a Thai-speaking AT&T; operator and hold mini-telephone conferences with the mother.

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Despite all the hours of preparation for the big moment, though, the nurses found saying goodbye a painful task.

“It’s very hard,” said Roberta Sahlin, a nurse in the babies’ intensive care unit. “We get real attached to our babies.”

All the nurses gathered around the young family Monday, surprising the parents with the gift of a double stroller.

Jan Holliday’s gratitude spilled into tears as she cradled the babies and thanked the nurses, who were quickly wiping their eyes.

“I say thank you Jesus, I say thank you the Lord,” she said. “I thank you the nurses and I thank the doctors.”