Our experience with CMC started with fertility treatments at the Women's Institute in 2007. We got pregnant after 4 cycles of IUI. After 8 weeks we found out we were pregnant with twins. At around 16 weeks we were told that 1 of the babies was growing much slower than the other. We began seeing a specialist, also at the Women's Institute. At around 25 weeks, I was hospitalized at CMC-Main with pre-Eclampsia. I stayed in the hospital for a little over a week before the doctors said that I had had to have an emergency C-Section. I was 26 weeks pregnant. On September, 29, 2008, our twins were born. Aaron weighed 1 lb. 8 oz. His twin brother Brady was only 9 oz. and died in Julius' arms, just a few minutes after birth. He was too small to be put on machines.

Aaron was rushed to the NICU, where he was put on a ventilator for 1 day, then graduated to the C-PAP machine, he was on that for another couple of weeks before finally being moved to the nasal canula. Aaron was on some form of oxygen for over 2 months. He spent a little over a month in the NICU. He had to have 2 blood transfusions and he had quite a bit of back and forth with the amount of food he was tolerating. He also suffered from many episodes of Bradycardia. He was transferred to the Progressive Care Nursery on November 7. He did really well in the Progressive nursery. He just needed to grow, learn to eat from the bottle, and be weaned off the oxygen. Aaron came home from the hospital on Christmas Eve. He weighed 5 lbs. 5 oz. when he came home. He was the best Christmas present we could ever ask for. He did come home on an Apnea monitor, but we never had any issues once he was home. Aaron has done remarkably well thanks to the care he received at Levine Children's Hospital.

We were set up by the hospital with the Mecklenburg County Early Intervention Program, because Aaron was so small at birth. They wanted to follow his progress. He was just released from the program by our Specialist because his test scores are that of a normal 2 year old. They told us that he was their smallest baby ever that did not require any services from them. We attribute that to the excellent care Aaron and I both received at CMC.