Lisa was only 33 weeks pregnant when she went into labour with twins.

She started experiencing stomach pains and cramping, so she called her local hospital and they told her to come in. Lisa’s husband stayed home with their two other children and she made her way to the hospital alone, where everything happened quickly.

Not all hospitals are equipped to care for premature babies, so as soon as Lisa delivered her daughter, they transported her to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Humber River Hospital, 45 minutes away. She barely got to see her baby and she was gone. Lisa needed an emergency C-section to deliver her son, who they also transferred to Humber early the next morning.

Even though her twins were at another hospital, Lisa had to stay at her local hospital to recover from surgery. She ached to see them. So, as soon as she was allowed to leave, she left.

“It was so hard,” says Lisa. “I cannot begin to describe how it felt to leave the hospital without my babies.”

Lisa was only 33 weeks pregnant when she delivered twins at her local hospital. Not all hospitals are equipped to care for premature babies, so her twins were transported to Humber River Hospital’s NICU.

Three days after they were born, Lisa finally got to see Xavier and Charlotte at Humber’s NICU. They each slept in their cozy Giraffe Omnibeds, combined incubator and care stations that can be positioned in many ways, so that their care teams could access them while disturbing them as little as possible. The beds’ specialized monitors can detect even the very low respiration rates of small babies and send alerts directly to the care team’s phones.

“Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, only one of us could go in,” she says. “We fell into a routine where my husband would drive 45 minutes each way to drop me off in the morning, and make the trip again to pick me up at the end of the day. I spent 8 hours a day at the Hospital.”

At Humber River Hospital, every NICU family has a single room for privacy and bonding, so Xavier and Charlotte were always in the same room when Lisa visited. Each room opens directly into a central nursing and monitoring station so that help is close at hand.

It was an emotional roller coaster, but Lisa says the NICU staff at Humber River Hospital were amazing. They were very welcoming, and took the time to teach her how to care for her little twins.

“I am forever grateful for everything the doctors and nurses in Humber’s NICU did for our family,” says Lisa. “Our twins are now safely home and growing every day. Even though it was one of the most challenging times of our lives, we are so thankful for the care they received.”