A North Carolina mother has shared incredible photos of the moment her identical twin daughters became the second most premature babies in the world to survive being born at 22 weeks.
Tracey Hernandez, 33, was out Christmas shopping on December 8, 2019, when she started feeling uncomfortable.
Just hours later, she found herself in a hospital giving birth to her twin girls, Makenzie and Makayla, who weren’t supposed to enter the world until April 9, 2020.
Doctors warned Hernandez and her fiance Anthony Pope, the girls’ father, that their babies had no chance at survival.
North Carolina mom, Tracey Hernandez, 33, has shared photos of the moment her twin daughters (left and right) became the second most premature babies ever to survive being born at 22 weeks on December 8, 2019
Hernandez said she was out Christmas shopping on December 8, 2019, when she started feeling uncomfortable. Just hours later, she found herself in a hospital giving birth to her twin girls, Makenzie and Makayla, who weren’t supposed to enter the world until April 9, 2020
Doctors warned Hernandez and her fiance Anthony Pope, the girls’ father, that their babies had no chance at survival
But they proved doctors wrong. According to a GoFundMe account set up for the Hernandez family, Makayla weighed 1 pound, 3 ounces when she was born at 7.55pm and Makenzie weighed a little less at 1 pound, 1 ounce when she was born at 8.04pm
Both infants have experienced some significant health problems with Makayla having back surgery (pictured) and Makenzie needing a surgery to close the hole in her heart
‘When I went into labor they told me the survival rate for them was zero per cent. They said that babies born at less than 23 weeks just don’t make it,’ Hernandez, who is a nurse, told the Metro.
According to a GoFundMe account set up for the Hernandez family, Makayla weighed 1 pound, 3 ounces when she was born at 7.55pm.
Makenzie weighed a little less at 1 pound, 1 ounce when she was born at 8.04pm.
Hernandez said that her girls ‘were only able to help them survive because they both came out breathing on their own’.
‘If they had struggled to breathe the doctors said they wouldn’t have been able to resuscitate. The moment I saw them gasping for air was the best moment of my life, it was such a relief,’ Hernandez told the Metro.
Since their birth, the girls have remained at Duke University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina, in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
Makayla and Makenzie are not only beating the odds against them, but they have also made history
When they were born at 22 weeks and three days, they became the world’s second most premature babies to ever survive
Hernandez is seen with one of her daughters in the neonatal intensive care unit at Duke University Hospital
Doting dad, Anthony Pope, 29, is seen holding his twin daughters at the hospital
The twins are not in the clear yet, but their parents (pictured together) are expected to take them home next month
And while the girls are proving doctors wrong, both infants have experienced some significant health problems with Makayla having back surgery and Makenzie needing a blood transfusion.
Makenzie also had to have surgery to close the hole in her heart and Makayla at one point had been battling a fungal infection.
The twins are not in the clear yet, but their parents are expected to take them home next month.
‘I am so lucky and I know it’s an absolute miracle. I feel blessed. ‘They are a creation of God and I have watched them develop outside the womb,’ their mother said.
Makayla and Makenzie are not only beating the odds against them, but they have also made history.
When they were born at 22 weeks and three days, they became the world’s second most premature babies to ever survive.
The twins who hold the Guinness World Record are Iowa siblings Keeley and Kambry Ewoldt.
The Ewoldt twins were born at 22 weeks and one day on November 24, 2018.