Joanna & Erick’s Story

Site created on August 6, 2018

Welcome to our CaringBridge website! We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your prayers and support as we go through our high risk twin pregnancy. 

Newest Update

Journal entry by Joanna Paradizo

Last week Erick and I moved in to our new home -- The Maternal Special Care Unit at Vanderbilt Hospital. Who thought a hospital room could feel...homey?  Ours sort of feels that way.  We’re all settled, which is good because we plan to stay here for the next eight weeks until our twin boys are born.

Two months ago we found out that our unborn twins were at risk.  They are sharing the same amniotic sac and the same placenta. (Babies are supposed to have their own.  Our boys are already learning to share.) This puts them at great risk for cord entanglement, and unequal placental sharing, among other things.  In addition to that, one of our boys, who we call Baby A, is showing multiple birth defects from the waist down.

The risk of mortality is so great that, at 24 weeks pregnant, I was admitted to Vanderbilt Hospital so the twins’ heart rates could be monitored every day.  Depending on how they are doing, they could be delivered by emergency C-section at any time.  All we can do is watch and pray, and believe that they will be fine in there, all the way up to our planned C-section delivery at 32 week gestation, which will be at the end of September.

In the mean time, we would so appreciate your prayers and support.  I am a people person, and would be blessed and strengthened by any visits or well-wishes.  Also, if you’d like to bring food to the hospital, that would be so helpful, because Erick is staying with me here too and we don’t have a kitchen.  I get hospital meals delivered, but he doesn’t, and it is getting expensive to buy meals out. Please schedule a visit on the calendar on this website if you’d like to come over.  Or if you would like to send a card you can mail it to 109 Oak Hollow Hermitage, TN 37076.

Above all, we need your prayers and faith.  We are believing for healing for Baby A, for a safe pregnancy, and for big healthy twins.  Please join with us.  We love and appreciate you!

~Joanna

"Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” - Joshua 1:9
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