When people ask Kim Rugg how far apart her twin boys are in age, they expect to hear a few minutes or a few hours, not a few months. Which is why they’re so surprised when Kim tells them that her twin boys, Adam and Jayson, were born 63 days apart. How is that possible? A rare medical procedure called interval delivery. Doctors deliver one baby premature and then use medication to stop delivery so that the second child has a chance to get as close to full term as possible.
Kim Rugg says that, “When they told us they could deliver one and keep the other one in we just kind of looked at each other and said you can do that?” They could and at just five months into Kim’s pregnancy, every extra day in the womb counted. When Adam was born, four months early, he was just one pound, nine ounces. His father Darren remembers those days as terrifying – “I look back at those pictures and think about what an incredible and scary time. It blows you away.” It’s no wonder, since at one of those pictures demonstrates exactly how small Adam was, showing that his father’s wedding ring fit over his arm, all the way up to the shoulder.
Doctor’s weren’t exactly optimistic for Adam, according to Kim. “They asked us if we wanted them to resuscitate him or if we wanted to just hold him until he died.” But Adam is a fighter, and while he was fighting to live in the NICU, his brother Jayson was tenaciously hanging in side of his mother’s womb. Doctors were amazed that Kim was able to carry him for so long after his brother’s birth.
The boys are doing great, and celebrating Adam’s third birthday. Adam was on oxygen for a long time, but he’s an unstoppable ”destroyer” now. Remarkably, he’s also almost a head taller than his brother. Jayson, the quieter, “love bug” twin according to his mother, is the leader of the two-some. And Kim and Darren have been delighted to find that, despite their two month separation, the boys still have a definitely special twin connection.
