Two Tiny Miracles and the Nurses Who Helped Them Thrive

Victoria Lyall, 25, went into spontaneous labor in the 32nd week of her pregnancy in November 2024. She knew she was at risk for this because she was carrying twins, but she didn’t think it would happen to her. She had been having a normal pregnancy, and she believed she would make it to at least 36 weeks.

So, when contractions woke the Port St. Lucie resident the morning of Nov. 3, she was a little scared. She and her husband, Colin, had their 11-month-old daughter to take care of and Victoria was nervous about premature labor and the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), both of which she says she had always been told were “terrible.”

“Because of that, I literally waited until the last minute to go to the hospital,” Victoria says.

When she and Colin arrived at Clevland Clinic Tradition Hospital, Victoria was already very far along in her labor, and it was too late for doctors to slow anything down. She needed to get ready to deliver her babies immediately.

“It was really scary,” Victoria says. “But the second I walked into the hospital I just felt so at peace. Everyone was so reassuring and calm in such a chaotic time.” She was already familiar with the hospital, having delivered her daughter Laney there almost a year earlier.

Within about five minutes of getting into the operating room Victoria naturally delivered the first of the twins – baby boy Bruce.

“It was such a beautiful, natural delivery,” Victoria says.

Shortly after, however, the second twin’s cord prolapsed (a serious complication in which the baby’s umbilical cord comes out ahead of the baby). Because of this, Victoria could not also deliver the second twin naturally.

“It felt like a whirlwind, and I was so tired, but I looked around and everybody just knew exactly what to do,” she says. “And that was so calming for me, and it just gave me so much peace.”

Because there was no time to numb Victoria sufficiently, she could not have a Cesarean section for which she could be awake. She was put under anesthesia, and her daughter Quinn was born shortly afterward. Within two hours, Victoria was wheeled to the NICU and got to meet Quinn there for the first time. She said although people often feel bad for her having to have Quinn under anesthesia, she actually loved having that experience.

“With the twins I got to deliver them both differently and they will always have that story to tell – that they came into the world in different ways,” she says.

Despite being born prematurely, Bruce and Quinn were very healthy, weighing 4 lbs., 7 oz., and 4 lbs., 3 oz., respectively, which was bigger than average for their age. They stayed in the NICU for 41 days and were released on their full-term date, Dec. 13.

“I have nothing but good things to say about our NICU staff. Not one bad experience and, truly, they are what got me through it,” she says.

Victoria and her husband would go to the NICU every day to spend time with the twins and she says she remembers walking into the hospital and being greeted “joyfully” every time by staff members.

“Walking up to the NICU just already having that positive greeting always changed my day,” she says. “It was so comforting to be greeted and remembered and supported that way.”

Though it was so hard for her to leave her babies behind at the hospital and go home every day, Victoria said she could see how the NICU nurses cared for Bruce and Quinn, and she completely trusted them. They taught her some things about caring for the newborns, which was most helpful to Victoria because having twins and having “preemies” were both new experiences for her.

She was touched by the affirmations the nurses said over the babies and by even the littlest of their victories they celebrated.

The twins are healthy and almost walking now as they approach their first birthday.

“I really think they are so healthy to this day because of the care that they received at Tradition Hospital,” she says. “It was so good for me to see how the nurses cared for them because when they were home, I was able to mimic what the nurses did, and I continued that on.”

She credits her recovery from both types of childbirth as well to the nurses who encouraged her to go home and rest and gave her the confidence that her twins were being so well cared for.

“I’m so grateful for the experience I had,” Victoria says. “The NICU can seem like such a scary place but when you have such a good team as I did, it makes it so much easier.”