When I gave birth to my premature twins, I didn’t realize how quickly our joy would turn into a terrifying nightmare. While our baby girl was quickly improving and showing strength, our little boy began to slip away. His skin turned a haunting shade of purple, and his breath began to decline rapidly. I stood there, crying beside the incubator, looking at him for what I believed was the very last time.
Suddenly, a young nurse stormed into the room. Without a word to the doctors, she tore him from the wires that were failing to keep him stable and carried him straight to his sister’s incubator. She placed him inside, skin-to-skin with his twin. Almost instantly, the girl wrapped a tiny arm around her brother. The monitors began to quiet as his heart rate stabilized and his color returned to a healthy pink. It wasn’t a machine that saved him—it was his sister’s “rescuing hug.”