Katie Dominy knew she was expecting twins before she went to Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital Monday morning, Jan. 18, but she didn’t realize until she got there that she was going to have company.
Dominy, 29, gave birth Monday, in a scheduled C-section procedure, to daughters Sydney Lora, at 8:52 p.m., and Ellie Kay a minute later.
Then, the next day, in what a hospital spokesman said is an event so usual that no one at the small rural hospital could remember it happening before, another pair of twins arrived.
Catherine Thomas, also of Sweet Home, had two boys €“ Caleb Liam Wyatt, born at 10:04 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 19, and Conner Lee Robert, born 10 minutes later.
“It hasn’t happened in recent memory,” said hospital spokesman Ian Rollins Wednesday of the double-double. “It’s always exciting to have twins. We’re glad the moms and babies are doing well.”
Dr. Alan Blake delivered both sets.
“I deliver one (set) every few years but I’ve never had two in one week,” he said. “That was pretty cool.”
Sydney weighed in at 6 pounds, 9 ounces, and was 19 inches long, while Ellie was the same length but measured 5 pounds, 4 1/2 ounces. They were born two days short of 37 weeks, Dominy said.
Caleb was 6 pounds, 1 ounce and measured 19 1/2 inches, while Conner was 6 pounds, 12 ounces and 20 inches long. The boys arrived in 36 weeks, four days, their mother said.
Dominy, who works as a certified medical assistant at Sweet Home Family Medicine, said she was aware that Thomas was also pregnant with twins through her job, but she didn’t learn until she arrived at Samaritan that Thomas was expected to give birth as well.
Thomas said her dark-haired boys came with a bit of drama that forced her to spend three weeks at Sacred Heart Regional Medical Center after going into premature labor, and then had to be on bed rest for the next two weeks before doctors decided to induce her last week.
“The ultrasound tech put me into labor,” she said.
Her mother, Leslie Lewis, said Thomas, 20, went into labor on the way home from her doctor’s appointment in Springfield.
“We rushed her here,” Lewis said. “Then they rushed her back (to Eugene) in the ambulance, going 85 mph.”
Lewis said the boys are identical twins, but Katie Dominy and her husband Cliff believe their daughters are likely fraternal, meaning they shared the womb but not the same placenta.
Having twins wasn’t a complete surprise for the Dominys, who said Katie’s cousin gave birth to a set of identical twin boys last year and her grandmother had fraternal twins, a boy and a girl.
“We’d talked about it,” said Cliff Dominy, who works at the Sweet Home Les Schwab store.
But Thomas and her mother said hers were a surprise.
“It was a big shock,” Lewis said, adding that Thomas had thought she was pregnant, then discovered she wasn’t before the twins came.
“I teased her about that,” Lewis said. “I said, ‘You know you’re going to have twins.’
“They’re a blessing.”
The boys’ father. P.J. Handy, missed their birth because he couldn’t leave his job at Ti Squared Technologies in Sweet Home, Lewis said. But “he made a direct line to the bassinet when he got here.”
Handy was home taking care of the couple’s two older sons, Brendan, 3 1/2, and Aiden, 1 1/2, during a reporter’s visit at the hospital last week.
Maternal grandparents of the Dominy twins are Sandie and Darryl Brown of Sweet Home; paternal grandparents are George and Suzanne Dominy.
The Dominys have a 4 1/2-year-old, Christian, who had been “a little bummed” when he learned the twins would be girls, but seemed pretty content once they arrived.
“Seeing them was kind of cool,” Cliff Dominy said of his son’s reaction. “They’re not in Mommy’s tummy any more. They’re ours. He’s saying ‘I want to pet my sisters.'”
“It’s exciting now,” his mother said. “He’s been kissing them, helping to feed them.”
Cliff Dominy said raising twins will be “interesting and a challenge.
“I was just bringing the car seats in and I said ‘oh geez.'”
Both girls were crying in their hospital room and both needed a change at the same time. He said they’d just have to work out a system and the babies would just have to wait their turn.
Katie Dominy said their family is “complete” with the twins.
“We’re done,” she said.
“Unless, unexpectedly, God wants us to have something else,” her husband added, with a grin.