Hannah and Harper were due on February 14th, 2025, and they arrived November 29th, 2024. They were 11 weeks early!

Hi, my name is Gracie Littau, and I am the mother of the Hansen twins. My family includes my fiance Brady, my stepson Waylon, and our daughters Mallory, Hannah, and Harper. We also have a pitbull named Louie. After having our first daughter in October of 2023, Brady and I found out I was pregnant with twins the following summer. We were excited but had no idea how this would impact our lives. We sat down to make a plan for our future and decided that we needed to find a new place to accommodate our growing family. Since we lived in a 2-bedroom rental, our plan was to find a house right away, in order to have enough time before the twins arrived to fix it up together. We would both work full-time jobs and work on the house until the delivery date. We decided to look at houses to purchase and found a fixer-upper in a nearby town. We were so excited to move in the last weekend of October and give this house the TLC it needed before the girls arrived. The appointment with my specialist, the Wednesday before moving into our new home, wouldn't go quite as planned though. On October, 23rd, we found out I would have to move to the opposite side of the state that weekend for inpatient treatment until our babies wanted to make their entrance via caesarian section. For 2 days, I packed and moved as much as I could, but the majority of the work fell to my fiance. The next day I drove to Sioux Falls to be monitored as Brady worked a full-time job, took care of our 1-year-old, and worked on the house. We soon figured out we would not have the time to get the house ready for the twins with this schedule. Our families quickly offered to help. Our 1-year-old, Mallory, has had to stay with family members who could help in order to give Brady enough time to focus on the house and eliminate some stress. Since we were expecting to deliver in February, I had almost no paid personal leave built up to take this time off. Our families' benefits are also through my job, so since I have no leave built up, payments are coming out of our savings account. This makes for a very stressful time for our family. 

During the first week of my hospital stay, we celebrated Mallory's 1st birthday. The day after, I almost delivered and had to be continuously monitored. After 34 days of being away from home and in the hospital, on November 29th, we met Hannah and Harper. They were born at 2lbs 2oz and 2lbs 4oz, just slightly bigger than my hand. My mother lived close enough to make it just in time for my delivery. My fiance drove almost 6 hours to meet me in recovery. Needless to say, we got almost no sleep that night. Since then, my fiance had to go back to work, and I'm spending my maternity leave at the NICU as much as possible. We have had ups and downs with anemia, tachypnea, and weight gain, just to name a few. With everything going on, we can't wait to be back living together as a family again in our new home. With financial help, we will be able to spend more time focusing on the health, love, and support our little girls need and deserve. It will also help relieve stress during this unexpected time in our lives.