Jerry Carino

@njhoopshaven

TOMS RIVER — As they waddle and wiggle and bop around the living room, you’d never know there was anything different about 18-month-old twins Aria and Natalie Kudelin. They’re cute, curious kiddies — wide-eyed and fuzzy-haired.

They’re also miracles.

Nikole Kudelin gave birth to them four months early. They came out weighing about a pound each and just 10 inches in length — the size of a tissue box. At 23 weeks, a premature newborn stands a 33 percent chance for survival. And that’s with a high risk of lifelong complications.

“I was completely terrified,” Kudelin said. “You hear that they won’t be able to walk, that they might not be able to see or hear. It’s a given that they’re going to have breathing issues.”

It’s a helpless feeling. In 2012, my daughter was born two months early, weighing 2 pounds. That’s not nearly as dire as Kudelin’s twins, but when your newborn comes out purple and is whisked away immediately, a knot settles into your stomach and stays for a while.

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We took Miriam home from the neonatal intensive care unit after two months. Aria and Natalie Kudelin stayed in Monmouth Medical Center’s for five. They say it takes three years for preemies to catch up to their peers, if all goes well, but these twins are way ahead of the typical growth benchmarks.

“It’s like a dream, almost like it’s not really happening,” Nikole said, bouncing Aria on her lap Thursday at her Toms River home. “They’re amazing. I can’t believe they’re my kids.”

These sisters obliterated the odds. They had some help.

A hopeful example

In 2000, Dana Puharic gave birth to a baby boy, Michael, whose life lasted just 83 hours. He was born with a chromosome disorder known as Trisomy 13.

The experience prompted Dana and her husband, Adam, to form Michael’s Feat, a Wall-based nonprofit that helps parents who are carrying and caring for seriously ill newborns. Their aid takes many forms, from gift baskets to gas cards to the power of a phone call from someone who’s walked in those shoes.

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“When you have a child in the NICU, you need all the support you can get,” Kudelin said. “It really makes you feel good.”

On April 1, Michael’s Feat is honoring Nikole, her husband Kyle and the twins at the nonprofit's annual gala.

“It’s an unbelievable story,” Dana Puharic said. “There are so many families out there who are not out of the woods. There’s always the hope that these little babies will thrive, and they’ve proven that.”

There’s an added twist to story. Aria and Natalie are the Kudelin’s second set of twins. The first, also girls, arrived at 20 weeks and did not survive. That was in 2012. Nikole calls them “the best possible guardian angels” for her girls.

'They are so strong'

Right after Aria and Natalie were born, the nurses wheeled Nikole’s hospital bed into the NICU “because they didn’t know what their fate was going to be,” she recalled. “It was, ‘We want you to see the babies while you can.’”

Moments like that unfold every day in hospitals. Most NICUs have private rooms where parents can spend tender, sometimes heartbreaking moments with their tiny children.

Michael’s Feat provides for and manages such rooms at CentraState Medical Center and Jersey Shore University Medical Center. The April 1 banquet, which takes place at Sheraton Eatontown Hotel, raises money to maintain them.

My wife and I spent a night in one such room with Miriam just before her discharge. She was coming home on a heart monitor, and everyone wanted to make sure we knew how to handle it.

Our girl spent eight more weeks on the heart monitor. Last month she turned 5, and while she has some residual lung sensitivities from being born early, the only daily reminder of her harrowing entry into this world is her fighter’s spirit.

I told Nikole, your twins will never back down to a challenge. She knew that already.

“The biggest thing you have to have is 100 percent faith in your baby, because they are so strong,” she said. “They look so frail and sensitive, but they’re stronger than me, stronger than you.”

For more information on Michael’s Feat, visit www.michaelsfeat.org or contact Dana Puharic at dana@michaelsfeat.org.

Carino’s Corner appears Mondays in the Asbury Park Press. Contact Jerry at jcarino@gannettnj.com.