- April 25, 2024
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Trisha Vanacore delivered her twins nearly six weeks early, at the Halifax Health Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. And she’s glad she did, she says.
BY MIKE CAVALIERE | ASSOCIATE EDITOR
It was still five and a half weeks before Ormond Beach native Trisha Vanacore was supposed to deliver her twins, but the contractions wouldn’t stop, so she headed to the hospital.
A 37-year-old, “tiny,” first-time mom, Vanacore was put on strict bed rest 26 weeks into her pregnancy. She had to stop working. She was in and out of the hospital to delay the contractions.
“But it got to a point where it was uncontrollable,” she says. “I kind of started to worry. ... I didn’t know the signs or anything.”
Sixteen hours of labor later, on March 21, she gave birth to Blake and Rylee, premature but healthy, twin brother and sister.
But Vanacore didn’t get to hold them right away.
Each with their own team of nurses, Blake was put in the Halifax Health Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for four days; Rylee was in for eight days. And although Blake was well enough to eat and breathe on his own, Rylee was hooked up to feeding and oxygen tubes.
“They kept us positive the whole time ... and everything turned out beautiful,” Vanacore said, her babies now six months old. “I have a girl and a boy and I can’t be more blessed.”
Looking back, Vanacore says, she’s actually happy her babies had to go to the ICU.
“Every three hours, they would feed them and I would go up there, and they would educate me about how to take care of them,” she said. “If I would’ve went home with two babies ... it would’ve been crazy. They taught me how to put them on a schedule. .. .They taught me a lot.”
And the staff at Halifax Health hopes to teach even new more new moms through an upcoming expansion funded, in part, through proceeds raised at next weekend’s Daytona Blues Festival.
Taking place Friday through Sunday, Oct. 11-13, at Jackie Robinson Memorial Ball Park, all proceeds from the event will benefit the neonatal ICU, as well as Project WARM, a program that pairs women to assist recovering mothers.
“One out of every eight babies is born too early,” said Halifax Health OBGYN Department Chairwoman and Chief of Staff Pam Carbiener. “Every maternity ward in Florida is delivering more infants who are addicted to the drugs their mothers took during pregnancy. Without a local, high-quality (neonatal) ICU, these babies must be transported away from their community.”
Carbiener, who also serves on the hospital board and is a festival coordinator, is currently trying to expand Halifax's options for drug-addicted pregnant women, including going through residential behavioral services from the Stewart-Marchman-Act's Project WARM.
The Halifax Health Neonatal ICU has been an institution since 1977.
Get ready to rock
The fourth-annual Daytona Blues Festival will feature 18 bands from across the country performing Friday through Sunday, Oct. 11-13, at the Jackie Robinson Memorial Ball Park. S.R. Perrott has also donated a microbrewery event on Saturday, featuring more than a dozen Florida beers, three samples of which are free with entry.
Benefiting the Halifax Health Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and Project WARM, single-day tickets to the festival are $30; three-day passes are $75; students get in for $15; and kids under 14 are free.
Other sponsors include Bright House Networks, Prime Care, Radiology Associates, Florida Health Care Plans, NASCAR and more.
Visit daytonabluesfestival.com.
