John Godwin revealed that his daughter gave birth to his twin grandchildren but they were hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
The Duck Dynasty star, 62, said his daughter Johanna Mata gave birth to twin daughters Cassandra and Isabella, but the babies were being taken care of in the hospital.
‘They’re here too early,’ Godwin shared on his Duck Call Room podcast in an episode released on Thursday, January 1.
He said that his daughter and her partner Cecilio Mata were ‘awful anxious’ to bring their twin babies home. The new parents have since brought their twins home.
‘They’re in the best place they could be right now,’ he told his cohosts as he also updated fans before reflecting on becoming a grandfather.
This comes shortly after another Duck Dynasty star, Jessica Robertson, became a grandparent too when her daughter Priscilla welcomed her first child at age 19.
John Godwin revealed that his daughter gave birth to his twin grandchildren but they were hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU)
He explained that prior to the expected due date, his daughter had high blood pressure and was briefly hospitalized before having to go into surgery to deliver her babies early.
She was placed on a 24-hour watch for preeclampsia, a pregnancy condition that can cause serious complications for the mother and the baby.
Preeclampsia ‘usually begins after 20 weeks of pregnancy in women’ and requires ‘careful monitoring and medications to lower blood pressure and manage complications,’ according to the Mayo Clinic.
The defining feature is ‘high blood pressure, high levels of protein in urine that indicate kidney damage (proteinuria), or other signs of organ damage.’
Godwin recalled getting an early morning update from her daughter after she was told the babies were coming early.
‘She calls at 5:30 the next morning [and] said, “Y’all need to get up here, y’all fixin’ to have grandkids.” I said, “OK.”‘
He said he drove ‘over the speed limit a little bit’ while trying to get him and his wife Paula Godwin to the hospital as quickly as possible, but when they got to the hospital, Johanna had already gone into the operating room.
‘Paula looked at me, and she’s done, pointing down the road. She hit the flasher button, and I mashed on it,’ he recalled. ‘And we got there in 40 minutes.’
The Duck Dynasty star, 62, said his daughter Johanna Mata gave birth to twin daughters Cassandra and Isabella, but the babies were being taken care of in the hospital
‘They’re here too early,’ Godwin shared on his Duck Call Roompodcast in an episode released on Thursday, January 1
He said that his daughter and her partner were ‘awful anxious’ to bring their twin babies home
He continued: ‘We got there, and she was gone five minutes, they done took her back there.’
Johanna gave birth to Cassandra on December 19 at 9:24 a.m. while Isabella arrived ‘a few minutes later,’ she shared in an Instagram post, revealing that the babies weighed five pounds, six ounces and four pounds, 11 ounces, respectively.
He said that Johanna gave birth to the twins safely but she ‘had to have magnesium’ and was ‘pale for a couple of days.’
‘She didn’t even get to hold them for a day and a half,’ he recalled. ‘Yeah, it was tough.’
On Monday, January 5, Godwin’s daughter Joanna shared an Instagram post revealing that she was finally able to bring her twin daughters home.
‘What. A. Day!!!! I never thought this is where we would be. Laying in bed at 1 AM, our girls asleep next to us, and never being happier,’ she wrote in a caption of her and her partner holding their baby girls.
‘They’re in the best place they could be right now,’ he told his cohosts as he also updated fans before reflecting on becoming a grandfather
He said he drove ‘over the speed limit a little bit’ while trying to get him and his wife Paula Godwin to the hospital as quickly as possible, but when they got to the hospital, Johanna had already gone into the operating room
‘It has been an emotional roller-coaster and we are so glad to be off of that wild ride and on to better things,’ she added.
‘Welcome home my girls! We have prayed hard and the Lord has heard our prayers!’
Previously, she shared an update on Sunday, December 28 and said her twin daughters were ‘both off cpap, light blankets and feeding tubes.’
Alongside a closeup photo of the newborn babies, she wrote in the caption of her Instagram post: ‘We are working on eating and gaining weight, and monitoring their oxygen and hearts as they learn to do all the things they need to do to come home.
‘They are excelling in everything and we are hopeful that maybe we are looking at coming home very soon!’
On his podcast, when asked about what name he decided for himself, Godwin said he was thinking about having his grandchildren call him Duck like his niece and nephew do.
‘Carly couldn’t say Paula so she called her Paco, so that’s what all the kids call Paco. And they called me Duck.’
