Kailyn Lowry Opens Up About Newborn Twins' 'Difficult' Journey in NICU

On Friday's episode of her Barely Famous podcast, the Teen Mom alum -- who welcomed premature twins with her boyfriend Elijah Scott, a boy and a girl, last year -- became emotional as she detailed the scary experience.

Lowry, 31, who confirmed the twins' birth earlier this month, said she and Scott couldn't hold their new babies until 24 hours after their birth.

"They weren't just there for a couple of days. We were there for a couple of weeks, and we learned so much about the families that are there, and some of them are there for months and months," she recalled, sharing how she was frustrated over the lack of answers regarding the twins' conditions. "I wanted to know if what I was seeing was normal."

The reality star said her baby girl -- whom she called Baby B -- struggled with feeding.

"I had never seen a baby in my life not wake up to eat or show signs of hunger," Lowry recalled. "She would just sleep through feedings. She never had any feeding cues and when I tried to feed her, she wouldn't take a bottle."

"And that was really difficult because I'm looking at him [Baby A], and I'm seeing he's in the NICU for some of the same reasons, but also he's taking a bottle, and he's having no issue with that," she continued, getting emotional. "And then she was just sleeping all the time."

The podcast host -- who delivered the twins via C-section -- added, "I cried a lot. I probably cried more with the NICU journey than the C-section stuff."

Lowry and Scott said the situation became even more difficult when their newborn son was released from the NICU, while his twin sister had to remain in the hospital.

"We had to travel back and forth, at least once a day, one of us," Scott said, to which Lowry added, "It was an hour drive there and back and when I was there, I was there for hours. And then we have six other kids. When he was discharged from the NICU, we had him at home."

The mom of seven revealed a doctor asked if she needed help after she broke down in tears while visiting her newborn baby girl.

"I said I have my own therapist, but I'm away from my infant, and my infant is away from her twin. And I feel like that in and of itself was enough for me to cry," she recalled. "And I know he didn't mean anything by it; he was covering all his legal bases, but it also felt like a punch in the gut because I felt like it was a normal reaction for me to cry."

"But in the same breath, I get it," she added, "because I've gone through postpartum depression, and so I understand, too, covering all the bases to make sure if someone does need resources... I don't think it was the way he said it but how he said it."

In addition to the twins and 1-year-old son, Rio, whom she shares with Scott, Lowry is mom to Isaac, 14, with ex Jo Rivera, Lincoln, 10, with ex Javi Marroquin, and Lux, 6, and Creed, 3, with ex Chris Lopez.

Lowry shared on the podcast that she and Scott struggled to process that their newborns were in the hospital, especially because they were also busy taking care of their other children at home.

"For me, it was [that] you couldn't be there with me in the NICU when I went," she said. "She was away from her twin; we were away from her. When we were home, we still couldn't process it because there was so much going on here. Lincoln still had his basketball games and practices. Isaac still had his after-school stuff. Lux still had what he was doing."

"I still don't even know if we've processed it," she explained. "I don't think I've processed it to this day. We went to the pediatrician yesterday, and I'm still very much concerned about so many things."

Meanwhile, Lowry went on to recall how she was concerned about her twins even after her newborn daughter came home, noting that she was worried about the babies being able to bond after time apart.

"I think that there's a big difference between the twins in terms of, because she was in the NICU by herself for so long, for so many weeks, and he was home, she's more okay by herself ... whereas we were home with him and someone was always with him, holding him and all of that," she said. "Now that she's home, I feel like my bonding experience has been so much better."

She added, "They were apart for so long that I feel like they need [to bond] ... I get worried that the NICU stay, what if it ruined their bond or put a strain on it. I'm trying to remagnetize them to get them back to where they were."

On an episode of her Barely Famous podcast earlier this month, Lowry revealed the twins' birth, and detailed the labor and delivery experience.

"I ended up delivering at 35 weeks," she said, before going on to admit that she was "terrified" to give birth via cesarean for the first time.

"I cried a lot, mainly just out of absolute fear of having a C-section 'cause I had never had a C-section before," she added. "I was terrified because I'm like, 'I just don't love this idea,' but I knew I had to do it because the baby A was breech."

Lowry confirmed that she and Scott were expecting twins during an October 27 episode of her podcast, Barely Famous, in which she revealed that the babies were conceived ahead of a March vacation to Thailand, just months after they welcomed Rio.

"I must have got pregnant right before I left," Lowry, who went on the trip without Scott, said at the time. "And I had no idea."