It was, Dennis Quaid remembers, “the worst day of our lives.”

“We could see them working on the kids,” Quaid says.

“It was chilling.”

“Initially, I felt this really couldn’t be happening,” the actor remembers.

“Then I felt fearand helplessness.”

Dennis and Kimberly went to the twins' bedsides and watched, immobilized.

“They were bleeding out of every place where they’d been poked and prodded,” says Quaid.

In an attempt to stanch the flow, a doctor placed a clamp on T. Boone’s umbilical cord.

A stream of blood shot across the room, splattering the wall.

“We were in shock,” says Quaid.

a drug called protamine.

“They were really in a lot of discomfort, crying,” Quaid says.

“It had to be painful.”

Finally, late on the second day, the infants' blood coagulation levels inched into the normal range.

A neurologist and other specialists assessed brain and motor functions, which, miraculously, appeared normal.

Though Quaid wanted the crisis kept quiet, news leaked fast.

In the end, I believe that the power of prayer from so many is what saved them.

It’s obvious to me that a higher power in the universe is controlling what’s going on."

We’re sitting on a patio atQuaid’s sprawling estate in Los Angeles’s Pacific Palisades.

For T. Boone and Z.G., this is home, though getting here wasn’t easy.

Buffington, now 38, suffered repeated miscarriages.

“That’s really hard,” Quaid says.

“We had just about given up.”

Though the twins are the couple’s biological offspring, they were carried to term by a gestational surrogate.

The proud parents brought them home, welcomed by friends and family.

For a tired but happy Quaid, it seemed like a new high in a mostly charmed life.

He admits he handled fame badly, particularly by indulging a cocaine habit in the ’80s.

He eventually cleaned up, and, in 1991, he married actress Meg Ryan.

The pair divorced in 2001 but share custody and parenting of their son, Jack Henry, now 18.

At the same time, he was thriving in his personal life.

AfterThe Right Stuff, he had learned to pilot jets.

But after the twins were born, Quaid committed to spending more time just being a dad.

“Being a parent is one of my favorite things in life,” he says.

“It’s one of the most challenging experiences, and one of the most rewarding.”