Our Babies Could Use Your Support

['Hamas' Jenkins]

The great news is that I am a dad of two beautiful little girls.

The terrible news is that those girls are in extreme medical duress.
Yesterday, my wife gave birth, via emergency c-section, at 29 weeks, two days. At sixteen weeks, what looked like a normal, but rare, identical twin pregnancy became far more complicated. Our babies were diagnosed with a disorder that happens about 15% of the time with identical twin pregnancies called Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome. A detailed medical description isn’t necessary, but a brief one may help to understand.

The placenta provides blood flow and nutrition to a developing fetus. Most of the time, identical twins draw from the placenta with little issue, but in Twin-to-Twin, there is an imbalance. One twin, called the recipient, pulls too much blood from the placenta, and also the other baby. This makes the recipient polycythemic, basically the exact opposite of anemic. With too much blood, especially red blood cells, the blood becomes sludgy, and all the extra fluid which the baby receives from the extra blood puts a great deal of strain on their system, and can lead to congestive heart failure and other problems.

The other twin, the donor, experiences problems due to a lack of blood volume.

As a result of this circulatory imbalance, there is a massive discrepancy in amniotic fluid. The recipient swims in a pool of it, while the donor is, in essence, shrink-wrapped by the lack of fluid as the amniotic sac pulls in around it.

The condition is gravely serious, and without treatment, will usually carry a mortality risk of 100%.

After finding out that what we thought was going to be a normal pregnancy was anything but at 16 weeks, we had a procedure done in St. Louis called fetoscopic laser ablation. Developed a little over a decade ago, surgeons make a small incision in the mother’s abdomen, and with a small endoscope and laser, cauterize shared vessels between the two twins. This helps to establish a normal blood flow between the two babies.
We had this procedure done on May 6.

Initially, everything looked great, as the fluid levels between the two babies balanced out, and blood flow patterns appeared within normal range. About three weeks after the procedure, our specialists noticed that the condition had actually reversed itself. About 10% of the time, the condition will spontaneously reverse itself.

It was apparent to doctors at this appointment that this had happened near the end of May. Fluid levels were imbalanced, but still at the very end of normal. As such, the doctors felt it was the best interests in prolonging the pregnancy, which was not yet at viability, to avoid another event that would require making a hole in the amniotic sac. Thus, we embarked on a pattern of extreme vigilance. At multiple appointments per week, doctors performed an ultrasound wherein they would measure amniotic fluid levels, blood flow across the umbilical cords, and within the cerebral arteries in the brain.

After this second scare, it appeared that things began to normalize. Most of our subsequent appointments looked improved, and everything appeared to be on a healthy, normal trajectory.

Until Wednesday night.

Late Wednesday, my wife began to feel a series of small contractions. While normal in the third trimester, she had enough in a short period of time that it was necessary to call the doctor. He had us come into the hospital for closer monitoring, and after doing so, noticed that one of our babies was in distress. We had three ultrasounds last night and early into Wednesday morning, and after doing so, the doctors felt that it was in the best interests of the babies to deliver them at an extremely early, 29 weeks, but still viable age.

At 5:09 and 5:10 pm yesterday, we welcomed our little girls into the world.

Continued in post #2