As you may recall, last week I posted about Carrie’s cousin who is having some complications with her pregnancy. Here’s the latest update from her husband:
For starters…thanks to everyone for all the positive thoughts, prayers and offers of assistance. We knew that we had a great support network before all of this but the love and support shown by our friends and family has been absolutely overwhelming and we are truly grateful and blessed. It’s hard to imagine how other families without the support and access to healthcare (that we don’t even have to think twice about) can cope with things of this nature.
On the update front…Things have been going pretty well so we’ve been reluctant to send any updates; akin to not talking to a pitcher working on a no hitter. While our boys were diagnosed with Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome (which can be very serious), their case at present seems to be pretty well in check and mild.
At a high level the syndrome causes one twin the “recipient” to get more fluid and blood flow from the “donor.” It can cause serious problems to development of the organs / babies and can have dire outcomes in the most serious of cases but again our guys look to only have stage 1 (of 4 stages) TTTS. The organs seem to be developing / maintaining normal function and a pediatric cardiologist said that their hearts seems to look normal as well. We were lucky in so much that it didn’t present until later in the pregnancy (week 24).
The worst outcome that we’ve seen so far is that the donor baby (baby B) takes fluid from baby A and the fluid pocket became much higher than normal on Baby B which seemed to be causing the early labor. To combat that the Dr.s have been doing amino reductions (4 in total so far) where they stick the fluid pocket with a needle and drain off amniotic fluid. They can be very painful as it causes contractions, but true to form Christie has toughed through each one for the benefit of the boys. At one point the Dr.s wanted to stop one due to the pain but she pressed on as it was showing some results. Again she’s been a great example of selflessness and sacrifice for the good of the lil’ guys, never once complaining or hesitating to do whatever she’s been asked of by the Drs. She has kept a positive attitude about her surroundings and I think her only gripe has been about the sizable debt that she’s rung up to me playing gin rummy.
The amino results have been successful as the fluid levels have seemed to become close to equal and contractions have slowed (especially the painful ones). We were actually released from the hospital today. We’ll have to check back in at the hospital a couple times a week for tests to make sure that nothing is regressing. We hit 27 weeks today which is a good thing. Every minute, hour and day inside mommy helps, so we are grateful for any extra “cookin’ time” that we can get.
Our next big milestones are the 28 weeks gestational date (next Tuesday) and then we’ll hope for 32! We have a growth check this week as well to determine if the boy’s sizes are getting disproportionate which would be a warning sign that the TTTS is more serious. While fluid is one of the symptoms of TTTS there are other things that need to be watched closely to ensure that the syndrome has not progressed. If one is growing more rapidly than the other it could show that the syndrome is more serious than the other things are showing.
As before, we remain very cautiously optimistic about the future!
Thanks again to everyone for their love and support. We truly are blessed to have you all in our lives. We’ve felt your strength through this all and we will continue to keep you updated on how things are going. For now, we are at home and Christie remains on bed rest.
Peace to all,
Kevin, Christie, Baby A and Baby B
Thanks to everyone for keeping them in your thoughts, and let’s keep up the positive energy!