We stayed in a Hampton Inn across the river in Covington, KY
that Monday night. The next morning,
December 3rd, we started our evaluation with an MRI of the boys at
University Hospital. It lasted 20
min. Thank goodness it was only that
long because my back started to hurt towards the end. But I promised myself that I would do
anything if it would help my babies come out of this healthy. If that meant being in pain for hours, I
would do that. I never knew a mother’s
love could be this strong. It is such a
wonderful feeling but a scary feeling at the same time. Following the MRI we
had an ultra sound where they took many measurements and checked blood flow. The Sonographer spent about 45 min on each
baby. She also checked my cervical
length and she discovered that it had become very short, so she told me that I
had to be in a wheelchair the rest of the day.
Following the ultra sound we had a personal consultation with 2 of the
nurse coordinators.
.jpg)
Kevin and I asked questions about the surgery and its outcomes. There were many success stories they talked
about which gave me hope. I read on the
website that the survival rate of both babies goes up when diagnosed after 20
weeks gestational age. We got diagnosed
at 22 weeks at 4 days gestational age.
At this point we are 23+3. The
plan all along was to have the evaluation, do the surgery the next day, stay
overnight in the Labor and Delivery unit to be monitored for pre-term labor,
then just stay in town for the following 4-5 days then get a follow up
appointment. And if everything was fine,
go home and continue being pregnant. The
longer I was pregnant, the better the outcome for our boys. But after talking to the nurses and hearing
how great the doctors who would be doing the surgery were, I felt a bit
better.
The first half of our day was over. We went and had lunch and then continued our
evaluation with an Echocardiogram of their hearts. Once again, ultra sounds just did not hold
the same happiness as they once did. I
kept looking at their heartbeats wondering, “what are they finding?” After the
Doctor reviewed the results, she came in and explained to us what they
found. Colin had hypertrophy of his
heart, which meant that he had thickening of his heart walls. That was not a good thing. They also found in Colin’s heart that the
ductus was very narrow. They explained
that it was like a one lane highway when it should be a 3-lane highway. That duct is something that closes up as soon
as they take their first breath.
Nathan’s heart seemed to be fine.
It was Colin’s who was having the heart issues.
After the ECHO, we had a lot of time before we met with the
surgeons to go over all the results from the day. Kevin and I went up to the Maternal Fetal
Department and hung out in a room for a few hours. One of the Doctors’ who was supposed to do my
surgery, Dr. Vanhook, came in and introduced himself. He wanted to check my cervix before we had
the formal meeting so he did and then Kevin and I waited a little longer so
they could get things set up.
When they were ready, I got wheeled in to a conference room
with a projector. Dr. Vanhook, and the
other Doctor who would perform the surgery, Dr. Lim were there as well as three
nurse coordinators. We were about to
review images of everything they found and discuss our options. They told us that we were candidates for the
laser procedure. If we decided not to do
the procedure, there was an option to do an amnio reduction. This would only minimize the fluid around
Colin but that would not fix the Twin Twin disease. Kevin and I asked all the questions we could
think of and heard every possible outcome for our boys that were possible. Some of the outcomes were obviously very
scary. Once again, I couldn’t fathom the
thought of this ending up any other way then my two sweet boys home and healthy
with us. After lots of crying, on my
end, Kevin and I asked to go into a separate room to discuss this in private.
I never thought that we were going to have to make the kind
of decisions that we were faced to make. At a 23-week gestational age, the chance for
survival was less than 50% and if they did survive, they would definitely have
a severe handicap. And because surgery
would put us at risk for pre-term labor, the doctors had to know what to do if
one or both of the babies started to go under.
If one baby went under, we could deliver them both or we could give the
other a fighting chance and let the other pass inside me while the other could
go many more weeks. They called this “Last Man Standing.” Or if both of them went under, we could
deliver them both or we did have the option of letting them both pass inside
me. I mean, seriously. These are completely impossible decisions to
make as a parent and it hurt my heart to even think about it. I felt like such a bad mother thinking about
letting my babies die. A severe
disability would not only mean that our lives would be dedicated to taking care
of him, but what kind of life is that for a child? And we could possibly have two babies with
sever disabilities if they were to come out of this alive. I felt so selfish even keeping letting them
both pass as an option. I could not let
both my babies die because of something I decided. Who am I to make that decision?
The doctors came in to the room and we gave them our
answer. We decided to go through with
the laser surgery and if something were to happen we would do “Last Man
Standing”. I just gave permission to let
one of my babies die. Absolutely
heartbreaking. Dr. Vanhook came in and
told us that he forgot that he was not working the next day and that Dr. Jaekle
would be performing the surgery along with Dr. Lim. All the nurses said that Dr. Jaekle is a
jokester and if you laugh at his first joke then you have just opened yourself
to many more. I assured them that if Dr.
Jaekle was not serious during the surgery that he wouldn’t be laughing much longer. These are my babies he was about to mess with
and I was not in a laughing mood. They
re-assured me that he is very good at what he does and he is very nice.
The Cafeteria was closed at this point and we needed
dinner. I wouldn’t be able to eat or
drink anything after midnight so the nurses suggested we go out to a nice
dinner and try to relax. We went down to
an area near the river and had dinner at Brio.
It was so hard to relax and have a nice evening. I was sad and I was scared. I wasn’t scared
for my well being or me going into surgery, I was scared for my precious baby
boys. How was this going to end up for
them?
No comments:
Post a Comment