It has been a relaxing weekend...

It has been a relaxing weekend. Mike will be leaving tomorrow after the amnio to go back home and work. The dr. said he would call me by 9:00 a.m. and to be ready to come in ASAP. He wants to get me in early if he can. I will know at that appointment the schedule for when he wants to see me back again to do the Echo to see if the babies hearts have improved. I'm guessing that will be Friday. If that is the case, Mike will come back Thursday evening after work. Linda might bring the girls up to see us on Friday. That is Loren's 1st birthday and I will be dying to see my girls!!!!! I already miss them tons. But I know they are having a GREAT time with grandparents, aunts and cousins.

I'm feeling better about the situation. It's giving up that controlling aspect and releasing my girls to God. They are His and I have to let Him hold them in their hands. I have to release the fear of losing them. But when I release them, it gives me peace. Peace that I don't have to fix everything and it's not up to me. God has a plan for them and I have to trust that His will will be done. As hard as that is, it's freeing. Going through it makes you not want to become attached, makes you not want to name them, not see their little personality on the screen. It makes you want to think of them as fetuses because you think it will be easier. But we don't want to miss this adventure and getting to know them. They are so sweet already and have these amazing personalities. So we will continue to open our hearts to them and get to know them and treasure each moment we share and continue to lean on God to help us through this time.

I didn't go into much detail medically the other day and I know some of you have questions. So I will try to go into it a little more. Just know that it is complex and it is fine if you don't want to read this section. When we came here, we had already heard from one dr. that she thought we had twin to twin. We heard from another dr. the day before we came that he thought we had growth restriction. So we were a little on the confused and overwhelmed side when we got here. When we met with the dr.s he told us we had both. In this case of understanding it would have been easier for him to say we had one or the other and not both. There are reasons for the growth restriction (which some of them fall under the TTTS).

Emma's umbilical cord is not attached in the best place (it's on the far side end of the placenta). Olivia's is attached right in the center of the placenta. Emma also only has 2 blood vessels in her umbilical cord (she is supposed to have 3). When the egg split, Olivia could have just gotten a bigger part of the egg than Emma. Twin to Twin transfusion Syndrome is a complication of multiple gestation resulting from imbalanced blood flow through vascular communications in the placenta, such that one twin is compromised and the other is favored. This contributes to the growth on the side of twin to twin.

So basically you have this placenta in the shape of a watermelon. Split down the middle is a thin membrane that seperates our two girls. There are arteries and veins that are coming from each twin to the membrane. The blood and nutrients flow from the twin to the membrane and are supposed to come back to that twin. Well, some of ours are not doing that. Some are going to the membrane and going through that to the other twin. So there is an imbalance of blood flow causing stress on both babies hearts. The laser surgery would go in, cauterize the ones that are flowing to the other baby so that blood flow is stopped. They would leave the ones that are acting correctly. This is a 91% survival rate of one or more twin in this case (taken at the month after delivery). So are chance are very good.

Statistics right now:

Emma is 9 oz. - measuring 19 weeks
Olivia is 16 oz. - measuring 21 weeks
Mommy - 22 weeks pregnant.

So they are actually both a little under in size.

The amnio reduction which I will have tomorrow, is 20-30% effective. They will insert a long needle into my belly button and extract some amniotic fluid off Olivia's sac. They are hoping to relieve some pressure from both hearts by doing this. I will be suprised if this works. But we are willing to give it a try before we go to surgery and we have time to try this. I will be able to go home afterwards and get back on bedrest.

Friday, they will do an echo and we will know whether we will proceed next week with the surgery.

I hope this explains a little more.

It is overwhelming to try to understand something so complex and make a big decision as far as what treatment to go through with. So that is why we have had some time to ourselves the past few days to really overanalyze our options.

Please send any questions our way. Please take care of my husband while I'm gone. (At least he won't have the kids with him). : ) I think he'll keep his focus on working on the basement.