Ella and Emma begin their fight
This is Ellen, Matt’s wife, taking over the blog for a bit (for reasons I’ll explain in a few)
Starting mid-last week, I started to feel like something was really wrong with the twins. My abdomen hurt, my cervix hurt (for those of you who are female, it felt like someone was doing a pap down there), and there was a general feeling that they were trying to tell me something. By Friday it had gotten so bad that I called the nurse to make sure my symptoms were normal. She consulted my OBGYN, and told me they wanted me in at 4pm Friday night.
At first everything seemed ok. The nurse was able to get heartbeats from both twins, but the doctor looked at my cervix, went to consult the twins/high risk specialist I go to, and came back to tell me to go right to the specialist, they were waiting for me. During the ultrasound the specialist had good news… and very bad news. The good news is that we’re having identical twin girls, Ella and Emma. The bad news is that they have Stage 1 Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS)
TTTS is a very serious condition where one baby is getting far too much blood and amniotic fluid, and the other far too little. It has to do with the twins sharing blood unevenly, based on a problem with the placenta. In our case, Emma’s getting far too little blood, and has very little fluid around her, and Ella has far too much blood and fluid. The condition is around 90% fatal for the babies if not treated. (for more data see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TTTS)
The good news for us is that Dr Walker, at Eastside Maternal Fetal Medicine (the specialists we’re already going to - http://www.eastsidemfm.com/) is one of the top experts on this. We saw his partner Friday night, and will be seeing him sometime Monday (his partner is working on getting us a time). The other good news is that we caught this early (Stage 1) – at this point Emma still has some fluid around her, and her bladder is visible on an ultrasound. Given this we’ll be able to time treatment to give the girls the best possible chance. With treatment they’ve seen results as high as 90% viability of 1 twin making it, and 70-80% chance that both make it.
Doing some research over the weekend, it appears a high protein diet and lots of bedrest may also help cut down the severity of the problem. I’m now taking up residence on our couch, trying to lay down as much as possible. Matty is in charge of high-protein meals, and I’m incredibly grateful to have a husband who is both a great cook and a football player (I had no idea you could get that much protein into a meal and make it still taste awesome). He’s also completely taking care of the house now, and waiting on me as necessary. Given this, I’ve now got tons of time to blog, but unfortunately Matty has very little.
Picture of the awesome breakfast Matty made this morning - Eggs with Tofu, Ham and Peppers, Turkey Sausage, Toast:
I’ll update the blog late Monday or sometime Tuesday with news if possible, please keep little Emma and Ella in your thoughts.