relief - 15 weeks - 6/13/2013

A

B

C

The wait until the next appointment was agonizing! It is well known by Christians that "a child is a gift from God," but when you are faced with the possibility of a loss, it is sad to say, faith might waver and you begin to think that you have control over the situation. Rob and I were constantly on the internet trying to find out anything and everything we could about this bladder problem and what we might be able to do, when in reality God knew all along.

We checked in at the front desk and after what felt like an eternity went back to see the doctor. He looked and looked without saying much of anything until finally he revealed that baby C's bladder was back to normal! Relief and guilt would be the words to describe how we felt at this moment. Relief that things where looking good and guilt about how we doubted God's providence. In our minds the appointment was finished and it was time for us to leave but the doctor had the same look on his face from the previous ultrasound.

Baby C was now measuring low on amnionic fluid. As you can see from the pictures above, babies A and B have a lot of fluid surrounding them, in sort of an egg shape of blackness, thus giving them more room to stretch and move their limbs, while C's fluid was more like a deflating balloon. The most feasible solution the doctor could give us was that this was a rare condition called twin to twin transfusion syndrome, or TTTS. Baby B and C are thought to be the identical twins who share a placenta and chorion sac, and in this case some of the wiring got mixed up so you have what is called a donor and receiver. Essentially, they share some blood vessels and in cases like this, the donor baby would give most of it fluid to the receiver, causing the receiver to have an enlarged bladder and excessive amniotic fluid while the donor did not display a bladder and had little to no amniotic fluid. He went on to explain how there is a doctor down in LA who has been successful at performing an invasive endoscopic laser surgery that would get the wiring back on track. However, it was a bit premature for Dr. Shields to recommend this course of action so he asked that we come back to see him the next week...AGAIN. So we left the doctor's office feeling even worse than we had the previous appointment.