The beginning of bedrest (March 25/08)

Ok, my next U/S was Tuesday March 25th. The good news was that both babies still have good bladders and hearts and grew an ounce each. There was 22% difference is size, so a little bit worse, but no major changes. Still a lot more fluid around the bigger baby, but basically stayed the same from the first U/S. I had a different doctor do this U/S which was good in a way to hear another person's perspective. He also did a vaginal U/S (sorry it sounds worse then it really is) to take a look at my cervix.

We thought we had enough problems with the TTTS. He told me that my cervix was very thin, 2.5 cm to be exact, and as low as 2.0 cm when pressure is applied to my uterus. For anyone who doesn't have children...the thinner your cervix is, the more likely your water will break and you can go into labour. Normal is greater then 3 cm, so I was at a pretty bad spot considering I was only 18.4 weeks along....still way to early to deliver babies. Which is something I also forgot to mention. If TTTS is discovered later in a pregnancy, another treatment option is to deliver the babies if it is a safe time to do so, which is why it is so much worse if early in your pregnancy. So my Dr, and the Dr who performed the U/S went off and discussed my case and came back with some options. They told me, that I could wait till Friday and see if there were any changes...there was the possibility that my cervix could stay the same until I am safe to deliver, however very slim chance, with the extra pressure of two babies in there. The second option was to have surgery, a cerclage to stitch up the cervix, which is fairly common when it is planned and happens in the first trimester. However in the second trimester it is more of an emergency cerclage. The risk of having the surgery is the exact thing we're trying to prevent...early labour, bleeding and infection.

We decided to have the surgery, and was booked 2 days later for Thursday. In the meantime I was still reading...my Aunt Nancy sent me an email with a positive story of a girl named Katie from California who had a very long and challenging pregnancy with both amnioreduction and surgery for treatment. She delivered two healthy babies in the end. I contacted her by email and she wrote me back that same day with some contact information of Mary, the president of TTTS foundation and Dr. Julien De Lia the man I mentioned earlier in a blog. I emailed and called Dr. De Lia, and he called me back that night before I went in for surgery. He is very knowledgeable, and gave us some hope. He was very happy I was having the cerclage, because he said many Dr's around the world treat the TTTS with surgery, and ignore the fact that the cervix is thinning until too late, and eventually the patient may go into premature labour anyways.

We were scared to have the surgery with the risk of premature labour, but we also knew that if my cervix thinned further surgery wouldn't be an option because there would be nothing left to stitch. My plan of working till the end of the month didnt' quite work out, as I was put on bedrest immediately after my Tuesday appointment in hope that things didn't get worse from Tuesday till Thursday.