Surgery was quick and painless, thank goodness for spinals. The worst part was recovery, it took over 3 hours to feel my legs again, much longer then after the c-section with Emily. No premature labour, thank God!!! Step 1 done with success. My family came to visit in the hospital which helped so much with the time. Both Tammy and Danielle brought food and magazines which is the best thing when on bedrest (and when your meals keep coming as clear fluids).
Mom and Dad arrived the day of my surgery and have been a huge help. It's reassuring knowing that Emily is happy when she's home and doing well. We're keeping her with her sitter, Renae for the most part. There are so many changes going on for her, that I want to keep daycare consistent, she loves being around the kids and Renae. It is very hard for me, not being able to play with Emily like I normally would. I can't lift her, and have to spend most of the time in bed or the couch, and she's too young to understand what is going on. She was scared to come close to me at the hospital because of the IV pole. It breaks my heart that she would be scared of her own Mommy.
I was in the hospital until Saturday (yesturday). I had another regular and vaginal U/S to check the babies and my cervix, and the stitches were in well, and the babies still healthy, but the fluid is accumulating and I'm at the fine line between waiting and doing the amnioreduction. When the deepest pocket of fluid in the larger baby is greater then 8cm, this is usually the point where amnioreduction is done. Again with treatment there is the risk of my membranes rupturing and going into labour. I am 19 weeks pregnant and the babies would not live at this point. I was measuring between 7.5-8, therefore very close to needing treatment. My next appointment is tomorrow, Monday March 31st. Dr. Macleod said come prepared to stay the night if she does an amnioreduction.
I'm happy to be home, but feel very helpless in that I have to ask for things all the time. Emily has become very comfortable with her Nanny and Grampie, which really is good, but it was sad when they went out for a bit today, because Emily cried and cried, and I couldn't comfort her at all. She only wanted Nanny, not Mommy or Daddy. She's so confused. I was very upset that she didn't want to come to me, luckily she warmed up again after 10 mins or so and was playing with me and cuddling as much as she could in bed, lots of kisses and hugs.
Tomorrow is another day, and we'll see what the U/S shows.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
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.
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.
It all sets in...
I got back to work after my appointment, and tried really hard to keep myself together. Everyone knew I was going for an U/S and would most likely find out the gender, so it was difficult to be happy and tell everyone I was having twin girls, without thinking about the diagnosis of TTTS. I was ok, for the first 10 minutes or so, and then all the information we learned hit home...I was in a step down unit with my back to all the nurses trying hard to look through a chart so that no one could see the tears coming down my face, my vision was blurred, and hiding through a chart was doing me no good. One of the nurses, Jolene, who is also a friend, saw me...and that was it. She pulled me aside, and I could barely get the words out to tell her what was going on. And then another friend and coworker also came over, and I was a mumbling fool.
Being pregnant in itself has its own set of fears. Everyone wants a healthy baby, and there is risks with every pregnancy, even when U/S shows everything is going well. It is not until you hold your baby in your arms that you really feel a sense of relief. To know that there is problems going on already, is very scary, especially when there is nothing that you can do about it.
I managed to finish up the work day, and that night Keith and I both did our research on the computer. http://www.tttsfoundation.org/. This was the first website I read which had some really good information, but also very upsetting when reading the message boards. If you have some time, take a look. The "during pregnancy"boards are encouraging....but it's the "loss of both" or "loss of one" which really made me realize how serious the disease is. (by the way I apologize for my poor grammatical skills, I realize I am writing both in the past and present at the same time).
All week, I read and read...but the more informed I became, the more upset I was. Sometimes knowing to much is not a good thing. The only thing I read that I could do to help was bedrest and drinking Boost 3 times a day. This has been researched by Dr. De Lia, who believes that "TTTS patients at mid-pregnancy have severe hypoproteinemia and anemia" and drinking Boost on top of your regular meals may help correct any malnourishment problems.
I began drinking the Boost immediately, however became extremely bloated as I was consuming an extra 800-900 calories a day (I didn't know at this time that you're suppose to sip the drink throughout the day, not consume each can at one sitting). The bedrest was impossible as I was still working, and had my little Emily to look after. Luckily it was a short work week, and we went home to Fredericton for Easter where I was able to relax, and didnt' have to look after Emily as much, because she had her cousins, Alex and Austin around to play with, plus most of my family to help out.
I didn't talk much about what I knew about TTTS with my family or friends, because I wanted to enjoy my weekend, and not spend the entire time crying. Poor Keith had to deal with that. Every night we'd spend some time talking about it, and really you can't talk about it without getting upset. He was also good at nights in taking most of the responsability looking after Emily.
It was a very emotional, and LONG week waiting for that next ultrasound to find out how my girls were doing. When you fear the health of your babies...your perspective on life can change very quickly. I didn't care about anything other then growing these babies into healthy little girls. Any issues on money were soon forgotten as my life now had a new focus.
Being pregnant in itself has its own set of fears. Everyone wants a healthy baby, and there is risks with every pregnancy, even when U/S shows everything is going well. It is not until you hold your baby in your arms that you really feel a sense of relief. To know that there is problems going on already, is very scary, especially when there is nothing that you can do about it.
I managed to finish up the work day, and that night Keith and I both did our research on the computer. http://www.tttsfoundation.org/. This was the first website I read which had some really good information, but also very upsetting when reading the message boards. If you have some time, take a look. The "during pregnancy"boards are encouraging....but it's the "loss of both" or "loss of one" which really made me realize how serious the disease is. (by the way I apologize for my poor grammatical skills, I realize I am writing both in the past and present at the same time).
All week, I read and read...but the more informed I became, the more upset I was. Sometimes knowing to much is not a good thing. The only thing I read that I could do to help was bedrest and drinking Boost 3 times a day. This has been researched by Dr. De Lia, who believes that "TTTS patients at mid-pregnancy have severe hypoproteinemia and anemia" and drinking Boost on top of your regular meals may help correct any malnourishment problems.
I began drinking the Boost immediately, however became extremely bloated as I was consuming an extra 800-900 calories a day (I didn't know at this time that you're suppose to sip the drink throughout the day, not consume each can at one sitting). The bedrest was impossible as I was still working, and had my little Emily to look after. Luckily it was a short work week, and we went home to Fredericton for Easter where I was able to relax, and didnt' have to look after Emily as much, because she had her cousins, Alex and Austin around to play with, plus most of my family to help out.
I didn't talk much about what I knew about TTTS with my family or friends, because I wanted to enjoy my weekend, and not spend the entire time crying. Poor Keith had to deal with that. Every night we'd spend some time talking about it, and really you can't talk about it without getting upset. He was also good at nights in taking most of the responsability looking after Emily.
It was a very emotional, and LONG week waiting for that next ultrasound to find out how my girls were doing. When you fear the health of your babies...your perspective on life can change very quickly. I didn't care about anything other then growing these babies into healthy little girls. Any issues on money were soon forgotten as my life now had a new focus.
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