We went to the Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialist (MFM) at Aultman Hospital the next Tuesday. I was now 18 weeks pregnant. We had an ultrasound, which lasted for an hour. The technician took special care to get very good pictures of every part of the twins. She asked us if we knew the sexes and we told her no. She then told us she could tell us what Baby B was and Kevin said he wanted to know. We asked what Baby A was and she told us...that baby's a _________, too...it has to be, they're identical. (Yeah, you gotta keep checking back to see what we're having, we'll let it slip sooner or later.)
Dr. McDaniel then came in and introduced himself. He examined the babies as well and told us sadly, that he was pretty sure we had Twin-to-Twin Syndrome (TTTS). He said he was sorry that he had to tell us this news. At this point we were naive as to what we were dealing with.
We met with the genetics counselor, MFM nurse, and Dr. McDaniel to learn more about our options. He told us about the seriousness of Twin to Twin Syndrome.
To give a brief overview of TTTS:
- TTTS can only occur in monochorianic/diamnionic twins (identical twins, separate sacs, share same placenta)
- There is a donor and recipient baby. In our case Baby A is the donor, Baby B is the recipient.
- The donor baby passes blood, oxygen, nutrients, etc on to the recipient baby.
- The donor is usually a smaller baby with a small amount of amnionic fluid
- The recipient baby is usually larger with more fluid.
Dr. McDaniel recommended that we go to Cincinnati Fetal Care Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital to be evaluated and get a confirmation on Twin-to-Twin Syndrome. He explained to us that we were on step 9 of about 963. Erin, the genetics counselor, met with us to answer questions and at this point we were so overwhelmed by the situation, we didn't even know what questions to ask.
Before we left Aultman we had an appointment in Cincinnati the next day that began at 7:30 am. We left Aultman, went home to pack and eat dinner with my parents. We had time to set up plans for the boys and find a hotel room, then leave for Cincinnati. If it was not for my mom, I don't know how I would've made it through that night. I'm not sure that I've thought about much else since we learned of our possible TTTS.
If you would like to know more about Twin to Twin Syndrome check out one of our favorite sites, http://www.tttsfoundation.org/. This site has supplied us with a lot of support and information at all hours of the night.
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