9/26/24

Due to the fact I’m carrying twins, my OB referred me to St. Ann’s Maternal Fetal Medicine Group. I saw them once in August and they confirmed the identical twin pregnancy, where the twins have their own sac but separate placentas, called a mo-di pregnancy. These appointments are very long, as they take about an hour to scan each baby and measure all the body parts.

On September 26, I went to another routine appointment to check on the babies. The scanning took almost 3 hours, so of course my instincts were telling me something was wrong. The ultrasound tech came back multiple times for multiple different views and pictures. Finally I met with the doctor in his office about the findings.

He was worried about the fluid levels of the babies. One big concern with twin pregnancies where the babies share a placenta is called Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome. He was worried that the very different amniotic fluid levels were the start of this syndrome. He considered us level 0, because the technical levels weren’t low enough for the diagnosis, but they were trending that way. He wanted to see me back in 3 days to check the levels again. If the levels continued to differ dramatically, we’d have to have inter uterine surgery in Cincinnati to correct the levels and save the babies.

This was also the appointment I found out the babies were girls! It so hard because minutes after I found out they were girls, I was hit with this news about their fluid levels. It certainly took the joy away of finding out I was carrying two little girls, because instantly the worrying started. I almost forgot to tell Michael we were having girls because I was so upset about the bad news.

All this happened 2 weeks before my cancer diagnosis. I had no idea things could get worse. In the meantime, our 2 little ones at home knew nothing of the worries that were going on in our minds.