Raising Five Monkeys: Ian and Ryan's Story

After we got home I had weekly ultrasounds at the hospital. Sometimes I had to fight to get them weekly – it was recommended by the doctors in Toronto as well as the online TTTS support sites we were a part of. Weekly ultrasounds are to watch blood flows in the brain, heart and umbilical cord. This way they can see many things, one of which is if the placenta is breaking down. They also measured the amniotic fluid and checked the babies’ bladders to make sure the blood vessels on the placenta hadn’t reconnected, or new ones hadn’t connected. If they had, we would need another TTTS surgery, or the babies would need to come out early via C-Section. I also noticed on the TTTS support sites that seemingly the farther you were in the pregnancy, the faster the TTTS affects the babies. So I was worried that if the blood vessels did reconnect we would need to know ASAP. They checked the size of the twins and gave us approximate weights bi-weekly. The twins’ fluid pockets never completely evened out but now Repete had enough, and Pete didn’t have too much. Pete’s heart was back to normal a few weeks after the surgery (2 echoes later). Pete remained the bigger one and Repete the smaller one throughout the pregnancy. Because the placenta was split somewhere around 20/80% - 30/70%, Repete still had something called SIUGR - selective intrauterine growth restriction, which basically means he was growing slowly in utero, and he was smaller than 90% of babies his age/gestation. (‘At least 60% of the 4 million neonatal deaths that occur worldwide every year are associated with low birth weight caused by IUGR. (Wikipedia)’.) From my research Repete had something called Symmetrical IUGR which is less common (about 20-25% of IUGR babies). His was caused by having such a small portion of the placenta and as a result he was getting less nutrients/oxygen etc. than he needed to grow at a normal rate. The doctors in Toronto told us to expect the twins to be born at 30 weeks at the latest – my membranes would likely rupture at or before then. They didn’t! I believe I inherited membranes of ‘steel’ from my Mom who gave birth to one baby in a sac! Ouch!

Right around the 30 week mark, my 16 year old sister Nicole came to help me until the twins were born. Often mothers are put on bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy after TTTS surgery. This all depends on the doctor and how much they believe the bed rest will help the twins grow and stay in utero. Since I didn’t want to be put on bed rest, I was happy to have the help with the house, the other three kids, and have a babysitter for my weekly ultrasounds, bi-weekly doctor appointments and various other tests and appointments. (After going through the discharge papers from Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto recently, I noticed they included an information sheet on how to cope with being on bed rest… hmm not sure now if I was supposed to be on bed rest or not…) During the rest of the summer Matthew continued to work on the landscaping around the house, that he had started that spring before leaving abruptly for Toronto. He also ripped out the carpet and helped me clean up our basement that had flooded shortly after we had returned from Toronto. We decided to continue on with the bathroom renovation we had planned to do that summer, so he gutted and renovated our upstairs bathroom, and still kept up with most of the little things that needed doing around the house. He continued volunteering at the church and school as much as he could.

At 32 weeks, on August 8th I was admitted to the Royal Alexandria Hospital for monitoring, and given steroid shots to help the babies’ lungs. At that time I was extra thankful that Nicole was here as a live in nanny, and able to take care of the kids and house during the day and again in the evening when Matthew came to visit me and run errands. She let the kids draw pictures for me and my nurses, which they brought when they visited and I proudly posted them on the walls in my room. I missed those kids so much! I’m pretty sure some very nice people dropped off a few meals at our house during that time to make suppertime a little easier for her and my husband. While I was in the hospital those two weeks I still had my weekly ultrasounds and was hooked up to a monitor twice a day. I also met with doctors who explained things like what I should expect after a C-section, what I should expect while my babies were in the NICU (the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in the hospital), that they would likely be there at least a week, and maybe 6 weeks depending on how things went. One of Matthew’s friends offered a wireless internet stick which I used in my room for researching info on NICU life, C-sections and wrote Facebook and blog updates. I also spent time reading, and watching movies. Although I was admitted to the hospital, I wasn’t on bed rest so I didn’t have to wear those hospital gowns and was allowed to get dressed every day, which was nice. I went for walks around the hospital, and also got day passes on Sundays so I could still go to church. It was a little weird being at the hospital even though I didn’t feel sick.