Hearts

Yesterday, we had a fetal echo cardiogram on both of the babies hearts.

I'll start with Baby B.  Our tiny little Baby B has a completely functional heart.  There were no underlying problems.  It is measuring much smaller than it should be based on gestational age but that is to be expected as she is still tiny.  So her heart is proportional to the rest of her body.  They did take note that she is pumping extra blood to her brain rather than to her extremities.  This is seen when babies are under stress and they are trying to preserve the most important parts of their body.  Our little baby is fighting really hard to survive and we are seeing the physical manifestation of that in how she is pumping this blood.  The human body amazes me.  So again, it appears that Baby B's most important health issue is that she is just not growing enough because of the SIUGR.

Baby A's heart situation is more difficult.  As you might remember, she is fairly healthy except for the issues seen in her heart during the TTTS diagnosis.  Before the laser surgery, she was in heart failure and we are no longer seeing this.  The surgery corrected the amount of flow she was getting into her heart and now she has some normal heart function.  However.  The pulmonary valve issue has worsened.  Her pulmonary value is continuing to narrow.  When the pulmonary value narrows, the blood flow gets sort of stuck where the narrowing is and then spurts out on the other side, creating a bulge in the artery.  Before the surgery, it was thought to be a mild condition.  Yesterday, it was described as moderate.  Her left ventricle is thickened but is functioning.  There is no back flow or leakage in the tricuspid valve as seen before the surgery.  As long as there continues to be no leakage in her valves and the left ventricle continues to grow, the pulmonary valve narrowing can be fixed with an operation after she is born.  They would go in through an artery in her leg and put a balloon in her pulmonary valve to keep it open and to keep blood flowing through.  If her left ventricle continues to thicken and has some trouble with keeping blood flowing through it, there is another more invasive open heart surgery option in which they would put in stents and direct some oxygenated blood flow directly to the lungs instead of through the left ventricle.  So I guess the good news is that Baby A has some options.  At this point, these heart problems are not seen as a life threatening condition.  It is very serious but not life threatening.  Of course, things could change and at that point, we would need to be worried about losing her.  But as long as we stay on this track, it appears we have surgical options and we feel good about that.

Obviously, it's really tough to hear that your unborn baby continues to have heart problems and the only way to fix it is to have heart surgery while she's a premie newborn.  I had hoped that all conditions would have improved.  However, I am relieved that we seem to have good options for her and her survival.  One of the hardest parts about grieving for our Baby B's health problems is that we cannot do anything about it.  We just have to wait.  I'm glad we can at least do something for Baby A.

It continues to be a very long road ahead.  At each appointment this week, we were told things that added to the worry we already had.  My heart is just broken for my precious twin girls.  I'm sad that I couldn't have somehow provided a healthy pregnancy for them.  In my head, I understand that it's not my fault.  God is good and medical things just happen.  But in my heart, a mama is supposed to take care of her children.  The highlight of my life has been becoming a mother and taking care of Avery.  It's difficult to feel like I'm taking good care of these twin girls when they have such significant health problems inside my body.

I don't understand why all this is happening.  And I'm sure I won't in this lifetime.  Sometimes it feels as through the grief is so much that I can't breathe.  It feels as though the grief won't ever stop.

What I do know is that God created my girls.  He somehow saw it fit to totally surprise us with identical twin girls and we are thankful for the blessing of them and for the blessing of being their parents, however long or brief that is.

Thanks for walking through this journey with us.