The loss of her sister

I found out I was pregnant on Valentine’s Day of 2002. I was happy and so was the dad. For some odd reason I knew I was having a girl, so I was going to name her Emily Elizabeth. I never got morning sickness but the only craving I got was macaroni and cheese. I was so weird. At the time I was 17 years old and scared, never having had a child before.

When I was 5 months, I found out I was having identical [monozygotic] twin girls, but when they got to Baby B, there was something wrong. Another doctor came in to look at the ultrasound. It was so scary I stated to cry. They had to send me to another doctor see what was going on. They said that she was deformed in so many ways. I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. They wanted to do an amino to see exactly what was going on.They said it could be any number of things that could be wrong with her. They ran a test and it came back as TTTS (Twin-Twin Transfusion Syndrome).

A couple of months went by and I received a phone call from the doctor saying I had to have surgery as it was a life and death situation.  I had 3 places to chose from. I chose the place closest, packed up and headed to Tampa, FL. My parents went with me. They took me back in the ultra sound room and took pictures of my baby. It took 2 hours. They gave me some choices that I had to make right there for surgery. I decided to go ahead and put something around the umbilical cord.

They took me in to do the surgery. When it was finished, that’s when they told me they had to laser off the blood vessels to the umbilical cord. I stayed for 3 days in the hospital. When I returned home 3 weeks later, I had another ultra sound to see what was going on. For the remainder of the pregnancy, I was in and out of the hospital. I went into early labour and it was stopped and I spent a month in hospital. August 31st came and I was 35 weeks. They said at this point if I was to go in labor they couldn’t stop it. Well I did go in labor. I had my little girl. She was 5 lb and 4and a half oz 19 and a half in long. She was so tiny.

Three years later she is 35 lbs and taller then any 3 year old child. She is healthy, beautiful and smart. The loss of her sister was heartbreaking. The best part is that I see Gracie (Baby B) in Emily every day. I want to thank everybody who tried to save her.

Thanks for letting me tell my story.

Jen from Ms.