Monday news & home

We’re home. We made it back a little after 9 last night… and it was SO nice to sleep in our own bed. It’s the little things that you appreciate the most. And the little ones. It was SUCH a blessing to see our kiddos again this morning. I think they’re almost as happy to see us as we are to see them. Almost.

But before all that happened, we had some tests and news yesterday. An ultrasound, an echocardiogram, and a meeting with the surgeon, to be exact. We met with the surgeon at the end of the day, and he – for the most part – gave us good news.

First – and a huge answer to prayer – we found out that twin B’s Tei score is absolutely normal! Fantastic news! I had mentioned last week that it was five standard deviations from the mean last week. You may have wondered what that meant, so let me explain. Lots of statistics are measured by a bell curve, with the average of all the results in the middle (called the mean), and the rest of the data is spread out onto a bell-shaped curve. 68.2% of the results are within one standard deviation of the mean, and 95.4% are within two standard deviations. How many results are out in the five standard deviation range? Not many… I would guess it would be in the thousandths of one percent. So twin B’s scores were extremely poor, but now they are zero standard deviations away from the mean; that is to say, they’re normal. Praise God – this is exactly what we were praying for!

Second, the less encouraging, more-prayer-is-needed news. Twin A still has a medium-plus size hole in her heart. That hasn’t changed at all. Also, a new concern came up for twin A. The doctors took several looks at the blood flow in her middle cerebral artery (MCA) – it’s the main artery that goes through the middle of a person’s brain. The blood flow was elevated, so they want to keep an eye on it. Why is that a concern? The surgeon said that it could show some other stressors happening in her body. If it continues to be high – or even goes higher – then they have concern for anemia in her. If these high levels were sustained – this is a big if, an if that the surgeon didn’t want to even discuss because it’s so far down the road – that could lead to heart failure. If the concerns continue, the best treatment would likely be a blood transfusion to twin A through her umbilical cord… so we hope and pray it doesn’t come to that. It’s also possible that it’s elevated because of the recent surgery; it may return to normal at the next doctor’s visit.

What’s next?

Within the next week, we’ll have another ultrasound to get a new baseline measurement for the rest of the pregnancy. We’ll then have ultrasounds on a weekly basis until these babies are born. Somewhere between 26 and 28 weeks (depending on the doctor’s decision), we’ll add twice-a-week non-stress tests to make sure the twins are doing okay. Of course, the longer the twins do well and the older their gestational age, the better their chance of survival. So we pray – and pray hard – for “no news” =) to share with you. I hope to simply update after doctor’s appointments so that you know how things are going.

Again, thank you, thank you, thank you for your prayers. It’s been a heavy eight days, and we know that your prayers have made a huge difference. Please continue to lift our family up in your prayers – as we learn to accept help, as I continue to assist in the princess bed rest =), and as we daily lean on God’s everlasting arms. We’re encouraged, but we know that we have a long way to go.

~Jeff