Post-surgery good news

Lots to be thankful for.

The surgery started officially at 9:07 and ended at 10:47.

In between, my epidurally-induced numb wife did a great job. They only had to make one small incision – the tenth of an inch kind – so that was a big answer to prayer. =) Praise God.

There were six connecting vessels (see mid-surgery details post to understand that term), and the surgeons were able to laser all six of them. That portion of the surgery took 2 minutes and 20 seconds (the surgeon told me!) This takes away the chance that one’s success in utero depends on the others (again, see the previous post). Great news… so thankful for that!

They took out about 250 mL from the larger twin’s amniotic sac, thus relieving some of the pressure on the placenta, with the hope that this will subsequently provide more nutrition to both twins. Very good news.

They performed laser microseptosomy in three places… this basically allows some of the amniotic fluid from the larger twin’s sac to flow into the smaller twin’s sac, allowing more room for her. He said they could already see more fluid going to her. Fantastic!

More good news: it looks like each twin has a (roughly) 50% share of the placenta. I had mentioned yesterday that we hoped for at least 20% for twin A. It’s one of the “immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine” kind of answers from God. =)

Those are all things to be thankful for. In terms of an ongoing concern: although twin A has about half of the placenta, she doesn’t have quite the vessel structure (roots!) going into it; twin B’s structure is much stronger. So that’s something to pray about.

In terms of follow-up, here’s the plan.

The nurses will decide when (maybe later today?) Lisa can get out of bed. For now, she’s not getting up. Tomorrow we’ll have another ultrasound and see how the twins are doing with regard to the change in blood flow. Pray (pray, pray!) that they handle the change well. We’ll then be discharged from the hospital and back to our hotel sometime tomorrow.

We have an appointment scheduled for Monday to get an even better picture how things went. Then we’ll have another ultrasound and another echocardiogram. After a few hours, we’ll get the test results from the surgeon and find out what long term follow-up will be.

For now, praise God with us! The surgeon said it went as well as it possibly could have. The risks to Lisa are virtually over. =) We asked what the chances might be for both twins to survive, and the surgeon made this apt analogy: “It’s like asking what college a 7-year –old will attend.” I think there’s a long way to go, but the journey right now has sign posts of success.

God is good, all the time.
~Jeff