After an ultrasound on Monday confirmed that both girls were still alive, Jamie and I flew to Tampa on Tuesday. Later that evening we were joined by my mom, my brother, his wife and their daughter. We all joked about what a lousy excuse this was for a vacation to Florida.
On Wednesday, Jamie and I met Dr. Quintero and felt a peace with him. The next day, Thursday, June 7th, just one-week after the TTTS diagnosis, I underwent the laser surgery. While laying on the operating table right before going under, a nurse introduced a visiting doctor. I thought he looked at me rather uncomfortably. I learned it was Dr. Tony Johnson from Detroit - the doctor I spoke with over the phone and had scheduled the cord ligation with! He happened to be down in Florida to observe Dr. Qunitero perform a laser surgery because he wanted to employ the procedure at his home clinic in Michigan.
Right before drifting off, I told God I placed the lives of my unborn daughters as well as my own into His hands. I also prayed that Dr. Quintero would not have to perform a cord ligation on Joelle. He had permission to do so as a last resort if he could not complete the surgery. Sometimes he isn't able to finish from a technical standpoint because the mother bleeds too much making the ultrasound picture too blurry to see to work by. With me, because of my placenta's position, we knew it wasn't a matter IF I would bleed, but how much. Jamie and I also gave the doctor permission to do an emergency hysterectomy (which of course would mean I wouldn't be able to have any more children) if the bleeding couldn't be stopped.This especially made both Jamie and I nervous since the previous year, out of only 80 surgeries Dr, Q. performed, one of his patients did bleed to death even after he performed an emergency hysterectomy on her.)
The delicate operation lasted three hours, nearly twice as long as expected. Once more God's faithfulness was evident. Dr. Q's head nurse, Mary Allen said that on a scale fromo one to ten, ten being the most difficult surgery, mine was a ten. Dr. Q called me a "black diamond," which is the term used for the most difficult run on a downhill skiing course. The nurse explained that I bled the entire time. At one point the doctor stopped and applied heavy pressure for 15 minutes to get the bleeding stopped. Mary added that usually a doctor would have "thrown in the towel" but Dr. Q stuck with it. He also located a rare vessel connection under the placenta that most doctors would have missed. He said too that he felt confident he severed all of the connections since he found seven and he typically finds four to five, but he added that it was very difficult to see so he didn't know for sure.
The next 24 hours I was at the greatest risk for pre-term labor, which if not stopped would result in losing the entire pregnancy. I was released from the hospital the following afternoon but readmitted an hour later because of strong contractions that were coming every four minutes apart. Back at the hospital I was given a potent combination of shots and pills that successfully stopped the labor.
I stayed at the hospital another night, and once again Jamie faithfully stayed by my side on a lumpy chair. On Sabbath morning I was once again released from the hospital. Before leaving, Dr. Q came in with an ultrasound machine to look for two heartbeats. Everyone was thrilled to find that both girls had survived the surgery.
Website homepage
