Aaron and Adrian's Story

My story begins in Febuary of 2008 when I found out I was pregnant again.  I already had two boys at home.  I was very sick and had to be admitted in the hospital more than eight times.  I lost over ten percent of my body weight and things never got any easier.  At 9 weeks I was told that I was having twins.  My my and I were so shocked;  all I could say was shut up. Who would ever think I would get pregnant with twins! We were excited to share the news because it was so rare that it happened, and the looks on people’s faces were so funny.  I knew they were going to be boys, even though there dad said they were girls.  At first I was told they were fraternal twins. Later they called and said they only seen one placenta and that they were identical.  I then was put into a higher risk pregnancy and started planning on seeing different doctors.

On April 16th I went to the high risk doctors.  I was told they were boys and all kinds of stuff about twins.  I was scared.  It had already been a hard start.  I got over the 16 week mark and started feeling a little better.  I was eating better and trying to get through this process.  I was seen every week and having sono's every month.  Everything seemed to be going well.  No one said anything about how big I was getting because they were just glad I was eating and gaining. When my belly would be measured it was always something different, but I always measured a little bigger. The night before the special doctors came down to see me I was feeling discomfort and felt like I was leaking on myself.  I went to the hospital where my doctor indicated it wasn’t amniotic fluid and to wait till morning to see what the specialist had to say.

The next morning was my 26th birthday and off to the hospital I went. When I walked in the door the first thing they said to me was, “wow did you have a growth spurt.”  I didn’t think anything of it and the worst part is I took my seven and five year old sons to see there brothers.  In the room the sono lady took pictures for my kids and we were all excited.  It was when the doctor came and asked my mom to take the boys out; he told me I had TTTS.  I had no clue what that meant.   I was crying, scared and my kids then got upset as well. They told me then to make arrangements for my children because I was going to have to go to a hospital almost two hours away.  I was already measuring at about 37 or so weeks at only 19 weeks.

I got to this new hospital where they told me I had to be on strict bed rest and planned my trip to Cincinnati which was about six to seven hours away from the hospital I was at.  Before I left I had an amniocentesis to drain fluid from baby A. They said they drained two liters. It was decided that after being in the hospital for a week, I would leave and go to Cincinnati for the surgery.  I got there on a Monday an had all my tests done later that day.  I came to the decision to have the surgery.  I was so upset.   Not only had I been away from my other kids but was dealing with the possible loss of the ones I was carrying. The day of surgery, the doctors, ablated 17 of the vessels they shared and that was the cause of the TTTS. They said everything went well.  I needed to be on bed rest to try and make it to at least 32 weeks.  I was so hopeful.  Every day they could hear the heart beats, and after draining 10 pounds from me I felt like a new person.

Everything was going well until almost three weeks later I woke up, my stomach had dropped and I had a lot of discomfort.  I went to the hospital and was dilated to three. They tried to stop my labor, but I dilated to a six in 20 minutes.  I had to have an emergency C-section. Come to find out, my body was reacting to an infection and I was getting sick just like them.

They were born the morning of June 24th and rushed to a NICU hospital two hours away.  Little Adrian lived for three days before we made the decision to take him off life support.  He had level four bleeding in the brain and more tests then any baby his age should have to go through.  Aaron, who is almost four months old now, is still in the hospital with bad lungs trying to eat better to come home.  I think of my baby every day.  To be told once that I could lose one or both was hard, ,but to get my hopes up an end up losing one anyways I think is harder.

I was told about TTTS and never thought it would happen to me. To anyone who has this or has had this, I want to say how sorry I am because I know it’s hard and that your left with so many questions.

In loving memory of my son Adrian Jones Marquis