^{(Note: This post has a lot of terminology that was new to us! If you’d like to take a look at our Glossary, see here.)}

In early January, a routine monitoring session with our MFM doctor, Dr. Hayes, surfaced an issue with Baby C’s umbilical blood flow.

Dr. Hayes had ordered a Doppler ultrasound to capture imaging of how blood was flowing from the placenta to the girls – a non-standard test, but one that delivers a crucial assessment of baby brain activity, future growth, and overall health. Baby C’s Doppler indicated some stumbling along her route, and Dr. Hayes requested a follow-up growth scan to take place a week later, all to ensure her bumpy road wasn’t cause for concern. We were reminded this is what MFM is there to do: to be a watchdog, to bark at every shadow. And so we were released, a follow-up appointment on the books and medical acronyms, slippery decimal points, and risk percentages following us out the door in a swarm.

A week later, the babies’ growth scan affirmed the nights we had spent feverishly researching the risks of identical twins – all rare, but we’ve come to terms with inheriting the slightest of odds (ahem, hi, spontaneous identical twins). Baby C was measuring in at 26% less weight than her sister, a key marker that the girls were either suffering TTTS or IUGR. These conditions are very uncommon but can be a complication of identical twins, affecting 10% of mono/di pregnancies (themselves only .3% of all pregnancies). We would continue to be monitored, now more closely and more often. We would hope the condition reverses itself. We would promise to put down the Google and get some sleep.

Since that time, we received a merciful handful of it’s-okay-to-breathe check-ins. And then Tuesday, 1 February – a day that we only half-heartedly packed a hospital bag, confident this would be another clean check – a BPP and Doppler ultrasound revealed that Baby C’s scan resumed showing troubling blood flow, this time with distinct gaps in transmission. Dr. Hayes (a very bright guy who does not suffer fools, and who also may not realize how much his body language betrays) entered the consultation room with slumped shoulders and a raised chin. He told us that I needed to be admitted immediately, that I’d be hospitalized until the babies arrived, that the aim is delivery be coaxed into the future as long as possible, but that threats to Baby C’s survival – and Baby B’s, in tandem – could mean a bated-breath birthday just days away.

And here we are.