Benjamin and Bailey's Story

My daughter found out she was having twins on Feb.14, 2004 when she was 19 weeks. The sonorgram technician mentioned that there appeared to be one placenta, but didn't mention any potential problems or TTTS. My daughter was very sick for the first 3 months of her pregnancy and even lost weight. Every doctors visit was the same. Everything was normal and on right on schedule. The morning sickness subsided and she started gaining weight but she also started having back pain, rib pain, and some shortness of breath. But the doctor said again, it was just a part of being pregnant. He was seeing her every two weeks.

At her 28th week, she had another sonorgram, just routine and we were hoping to find out the sex of the babies, so we could start preparing for their birth. We were so excited. The technician started rolling the doppler around and was showing us on the screen their little body parts. She said the babies were really packed in there. She said it appeared that one baby had more fluid than the other one, and asked my daughter about her fluid intake and told her she needed to drink more water. She didn't mention any problems or TTTS. The doctor was in surgery in the next building over that day. The technician even told us, she thought they were girls. We left her office planning the baby shower, thinking everything was just fine.

Two hours after we left the office, the doctor called on my cell phone and asked to speak to my daughter. He told her one of the babies was sick and he was sending her to a bigger hospital almost two hours away. He told her she would be delivering that day. When we finally reached the hospital, the nurses and doctors were shocked that my daughter didn't come by ambulance. They already had her room waiting and they came in and did another sonorgram. At this point, we still didn't know what was going on. We soon found out, that when she had the sonorgram earlier, that the technician couldn't find one of the babies heartbeats and by the time we had gotten there, the other one had died also. We were both truly devastated. They said it appeared that the babies went into heart failure. The only thing they could do now was to induce labor. My daughters next two days were filled with pain and agony of having to go through labor to deliver her two dead babies. I have never witnessed such a heart wrenching experience in my life. The first baby weighed 2 and 1/4 pounds and the second weighed 3 and 1/2 pounds. They were identical twin boys.

It was later that we found out they died from TTTS. We had never heard of this disease and were never warned about it from her doctor. I am so angry that her doctor didn't take more precautions with her and think he was completely negligent. I found so many websites about TTTS only after this tragedy. They have been so helpful and the stories are just as heartbreaking as ours. But there are solutions to this problem if found and treated early enough. I only wish that was the case for my grandsons. I hope you will use our story. Good Luck!

Tammy Abbott Grandmother of Benjamin and Bailey Stillborn April 9, 2004