Results From the Fetal Echo Test

Sheila picked Lindsay up from Club Med yesterday afternoon and they went out for lunch. It was Sheila's 57th birthday. Happy birthday Sheila! From there, they headed off to the Children's Hospital, where Lindsay had her Fetal Echo Test on the babies' hearts. The doctor met with them afterwards, and what he had to say was not exactly what we were hoping for!

Basically, Twin A is fine, however Twin B has a heart issue. Once the twins are born, Twin B will require heart surgery within the first 2 to 3 days. I have attached 2 pictures above to help make sense of things. The first picture is a normal heart, and the second is what the heart of Twin B looks like (Thanks Dale for finding these pictures online!)

Normal Heart

If you paid attention in Grade 10 Science, you will know that blood flows into the heart from the artery in the bottom left hand corner (I don't really know if that's an artery - I didn't pay attention in Grade 10 Science...), and flows into the Right Ventricle. It then flows up through the Aorta, hangs a right at the intersection, and goes out to the lungs. It then comes back in from the 2 thingies on the right, goes into the Left Ventricle, up through the Pulmonary Artery and back out into the body.

Problem Heart

Two things you will notice with the problem heart, which is what Twin B's looks like...you will see that there is a gap between the Left and Right Ventricles, and the Pulmonary Artery and the Aorta are not crossed. When the twins are born, the doctor at Children's Hospital explained that a 'routine' surgery would be performed in which the gap between the Ventricles would be closed, and the Aorta and Pulmonary Artery would be placed in the correct spot. He gave an 85 to 90% success rate.

On top of all this, at present time, the diameter of Twin B's Aorta is too small to do its job properly. The doctor told us that there is still (hopefully) lots of time left for the baby to grow inside the womb, so it is still very possible that the Aorta will reach the required size by the time the baby is born. Should this not happen, however, the baby will be required to undergo a set of 3 surgeries by the time it is 3 years old.

We were also told that this surgery will not be performed unless the baby is born over 30 weeks. So, at this point, we are all praying that BOTH twins can remain inside Lindsay until that time without becoming distressed!

The surgery will be performed at Mount Sinai in Toronto. The doctors prefer that Lindsay deliver the babies in Toronto instead of London so that they can get right to the surgery. Should she deliver in London, Twin B will be shipped off to Toronto for the surgery. We are heading to Toronto either tomorrow or Friday to meet with Dr. Yaeggi, who is a pediatric cardologist and also the Maternal Fetal Medicine Team.

We'll keep you all posted!

-Craig