Advent Challenge Day 11 - Fearless

Write about a time you were fearless

I specifically moved this theme on to today, the anniversary of the day life began to change forever for us, the day we were introduced to TTTS, because I wanted very desperately to remember the times in this journey where I wasn’t afraid, where I wasn’t filled with fear for my babies. I knew those times existed, just as those amazing moments I wrote about yesterday existed. It becomes so easy for memories to be overshadowed by the emotions attached to them. Fear, sadness, heartbreak….all of those emotions have clouded my memory of being pregnant with twins and its a struggle to remember the joy I felt then. And so today I want to explore both the fear and then fearless emotions I felt 9 years ago.

Below is a excerpt from what I wrote for the book Forever Linked about this time in my life. There is definite element of fear expressed here but there is also a strong element of fearlessness, of trust in the team of doctors assigned to my case. That’s what I want to remember….the fearless strength that existed inside of me and the hope I had.


And when Dr. Hancock arrived to talk to me, I knew something was very wrong and asked him what it was. He told me that there was a concern with the growth of the babies and the sharing of nutrients. He explained that it appeared that one baby appeared to be getting too much while the other was getting none. I was to go to see high risk specialists the next day in London and he would be calling me by 4:30 with more info. They had me wait for a disk of ultrasound results to take with me and sent me on my way after taking my cell number.

I left the hospital in shock, trying hard not to cry. It just seemed too unbelievable that these little babes might be in trouble. I called Geoff and bawled but managed to get somewhat calm and agreed to meet him at our son’s school for our meeting with his teacher. I called my mom and cried on her answering machine and then tried my best to keep it together and drive back to home. I was so scared.

I made it 5 minutes outside of the city when my phone rang and it was the doctor. He said I needed to remain calm but that I needed to return to the hospital immediately as I was being sent to Toronto right away. He said to have Geoff come too and to meet him on the delivery floor.

And then I really wept. I could hardly talk when I called Geoff and our babysitter. It all seemed so unreal.

But reality didn’t really hit until I got to the hospital and spoke to Dr. Hancock. He explained that the doctors he’d spoken to in London told him to contact Mt. Sinai in Toronto and that specialist said, after hearing the results of the ultrasound that it was imperative that we come to Toronto right away. Dr. Hancock said that I would likely have surgery and be in Toronto for a week or so. And then he really scared me when he told me they would be giving me a shot of celesdone, a steroid given to strengthen premature babies lungs…they were afraid these babies were going to be born right away.

I cried and shook, my heart was breaking and my mind was racing with thoughts of these babies and the life I wanted for them. How could this be happening to me, to them, to our family???

Geoff arrived a bit later and met me at the door of the hospital. He just held me as I cried and tried his best to alleviate my fears. The next few hours were spent trying to reach those who needed to know while driving to Toronto.

We met with Dr. Wendy Whittle when we arrived at Mt. Sinai. She was amazing, very calming and assuring. She scanned me again and showed us the signs of this disease we now knew as Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome. She also was finally able to tell us that we were expecting 2 little boys.

Our babies were the same size, actually our recipient was about 15% smaller. Our donor baby had no amniotic fluid and no urine but other than that he looked very good.

Our recipient baby, however, appeared to be more affected. He had a full bladder, lots of amniotic fluid and his heart appeared to be somewhat affected, perhaps working harder than normal. The TTTS stages were explained to us and our babies were at Stage 3 with 8cm pockets and reverse flow for our recipient and no amniotic fluid or visible bladder but no other affects to our donor. Dr. Whittle seemed very confident that surgery would correct our problems and that our babies would be fine. She discussed our options and the outcomes of each. If we did nothing then there was a 100% chance we would lose one or both babies. We could try an amniotic reduction but this was not really an option at the stage of this disease that we were at. Or we could have the laser surgery preformed at Mt. Sinai, the only place where it was done in Canada. It did come with risks, one being pre-term labour and if that happened we would lose both babies as they were too small to be viable.


I remember Dr. Whittle talking to us at length about how optimistic she was for our babies. She felt that the TTTS had been happening for such a brief time because Cole’s fluid level was only the bare minimum to be considered TTTS and the boys were the same size. She told us there was mild stress on Cole’s heart but nothing too serious and that Cameron was in perfect health with the exception of the lack of fluid in his bladder. I remember her clearly saying “you’re in great shape….you’ll have this surgery to fix the problem and go home to grow some babies for the next 10-12 weeks’. She also assured us we were in great hands and told us a bit about Dr. Ryan and how amazing he was and how much we’d love him.


We left the scan feeling scared but confident that they would save our babies and correct the problem. The hospital brought a cot in for Geoff and gave us a private room. We sat together and cried and prayed…and talked. We were so scared but both of us tried to be strong. We talked about names for our boys and decided on Cameron and Cole. Geoff suggested that atleast one of the boys should be named after this man who was about to perform life saving surgery for them, the head of fetal medicine, Dr. Greg Ryan.

We fell asleep, or tried to, holding hands, both lost in a dream world of worry and stress.

Not that in what I wrote there, over 8 years ago, that I never talked about fear. I don’t think I was fearless, that I wasn’t only full of optimism and without any concern but I also was not so full of despair, worry or dread that I felt consumed by fear for what was happening to my boys.

On the morning of December 12 Dr. Ryan, met with us and scanned me at length again. He was a very reassuring person but seemed to be all business. We felt at ease with him but knew from his demeanor that this was a very serious situation. He explained TTTS to us again and discussed our odds. He said there had already been some changes in our recipient, Cole’s, heart and the fluid pockets had increased 2 cm’s in the 9 hours since I was last scanned. We wanted to do whatever we could to save the boys so the surgery was confirmed and booked. They began discussing the best place to enter the uterus and this seemed to take a long time. I had an anterior placenta and what I now know a velamentous cord insertion on our recipient though none of those terms were given to us. We did hear terms like acute TTTS but had no idea what that meant. I have since learned that having a velamentous cord insertion usually means poor growth in twins, often because they also have a poor share of the placenta. It is very rare to have both the cord problem and unequal share with the recipient baby…Cole…and a share of less than 25% does not often mean that baby will survive. Basically they just outgrow the placenta they have and do not have enough nutrients to survive. An anterior placenta is very difficult to do surgery on and some specialists won’t do the surgery if you have one. But as I said, I knew none of this at the time, only that I HAD to have surgery as soon as possible to save even just one of my babies. And so we sat in my room and waited for hours for the operating room to be ready and prayed and planned for these little boys growing inside of me.


And again, no words of fear but instead words of hope and optimism. I was not thinking that my boys might not survive, was not crying and sobbing. I was planning for having 2 more boys in my house, I was joking about having half a hockey team. I was planning for our future not fearful that we would not have a future that included these two identical little boys named Cameron and Cole.

When I tried to think of some sort of an image for fearless I couldn’t think of a photo I could take so I headed to the internet for some ‘fearless’ images and I found this one….

I thought it seemed fitting that I should end this post with a reflection on that quote and where I’ve see it applied to my life. Fear never does anything positive. We can’t live without it, it’s part of our make up and having it doesn’t mean we don’t have faith. It means that we have a human heart that strives for the best in our lives while knowing that sometimes things are out of our control. Having fear gives a knowledge of what can go wrong if we do nothing and it gives a reason to have courage to overcome what’s holding us back. Fear gives a reason to have faith in God, faith that things will turn out in the end, that we will overcome whatever it is that is threatening our lives, threatening the joy and hope we have. So yes, I definitely had fear but I also had courage, strength and faith….even if I didn’t realize it at the time. Deep inside my heart I knew that whatever happened with Cameron and Cole, I would be ok, that I would make it through this. It was a faith I didn’t understand and didn’t realize how important it would become in the weeks, months and years to come. I didn’t let the fear of losing my sons consume me then and I learned to not let the fear of how I’d ever survive without Cole control my life later. So I guess I was fearless.