Big Day: Done

All,
Ryan here...I've stolen the password to the blog to give you an update while my 'champ' wife takes a nap. Thanks so much for all your prayers, comments, texts, emails--someone sent us a new car!--just kidding but not a bad idea.

First of all, no surgery today. That will happen on Thursday, but more on that later. We met with Dr. Moise (and his staff) here in Houston. They were wonderful and incredibly comforting. They provided us with much-needed info for us to move ahead. Laura had an ultrasound that lasted a year and then we met with the doc and he consulted us about surgery.

Here is what is happening to our twins...We are in stage 3 of TTTS. As Laura may or may not have mentioned, they wait until stage 2 to do surgery. So, what does this mean? It means that the recipient twin is basically owning the womb and the donor twin in losing space to 'swim' in. The babies show no signs of heart failure or neurological defect. As you could imagine, this is a HUGE answered prayer. Puh-lease, keep them coming. In the ultrasound, it was funny to see that the 'bigger' twin kept kicking her sister in the face. This activity, however troubling it may be in the years to come, is welcomed now. It keeps both of them moving and active. Sadly, though, our 'little' twin is losing activity in her bladder and not having healthy, continuous blood-flow. These are some of the key factors that doctors use to assess whether or not to operate.

So, we'll (okay, clearly not me) have some surgery on Thursday at 10 am. Again, please continue to pray for us. What will they do? Well, they'll go via fetoscope and get a look at the placenta. There are (potentially) numerous blood vessels that are shared between the twins. The doctor will laser those shut and effectively create two placentas out of one. (Who thinks of this stuff? We're grateful for God's grace to smart people to think of this stuff!). This should take about an hour and a half. We'll spend the night in the hospital and then come back home, hopefully, on Friday.

If you are the praying type, please continue to pray for us. Pray that the doctors and their staff would be sharp and exercise their tasks skillfully. Pray that God would comfort both Laura and me as we choose this surgery as a means to saving our girls. Pray for the life of these little ones too. While preterm labor is almost a given, we'll worry about that later. For now, pray that they would come through a pretty traumatic surgery. Pray, too, that the bigger sister would take it easy on her co-twin.

Wow! So, I know this was a long post. We're incredibly grateful for your prayers. Laura and I counted up that we've got close to 2000 folks faithfully going before the throne of grace for us. We're humbled; we're blessed. God is kinder than we could ever imagine, no matter what. Grace and peace to you all.

Ryan