Dear Parents,
do you remember that special day, when the pregnancy test showed the anxiously awaited and most welcome result: two lines? Huge joy! Short after, when a specialist confirms: a living embryo and beating heart, your happiness is almost unbearable and overwhelming, isn't it?
And now picture this - the ultrasound reveals two embryos and two beating hearts! A dream come true. This is exactly what Agnieszka and Grzegorz have been wishing and hoping for. Unfortunately their happiness did not last long. The diagnosis that came shortly after was a blow - twin pregnancy complicated by TTTS (Twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, also known as stuck twin syndrome). This complication affects approximately 10-15% of twin pregnancies, usually monochorionic multiple pregnancies (the most common form of identical twin pregnancy). It means there is disproportionate blood supply between the fetuses. As a result of unbalanced blood flow, one of the twins assumes the role of 'donor' and the other 'recipient'.
Next obvious step was to look for help and professional counsel. Polish Mother's Memorial Hospital Research Institute, proposed to perform a fetocospical anastomotic ablation procedure. Sounds scary and threatening, right? It is a laser therapy procedure designed to close the vascular connections and separate the circulatory systems of the fetuses. Unfortunately one of the twins did not survive this. As if that wasn't enough, it turned out that the surviving twin has developmental defects and there is a high probability she will struggle with disabilities for life.
On the 4th of December 2019 Ania was born – a real fighter since day 1. She is currently struggling with microcephaly, agenesis of corpus callosum (ACC - failure to fully develop a structure in the brain connecting both hemispheres) and optic nerve hypoplasia (ONH). Ania is 2 years old now. She can’t sit on her own and can’t walk, but with her smile she proves that she loves and accepts life just as it is.
