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Mother Kirsty Garner could not have been happier to know that she was pregnant with identical twin girls: Cassie and Emily.
During her 18-week pregnancy scan however, Garner received concerning news. Her daughters were suffering from Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS).
The blood supply from Garner’s placenta to both twins wasn’t even, leaving Cassie with an insufficient blood supply and Emily with a significant strain on her heart. There was a chance that either of the girls could go into cardiac arrest at any moment because of it.
“It was a scary time, and I sort of felt like a failure because I couldn’t control what my body was doing,” Garner admitted.
Doctors offered Garner the opportunity to undergo surgery while still pregnant, in an attempt to cut off some of the excess blood supply to the girls.
Garner accepted, but still confessed to being “very emotional beforehand, and…very scared.”
“But in the operation I was in a dull sleepy state,” Garner recalled. “They put a camera and a laser into my womb, and sealed off the blood vessels to stop them sharing. I kept feeling this popping sensation.”
At the end of the operation, doctors deemed the procedure a success, but warned the Garner family that they would only be able to tell how well the girls would fare after birth.
About 14 weeks later, during Garner’s 32nd week of pregnancy, she gave birth to her twin daughters via C-section.
After spending six weeks in the neonatal unit, both Cassie and Emily were determined to be healthy and well enough to return home. The entire family couldn’t be more thrilled to celebrate the holidays for the first time — as a family of six!
